Understanding Generational Trauma & How To Heal
Tell me if this sounds like anything similar to what you’ve experienced…
You’re enjoying a lovely time with your partner. Then things get intense for you when they say or do something that may be “tiny” on the surface… not something serious, really… but it “triggers” a flood of powerful and upset feelings in you .
Perhaps you get mad. This state of mind can even make you lash out. You then find yourself in conflict before you know it’s happening.
What Does Generational Trauma Feel Like?
Conflict between significant others is a common and major challenge regardless of trauma. But have you ever stopped to wonder… is there really something deeper going on for you?
Because sure, if the relationship’s already damaged or if there’s already distance, then a reaction and conflict like this makes sense. (That may be a trauma in and of itself, where the current relationship has seen trauma and harm, or is in the process of dying.) But otherwise…
How Does Generational Trauma Work?
Generational trauma is trauma passed down through multiple generations of a family. Long ago, the trauma began before the current generation of the family, and today it influences how all members experience, cope, and heal from it. The trauma can be physical or sexual, but it can also be emotional—because at the heart of generational trauma is unhealthy or abusive parenting and caregiving. Thankfully, if you try certain proven methods like compassionate and helpful trauma therapy, you can stop the cycle from continuing into the future and you can finally move forward.
So maybe in your relationship, you can sometimes get into conflicts with your unsuspecting partner. For most people with generational trauma, this usually happens over small things.
You can dig deeply into this area because so many parents and caregivers negatively impact the minds of children that psychologists have come to understand what’s at the core of generational trauma. You might struggle with and avoid conflict. Or maybe you panic when things don’t work out the way you expected. In either case, it’s highly likely you had parents or caregivers who reacted by attacking, withdrawing, or shaming when things didn’t work out the way they expected.
What Does Generational Trauma Do?
How will a child cope when a parent over-involves the child in their romantic problems or life challenges? What does a kid do if a parent or caregiver expects you to fulfill a role because you “owe” them and your needs don’t matter? What happens to most kids when they grow up and that emotional trauma is “triggered” in the present moment as a sudden whoosh of emotion?
I know I’ve been through my own things in the past that got triggered in the present and I had to do a lot of work with them to finally grow beyond them. It was like a “button” that got pushed or a “switch” that got flipped!
Generational trauma runs very deep and influences more than people may think about their everyday lives—and it’s one of the biggest reasons people find themselves in conflict with their otherwise healthy relationships.
Instead of being able to say, “Can I just have a moment? I’m feeling a lot of emotion right now,” many people fly into anger, shame, and distress.
PTSD Therapy Can Help You Ease Into A New Way Of Looking At Things
Upon closer look with a PTSD therapist like me, and while moving at a slow, easy pace, you might better understand these troubling reactions from another time and place in your life… and we could work on how to take back control and peace of mind.
A parent or caregiver can find themselves feeling jealous or like they have to steal the spotlight from you as a child, which can lead to things like denying or otherwise cancelling how you feel. Then the more you think about it, the more it might make sense…
If the reality of your experience was consistently denied and cancelled since childhood, you could now wrestle with trusting your own instincts as an adult. And if your parents or caregivers felt jealousy or competition, you may avoid sharing good experiences or relationships with them.
Unchecked, these patterns will continue to flow along their pathways through our lives (as well as our brains) and our younger responses to them will repeat in the present when we face similar conflicts.
Maybe Mom never approved of our life choices or Dad always struggled with accepting personal responsibility. Because of traumatic experiences like these (which are based on older patterns of trauma), we might keep reacting to challenges in the same younger and possibly damaged ways that first appeared when those experiences happened.
So now that we talked about how this all got started, here’s a question:
How Do You Stop The Trigger Of Generational Trauma?
While I believe nothing compares to working with a trauma therapist over a course of PTSD treatment, I will say there’s a few simple tools that can work.
A powerful first step towards taking back control from really strong triggered responses is holding onto the thought that your switch has been flipped in the first place. Then you suck in a deep breath and ask yourself what you’re really experiencing. This will take you far if you stay with it.
Most people with generational trauma who find themselves triggered probably don’t stop to acknowledge what they’re experiencing during a crisis moment. You can even name what you’re feeling to yourself, because research shows that naming an emotion decreases its intensity. (Check out the work of psychologist Dan Siegel.) So you could say it out loud or in a whisper: “I’m angry” or “I’m feeling powerless.”
Then keep breathing deep and take that feeling back into your past. Go as far back into your childhood as you can to when life made you feel this way, and try to see yourself as you are now instead of how you felt about yourself back then. When someone acknowledges how they feel, they can then work at growing beyond that feeling.
Make sure to really connect with how you responded back then. Then imagine how much you love the child version of you and how nothing has to be different because you are enough as you are now. Try to keep imagining this to yourself and what it is you like about your mind, body, and emotions! If you get practiced at taking on this way of looking at things, you can eventually feel a shift that helps you respond more constructively when new triggers come up.
Later on, that’s how we might feel peaceful when we get into conflict with our partner, preventing a bigger conflict from happening at all. Instead, you have connection. And if you’d like to feel more prepared to manage this and other relationship challenges in positive, productive ways by moving forward from your past experiences… then please reach out to me about PTSD therapy today.
Find out more about PTSD Treatment.
About The Author
John Younes, JD, MA, LPCC, NCC is a trained counselor who owns a private practice in Denver, CO. In general, he specializes in depression treatment, anxiety treatment, and PTSD treatment using existential and cognitive therapy practices.
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