Your Family Inheritance Of Trauma

How Can You Change It?

Despite the wounding I experienced in childhood, I try my best not to hold anything against my family. I love my parents, and while we probably do not have a completely transparent relationship because I don’t think I have a relationship like that with anyone yet, I visit when I can, and I make the most of the time I still have with them.

At least in my case, I’m fortunate that my father no longer drinks, which makes him a completely different man. Ultimately, he chose to stop drinking because he wanted his children to have at least one parent who was present and capable, and he did it cold turkey, which is not the easiest thing to do.

My mom has a chronic mental illness, so her absence was never her fault; thankfully, right now, she is stable and taking her medication, and I get to experience the comfort of a mother. I know not everyone who grew up similar to the way I did is that fortunate or has the chance for a re-do, and I am grateful to at least have the time to make some better memories with them now.

I’ve learned to forgive my parents because I understand they were doing their best with what they knew at the time. They also deserve that second chance because they’ve embraced growth over time, and that’s something only some people are willing to accept.

They, too, have been affected by how they were raised and the problematic situations that made them into who they are today. The difference between us is that instead of continuing to pass these hurts down to the next generation, I have chosen to break the cycle and start healing the family line.

An Inheritance Of Pain

Physical traits and diseases are not the only thing passed down from generation to generation. Trauma is deeply embedded into our psyches and DNA and passed down in the family.

In his book, It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are And How To End The Cycle, Mark Wolynn noted that by the time your grandmother was pregnant with your mother, your mother had already formed the precursor cell of the egg from where you came from. That’s three generations of women sharing the same biological environment all at once, which means that whatever experiences your grandmother had, you were already a part of in some way.

Moreover, Wolynn notes that newer studies have shown that a mother’s emotions and hormones affect the genetic expression of her children, meaning we were already being bombarded by the fears and stress of our mothers and grandmothers before we were even born!

Family Heirloom Origins

I never got along with my paternal grandmother; I refused to call her my grandmother growing up. But lately, I started to wonder about what her life must have been like and why she had the attitude she had towards everyone.

I thought about how she grew up in rural Mexico, where she wasn’t allowed to learn to read, write, or do much of anything for herself. She was just groomed to pop out children, and on top of that, she lost two infant twin boys because of the poor living conditions she had to contend with. That’s a painful loss for which she also did not have proper support to process and grieve.

Moreover, she had to endure a culture that accepted domestic violence as a normal part of life, and she had to withstand just as many physical blows as she did emotional ones.

Maybe she had no choice but to become a hard woman to keep going.

But she never got to heal from those traumas, and she then passed them on to her son, my father, who also did not find a proper means to heal and continued to perpetuate the trauma.

I don’t think my father ever stopped to think about where his reactions and triggers stem from. I don’t know if he realizes these life events’ impact on his mother or himself. All he knew was that it hurt, and he was trying to find a way to numb it.

His trauma unfortunately bled into my upbringing, and I now share his pain. But unlike him and those who came before, I’ve been blessed with the knowledge and tools to better deal with that pain instead of just numbing it. It will stop with me.

What Can You Do?

If you want to be a cycle breaker in your family, the first step is to become aware. You must understand who you are and why you are the way you are.

You’ll learn to recognize patterns and behaviors, and when you trace back their origins, they will most of the time lead back to your roots. They will go back to where you grew up, who raised you, and who raised them. On and on it can go.

It’s a lot of information to process sometimes, so give yourself time and grace and begin by paying more attention to your reactions and triggers.

It goes without saying, but learn the family history to know what you’re up against. Your family won’t sit there and list the traumas they’ve endured, but that’s why you must learn to read between the lines.

Ask questions about the upbringing of your family. Learn about what their relationships were like and their socioeconomic status, and pay attention to significant historical events going on during their times. All these things have impacted your DNA.

Once you learn about your family history, make a conscious effort to change the narrative. Don’t perpetuate the gaslighting by trying to pretend it didn’t happen. On the contrary, acknowledge the pain everyone else has numbed out and gently release it.

Take the power away from the shadows by shining the light of awareness onto them.

That’s how you leave a legacy of love rather than hurt.

It Takes Time

I’m in my thirties now and childless because I’ve had to take the time to work on myself. I feel the pressure of the clock ticking, but I haven’t felt ready, which is okay.

I may never be ready.

I came into a family with a lot of trauma on both sides, and then I experienced a ton more in my childhood and then in adulthood. Just like I extend grace to my family for doing the best they can, I need to extend myself that same courtesy.

It’s easy to get frustrated when we feel like we aren’t doing enough or not doing things “the right way.” But we do so much without realizing it and continue to do so daily. Some days, even showing up is enough.

Reparenting ourselves is a lot of work, and not only does this work benefit us or our future children, but it also benefits the rest of our family lines and the collective.

So even if we don’t have children after all this work or already have children, our work is not for naught.

There’s a reason why we feel called to do our work. There’s a purpose to that pull that draws us towards excavating our histories and dismantling unstable foundations. The results may not look like we expected them to, but you can always be sure that the outcomes will be for your highest good.