Generational Trauma: How to Start Healing
Parents pass all kinds of things down to their children: genes, personality traits, habits, culture, information, behaviors, and, unfortunately, even trauma. Generational trauma, or trauma passed down from parent to child, is often hard to identify because its built into the very foundation of our lives. Our childhood lays the groundwork for the rest of our lives and what we experience growing up is often normal to us, even if its toxic and harmful.
Generational trauma was first studied in earnest after researchers discovered that descendants of Holocaust survivors, even a generation or two away, had a significantly higher chance of depression or anxiety. This led researchers to wonder if trauma and its symptoms were something that could be inherited.
Trauma symptoms can be triggered by any extreme, prolonged stress that has adverse psychological affects including events on an individual or communal level. We now know that trauma does affect you genetically and can cause you and your progeny to be more sensitive to traumatic stress in the future. Additionally, trauma is passed down from parent to child through things like attachment bonds, lifestyle, habits, and messages about themselves, the world, and safety or danger.
There is no official diagnosis for generational trauma but if your symptoms are impacting your daily life then you’ll probably qualify for insurance coverage of trauma therapy.
What are the symptoms of generational trauma? They are similar to symptoms you would see in other trauma disorders like PTSD or CPTSD and include hypervigilance, a sense of a shortened future, mistrust, aloofness, high anxiety, depression, panic attacks, nightmares, insomnia, a sensitive 4F (flight, fight, freeze, or fawn) response, or issues with self-esteem or confidence. Traumatic stress can also lead to autoimmune or chronic pain issues and can even cause the microglia, or brain’s immune system, to go haywire and attack nerve endings causing more symptoms of depression, anxiety, or even dementia.
So, the obvious question is, if I am struggling with the impact of generational trauma, what the heck do I do about it? Here’s a few tips.
1. GET SUPPORT.
The first step to healing from the effects of generational trauma is to find support. Often this comes in the form of a therapist but should also include a peer support group or even healthy, supportive friends. The key is finding people who can offer empathy and the space to feel heard and validated.
However, it’s important to be honest with ourselves. If your symptoms are making it hard for you to function at work, at home, or with your loved ones then it’s probably time for a professional consultation.
2. EDUCATE YOURSELF.
Next, it’s important that you educate yourself on the impact of trauma. There is a lot of great information out there. I recommend going down a Google wormhole on the subject and reading some of the great trauma books. Here’s a short list to get you started:
The goal here is for you to start to understand how trauma impacts the human body and brain so that you start to see your symptoms, not as personal failures, but as a predictable set of responses that can be changed and modified.
3. INCREASE INSIGHT.
Educating yourself on what trauma is and how it impacts your brain and body is the first step, but its even more critical that you take the information you’re learning and apply it to yourself and your own emotional and behavioral patterns. This is called building insight and it will help you to better understand yourself and your symptoms.
Building insight is another place where a mental health professional can really come in handy. Seeing yourself can be like trying to read a book that is right in front of your face - you’re just too close. A therapist can be helpful because we’re more objective, can provide education and information, and can often point out patterns, themes, or other things that you haven’t been conscious of yet.
4. REGULATE TRAUMA RESPONSES.
Trauma often causes a sensitive nervous system where our fight/flight response is easily triggered. For someone who hasn’t been traumatized, it would take a truly scary or life threatening situation to activate their fight or flight response. But for trauma survivors, it can take a smell, or the look on someone’s face, or the seasons changing. This causes us to live in perpetual survival mode which isn’t good for us or our bodies.
Part of the insight you want to build is to understand more about what sets your fight/flight reactions off? And what are the most effective interventions for you to help yourself feel safe so you can come out of fight or flight and be back to yourself?
5. REDUCE TRAUMA REENACTMENTS.
Another big part of trauma is reenacting the traumatic situation in different ways over and over until the trauma is more healed. You’ll see this with flashbacks or nightmares but you can also see behavioral reenactments where a woman in one abusive relationship ends up in five or where a kid who was neglected grows up only to find himself befriending people who neglect him allover again.
Understanding how trauma reenactment shows up in your own life is critical to regulating your emotions and to reducing your chances of retraumatization in the future. One of the big ways retraumatization occurs is through the risky situations survivors get into and the impaired decisions they make from being in perpetual survival mode.
Generational trauma, like trauma in general, is a hugely under-addressed public health issue that affects almost all of us. The world is a brutal place and was more brutal 100 years ago than it is today. For our ancestors, trauma was just the way of life and this impacted them, their kids, and their grandkids all the way down to us.
The good news is, trauma is learned and can be unlearned so our progeny can focus on thriving instead of surviving.
Leave a comment below about what steps you’ll take to learn more about how generational trauma is impacting you.
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