If we don’t, families can find themselves in a vicious cycle of inherited traumatic feelings.
However, it’s important that we find a way to resolve the effects of trauma. We know that people often hide the effects of painful or traumatic events. In fact, past traumas can lead to behavioral patterns that can deeply affect the family dynamic. But how exactly can this be the case? Personal traumas can be passed on to successive generations via genes as well as through behavior.Įven if you don’t know much about your parents’ or grandparents’ past, the lives they lived and traumas they experienced can affect you, too. Severe trauma like this can be so powerful that echoes of it can affect people who personally didn’t experience it. The patient wasn’t reacting to trauma from her life but to the experience of her mother’s relatives, who she later learned were murdered in a gas chamber during World War II. She described the feeling as “I can’t breathe, I can’t get out I’m going to die.” She was severely claustrophobic and feared being unable to escape from a life-or-death situation. One of the author’s patients, for example, was overwhelmingly afraid of dying. You might have recurrent feelings or exhibit behaviors that aren’t the result of any particular event in your own life. In short, you can carry symptoms of trauma in your life that _you _didn’t experience. Worse, such people can even pass the effects of trauma to the next generation. Importantly, if a person isn’t able to resolve the symptoms of such trauma, that person might instead suppress them and as a result, develop unhealthy behavioral patterns. These events not only cause stress and fear but also can change a person’s behavior. Traumatic events, such as an early separation from a mother or an act of violence, can affect a person deeply. If you’ve ever faced problems such as these, you might think that you’re to blame, that you’re the source of your emotional turmoil.īut often such unhealthy behavior stems from trauma that you instead experienced, directly or indirectly, through your family. Some hold irrational fears, exhibit destructive habits or feel trapped in unhealthy relationships. Many people struggle with emotional problems. Severe trauma can lead to negative behavior and feelings, even when the trauma isn’t your own.
Overcome the long-standing traumas that have shaped your life.
It didnt start with you how to#
How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End The Cycle - It Didn't Start With You by Mark Wolynn Who is this book for