"The secret of the mind not only includes our own life experiences, but also the memories, emotions and trauma that we carry without consciously. "Will the trauma suffered by the previous generation be passed down to us? Will we also experience the pain that the previous generation has endured?
In the book "Trauma Genetics", psychological counselor Dr. Galli Atlas tells us the answer to this question through the cases of 11 visitors: psychological trauma is transmitted intergenerational.
Every family will have some traumatic experiences and a history of pain. Our parents, ancestors, and even more distant ancestors have experienced certain traumatic experiences, especially some major trauma, which lead to stress responses. Stress hormones have a huge impact on the brain and leave a mark in the human genes with a biological mechanism.
All of this has suffered even if it has not been clearly revealed, it will be retained in the family genes in some way, passed on to the next generation, hidden in the thoughts and bodies of family members, and unknowingly affect the lifestyle of the next generation. We will pass all this onto our children and pass it on generation to generation.
This generational inheritance is easy for us to ignore because of its long time and certain concealment. However, when we encounter problems and witness traumatic events, we are prone to reactions with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Thoughts and behaviors affected by genetics will be re-triggered, and we will respond repeatedly to cope with them, and instinctively defend against the trauma to protect ourselves and avoid the same harm again.
And many times, trauma inheritance will appear in various ways, such as body pain, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, insomnia, etc. But we often cannot realize that this is the influence of the trauma inheritance from our ancestors, and we cannot understand why we have certain manifestations and why we feel extremely painful after witnessing or suffering from injury.
The 11 visitors who received psychological counseling and treatment who appeared in the book always have various abnormal manifestations in their lives, including various problems and crises, such as having an extramarital affair, being insisted on being violated by their brother, being deeply in love for a long time, not daring to have children, being overly concerned and relying on friends, etc., are actually affected by the traumatic experiences of the previous generation, and they trapped themselves in it.
There is a visitor Eve who has an extramarital affair and has a crazy love for her lover. She goes on a date with her lover without taking care of her children. She felt guilty and painful about it, but she could not stop the behavior. It turned out that her grandmother died of illness when her mother was in her teens. Her mother's life fell into silence and she had never escaped the pain of bereavement.
When there is the next generation, the mother still lacks care and care for Eve, which makes her feel abandoned and ignored. Therefore, she is very eager for someone to adopt her, change her life, and give her love. So she developed a compensatory mentality, put this desire and need on her lover, handed over the initiative in her relationship to her lover, and also copied the way her mother treated her children.
When she went through psychological counseling and treatment, she explored that the root of the problem lies in the trauma effect of the death of her grandmother on her mother, and it was preserved to her generation, she also saw the harm and pain she suffered, and understood what her psychological motivation for pursuing extramarital affairs was and what her real inner needs were. In the end, she was able to take back the initiative in her relationship, make decisions for herself, and make up her mind to end the extramarital affair.
Another client, Laila, had undergone psychotherapy when she was young, and found the author again after adulthood for psychotherapy.When she was a child, her grandmother insisted that her half-brother had violated her, causing her mother to split the reorganized family with her father, and Laila also lived in a mess of memories and confusion.
Later she finally learned that her grandmother had an overly close relationship with her brother when she was a child, but her family did not pay attention to and protect her. This became a trauma in my grandmother's heart, full of insecurity, and this emotion also transferred to her descendants. She was particularly nervous about her granddaughter Laila and believed that Laila's brother also violated her. Grandma's early traumatic experience was passed on to the next generation and influenced their lives.
so, can this intergenerational transmission be unable to stop, and can only be passed on from generation to generation and deeply tortured? In fact, it can be blocked. We cannot ask our ancestors to change and heal the trauma we used to do, but we can start with ourselves and take the initiative to heal and block this trauma inheritance.
When we start to pay attention to the family’s past history, be aware of our emotional state, identify abnormal thinking habits and behavioral reactions, think and analyze and explore the root cause, we have the opportunity to find the crux of the problem, consciously control stress responses, and actively avoid transmission and influence our next generation. In this way, you can slowly block intergenerational transmission, break free from the shackles, and get rid of the influence and control of trauma genetics on us.
The author said: Trauma is transmitted through our mind and body, and the same is true for resilience and healing.
We often find it difficult to resist the inheritance and impact of family trauma, but our ancestors can recover from trauma and allow life to continue. This resilience will also be passed on to us, helping us resist the damage caused by trauma and inspiring internal forces to heal ourselves.
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