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Childhood trauma may crop up later in life. When it does, it needs to be addressed. Unresolved childhood trauma can seriously impair your relationships, life views, happiness, and health. Flashbacks, unpredictable emotions, and relationship problems are just some of the ways that unresolved trauma can manifest. This is particularly important for young children as their sense of safety depends on the perceived safety of their attachment figures. Traumatic experiences can initiate strong emotions and physical reactions that can persist long after the event.

 

​You may look back at how you were raised and identify other impactful factors such as challenging family dynamics, incarcerated caretaker(s), intense sibling rivalry, adoption, emotional distant caretaker(s), foster care, bullying, absent parent(s), etc. Several factors play into the way you experienced these events (nothing is too big-nothing is too small), how they affected you, and what beliefs you formed from them. Said beliefs often go years, decades, and generations without being examined. Sometimes we must look back at those events with the knowledge, capacity, skills, bandwidth and language developed later in life to advocate for your younger self. We often discover that you no longer hold these beliefs, they no longer make sense, and that they are trauma responses. When you were a child you tried to make sense of things the best you could. You did this with the knowledge, capacity, skills, language, and bandwidth that you had at the time. You can imagine how that works out-especially if you did not have a trusted adult to help you process these events.

 

Not everyone with trauma knows/understands that they have experience trauma. Individuals commonly seek help for something else (i.e., anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping, upsetting memories, mood disorders, relationship challenges, addictions, work/career stress, feeling on edge, fatigue, and/or poor concentration). These symptoms can be examples of the way your mind and body naturally responds to trauma.

Much like traditions and secret family recipes get passed down through families, individuals can also inherit trauma. Generational trauma is a cycle of trauma that passes through families. Generational trauma occurs through biological, environmental, psychological, and social means. Some evidence suggests that generational trauma can even happen in the uterus as the fetus is exposed to chemicals involved in maternal stress. The perspectives, fears, and behaviors of those before us, are still with us. Prior generations often set the blueprint (knowingly or unknowingly) for how emotions within the family are handled. Do you hide your emotions and act as you are unbothered? Is this perceived as sign of strength in your family? Do you internalize your emotions until you no longer can and then-boom- zero to a hundred?!? There may have been a time when some of those strategies were required for survival and for that reason they made sense.

Sadly, the trauma continues throughout generations because those who needed help did not have access to it. There is growing scientific evidence that generational trauma can have a notably profound impact on the lives of the BIPOC community, after experiencing centuries of unaddressed trauma. Decades of oppression leading to more decades of social injustices and discrimination result in feelings of fear and mistrust. 
 
We know that mental health affects the Black community in unique ways, often making it challenging for us to discuss the issues we are facing, let alone seek the treatment that we need. The cultural stigma around mental health results in catastrophic collateral damage. Join the transformation of generational trauma into generational healing.

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Book your complementary consultation today.