Intergenerational Trauma: How to Navigate Being the First in Your Family to Heal- “You’ve Changed”
Some of the trauma that you are healing from may not have even started with you. It may have begun with your parents, grand parents, great grandparents, or even great great grandparents. Trauma can get passed down in many ways, some of those ways we understand very clearly like growing up in a household where living from a place of trauma and pain is normal and learning those patterns early on. Some of those ways are less clear, we still are not 100% clear on the ways that trauma may impact, or not impact, our actual genes. But one thing we know for sure is that when we come from and grow up in communities and families that have been burdened by the traumas of racism, oppression, discrimination, and/ or violence we are born into an environment that needs healing and that we will need to heal from.
Maybe now, you are in a position to start healing and that can be both beautiful and wonderful as well as lonely and confusing.
It can be a privilege, a challenge, freeing, and heavy all at once to be the first person in your family or your close community to reach a new level of healing. Maybe you’re in a position to start caring for yourself, setting boundaries, expressing your creativity, moving your body, building friendships that are nurturing and even healing, creating a relationship with your partner that is healthier than anything you witnessed growing up. It seems like this should be the start of a beautiful journey and it definitely can be, and it can also come with some unexpected challenges especially when it comes to your family or people who know you well.
This is surprising for many of my clients. We (understandably) expect the people closest to us to be happy about, supportive of, or at least understanding of what we are needing to do to heal and it can hurt when these expectations are not met. In this series, I will be exploring some of the common challenges that come with being the first person in your family or your close group to heal intentionally and ways to cope with those challenges.
Your family or people close to you may not respond well to some of the steps you are taking towards healing.
Healing can mean no longer engaging in patterns of behavior that have been harming you and leaning into patterns that support and nurture you. The problem is, your family and those close to you may have liked or even depended those old patterns. You might find you want to say “No” to more things and “Yes” to less. You may find you want to cut back on drinking because you’re noticing that 4 nights a week of going out and doing shots is impacting your body and mood. You might start to recognize how hard family dinners are on your nervous system and start leaving earlier or giving yourself more space in between them.
Your family may feel like they are losing a part of you that they liked or valued or they are losing your presence and companionship in some of the usual patterns and activities and that can bring up feelings of sadness, anger, and hurt. You might hear things like “You’ve changed.” “You aren’t as nice/ fun/ present/ kind as you used to be.” “I feel like we’re more distant.” You might just notice a lack of enthusiasm for these important steps you feel represent your healing.
How to cope with this…
Come back to the truth that the feelings that your family is holding onto are real, their pain is real, but it has much less to do with you and much more to do with their expectations.
They were holding onto expectations that you would remain the same
So, the answer here is not for you to go back to the patterns and roles that they expected from you. Your family can learn to release their expectations and cope with their challenging feelings about the changes you are putting in place. You can hold onto hope that they will choose to do, protect and nurture yourself through the challenges that come with giving them the space they need, and make sure your support needs are being met in other places.
Your family and loved ones may need repetition, multiple instances of seeing you move differently, multiple times of hearing you speak differently, and multiple reminders of your new patterns before they are able to absorb these changes.
Interacting with your family and loved ones may be more challenging during this time. It may be helpful to keep interactions shorter, space them out more, and plan for some dedicated relaxation, grounding, and resourcing time before and after these interactions.
Who is supporting you in your healing journey? Are there certain friends and family members who do understand and support you in this journey? Focus on building those relationships or spending more time with those people. This can look like finding a therapist, a group, or building up existing relationships.
