What is Generational Trauma?
We understand that family legacy is passed on to future generations. And we know that our parent’s life experiences make them who they are and shape us. Now there’s a psychological and biological explanation for how this happens.
It turns out that trauma is unintentionally passed down from generation to generation. It gets passed down unconsciously through habits or cues or the effects of the mechanism of post-traumatic stress.
The path to breaking free from generational trauma is learning, spreading awareness, and focusing on strategies to support your family during challenging situations. Without treatment, generational trauma can continue to affect the family. This article will help you understand generational trauma, who is involved, and why it is essential to treat it.
What Is Generational Trauma?
When a traumatic experience affects more than one generation of a family, it is called generational trauma or transgenerational trauma. Still, the effect lasts on subsequent future generations too. Trauma can leave an everlasting impact on a person. It shapes their thought process, feelings, and behaviors. It also plays a role in their parenting and their connection with children. It shows up biologically, emotionally, socially, or mentally in the future generations.
Generational trauma affects generations because children are indirectly exposed to and experience their parents’ trauma. The parent may unintentionally put the child in a similar situation and make similar decisions that lead to their trauma. Trauma is often known left undiscussed, resulting in a lasting impact on future generations.
Generational trauma can occur on the societal scale, but it typically presents itself first in the family dynamic. It is found that generational trauma occurs not only due to how parents raise their children but also because of the genes passed on to future generations. Epigenetics studies show that traits can be passed from one generation to the next. The biological impulse of survival gets passed on.
It becomes problematic when such unconscious impulses interfere with your daily life, and you are unaware of it. It can cause high rates of psychological distress among children. Adverse psychological effects could lead to clinical anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder in children.
How Is Generational Trauma Handed Down?
Generational trauma starts when a traumatic event occurs in the family, which may be years before the present generation. Yet, the impact is still there, and families try to understand and cope with the trauma.
It can be transmitted physiologically, socially, and environmentally. Generational trauma can be handed down through behaviors such as physical or psychological abuse. Parents diagnosed with Post-traumatic stress disorder trying dysfunctional coping mechanisms can negatively affect the children. The following experiences of parents can affect their children:
· Parents not being available to children in a crisis and unable to comprehend the world due to them being affected by trauma
- · Experience dissociative episodes and detach from reality
- · Substance abuse
- · Emotionally disconnected/low-income family relations
- · Suffering from PTSD
- · Negative behavior patterns due to unresolved emotions or thoughts
- · Parental incarceration, alcohol use disorder, divorce
Symptoms of Generational Trauma
Symptoms of generational trauma can be mistaken for other joint disorders that cause denial and often make treating challenging as you don’t recognize it. People can react to traumatic events and do not recognize the consequences. Symptoms can be psychological, physical, or behavioral, depending on the circumstances and experience of family members.
Symptoms of generational trauma include:
· Anger, frustration, and irritability
· Lack of trust
· Emotional numbing and depersonalization
· anxiety and depression
· Memory loss
· Fear of death and injury
· Hypervigilance
· Poor self-esteem or insecurity
· Isolation and withdrawal
· Nightmares
· Unresolved emotions and grief
· Inability to form healthy relationships
Generational Trauma’s Effects on Parents
Parents may pass on trauma or genetic vulnerabilities biologically or via their parenting styles based on traumatic experiences. Survivors face challenges when they get to parenting. It becomes hard for them to foster healthy emotional bonding with their child. Parents may become numb and seek silence by isolating.
They may have a shallow level of tolerance which is why they are not much involved in raising their children. Some parents fear and distrust the world a bit too much. They remain inconspicuous and end up being depressed and quarrelsome.
Some people reluctantly fight as they want to succeed at all costs and shield themselves from any emotion. It makes them intolerant of weakness and self-pity. These behaviors lead to disconnect with their families and children.
Examples of Generational Trauma:
Grandparents
| Parents | Children |
Partition of India of 1947 | Repressed aggression, emotional abuse, physical abuse, alcoholism | Depression, anxiety, eating disorder, attachment issues, co-dependency, approval seeking identity
|
Surviving European Wars | PTSD, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, emotional repression, alcoholism
| Low self esteem, identity issues, Depression, PTSD, severe anxiety |
Surviving slavery and racial violence in North America | Abandonment issues, domestic violence, low self esteem, CPTSD, eating disorder | PTSD, alchplism, anxiety, depression, eating disorder, risk of self harm, attachment issues
|
Surviving famines and oppression in British India | Poverty consciousness, suffocating shame based social rules, severe anxiety, physical abuse | Depression, alcoholism, burden of poverty, low self esteem, addiction |
How to Heal Yourself and Stop Generational Trauma?
The best thing to do is open up about your issues and discuss them with a therapist or professional counselor. It is a crucial step to break down generational trauma and not hand it down to the next generations. Following significant steps will help you stop generational trauma:
·Recognize your behavior – A traumatic effect your family suffered through leaves an unconscious remark in your mind and affects your behavior. You need to be aware of your problematic patterns that could negatively affect your children or other members of the family. For example, you may not be available for your child because you have unresolved emotions, or you may relive the trauma and lose track of time.
· Identify the source – You need to identify the reason for your trauma. In most cases, it may be a case of not being safe physically, emotionally, financially, or environmentally. You need to trace the source of the generational trauma as it is essential to understand where the symptoms stemmed from.
· Talk to a therapist – If you’ve recognized your trauma and are ready to break the cycle, you should find a professional therapist and start therapy. This will help you work on yourself in a better environment and with professional guidance.
· Processing the loss – Recognize the source and understand why you feel trauma. This way, you can understand your emotions better and start healing. This will help you let go of the trauma and help change yourself. A therapist will empower you to release your life’s fear, guilt, and shame.
· Focus on change. Create a better future – Let go of the past. Remove the feelings and emotions passed on to you because of the trauma. You need to understand that the world has changed, and the chaos has ended. You have to move forward, take risks, and need to make changes in your life. Your therapist will help encourage positive traits, improve confidence and courage, and foster self-love.
· Build healthy relationships – Trauma can disconnect you from your family. It may affect your relationships with family and friends. Reconnect with loved ones, build healthy connections, communicate with them, and work on your relationships.
Treatments for Generational Trauma
Generational trauma took years to form, and neither are the treatments simple nor possible to reverse immediately. The trauma can be biological, psychological, social, or cultural. It is always better to start the treatment with the family.
It helps the family system and the person’s emotions and feelings of loss. Identify the root cause and remove the core feelings of fear to treat the trauma. Address the traumatic events is key to starting the healing process and not impacting future generations.
The most commonly used treatments for generational trauma are:
- Intergenerational trauma treatment model
- Narrative Exposure therapy
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- EMDR therapy
- Desensitization
Lastly, no family is doomed to remain stuck in traumas for generations. You can heal yourself and move past the fear of stigma. It can be a decisive step towards healing if you stop seeing your issues as personal family problems and start getting professional help. Prepare yourself to go to therapy and give yourself a chance to break the cycle.
Sources: What Is Emdr Therapy and How Does It Work? (betterup.com)
