Generational Trauma Essay Example

Generational trauma is an issue we can often see in television, books, etc. However, in real life, this matter is so overlooked that we enable those cycles of abuse to continue. In fact, the people going through this are likely to turn into the monsters of other’s homes in a not so distant future.The phrase “The abused becomes the abuser” has been spread as widely as the baggage of trauma in many families around the world. But how are we supposed to stop allowing such unhealthy family relationships to keep happening?

Here’s the thing about generational trauma: the person going through it probably has a great amount of two options. Option number one is either allowing the cycle to go on as a bystander, or repeating it as a perpetrator. Remember those times when those posters or short movies would tell you that if you did nothing when witnessing a situation of bullying, you’d become an accessory? It is a hard pill to swallow, but in this case, it’s the same thing. Then, option number two is breaking that cycle, which is probably the toughest option of all, because when people learn and pick up toxic attitudes and views on life and other people, they usually spread them. And imagine trying to “unlearn” every single trait of yours. Every bit of yourself, what you consider that makes you, you. It seems almost impossible, right? But the key word here is almost. However, it’s up to people undergoing such awful treatment to spot what’s wrong, because usually, any kind of abuse, especially at home, tends to take a toll on the victim. So, the key to begin changing and stopping these sequences is pointing out that something is wrong. But sometimes, people are still stuck at their homes when developing similar traits to their abusers’, or even, bad traits of their own, which are still a result of the bad relationships with family members, so how can we avoid that? Getting help is probably the most gruesome, terrifying part for anyone who’s suffering at home, and ironically, it’s the first step into the light. If you wonder why that’s the ugliest part for so many people, the answer is quite simple: Society’s debates on what we can call abuse or not are often pointless, and these are even more futile when it comes to families, and if you want to get more specific, race and nationality play huge roles on what you can ignore or not in family relationships. For example, physical violence is often expected as a simple sort of punishment in afro-descendant or latinamerican households, which with time, resonates with the higher numbers in domestic violence for these particular communities. Abuse is always abuse, no matter when or where, however, we allow race, ethnicity and nationality factors to minimize clear red flags in family settings and take them as normal upbringings and experiences, and these differences make it so much harder for victims to realize where to draw the line. And since humanity has different perspectives of what’s okay or not at home, people who are probably already carrying distorted images of their own become scared to death that what they’re going through is too small, and that their calls for help only make them nuisances. These different negative perspectives on speaking up not only about abuse but about other issues like mental health and similar things, lead to another type of silence. I’d call it hereditary silence, since this is caused by the idea that reaching out makes you weak, and it ends up so frowned upon in family, that this bad view on seeking for help when needed is passed on for many generations, which finally means that the entire family will probably be neglectful on other members’ feelings and and emotions. And in dysfunctional families, the likelihood of mental illness is astronomical. Some of the issues that can be tracked down to problems with relatives are depression, ptsd, bpd, anxiety and others. Therefore, if chances of talking about things disappear inside the family circle, we need to destigmatize mental health and actually create safe spaces for people to confide in and take action properly, allowing them to heal instead of causing them more trauma. Healing is the best, and probably only secure way to cut these cycles of abuse, and if we are the cause of the silence, we become bystanders, accomplices to this growing problem.

Another keypoint in why victims or even people who they’ve reached out to and failed getting help from don’t realize how grave the problems at home are, is what we consider being nice. Because sometimes, a victim can forget that having food on their plate is a right they were born with, and mistake human decency or what parent obligations are for kindness. Yet, we can’t underestimate these situations. A well-known word in the world of domestic violence is what we call the honeymoon phase. This concerns a period of time right after any sort of abuse (whether physical, verbal, psychological, etc.) in which the perpetrator tends to apologize for their behaviors and attempt to ensure that the abuse will never happen again. They might express “love” with gifts and acts of service. And since the honeymoon period makes victims believe in a fake portrayal of sorrow and regret, it makes it harder for them to leave, even if they are aware of the ugliness and the warped reality of their connection. “And as a child who was completely terrified of both my parents, I was always aware that this moment of grace, it meant something. We understood each other in a way. Me and my mom and my dad, as screwed up as we all were, we did understand each other. My mother, she knew what it’s like to feel your entire life like you’re drowning, with the exception of these moments, these very rare, brief instances, in which you suddenly remember... you can swim. But then again, mostly not. Mostly you’re drowning. She understood that, too. And she recognized that I understood it. And Dad. All three of us were drowning, and we didn’t know how to save each other, but there was an understanding that we were all drowning together.” (Bojack Horseman, S5 E6, “Free Churro”)

However, it’s definitely hard to fathom that we can’t save everyone. And considering that fact, we move onto the other side of this issue, which is people who haven’t healed (yet, because that yet is what builds this point) and have become abusive themselves. One mistake we tend to allow ourselves far more often than we should, is not separating explanations from excuses. Because when someone becomes abusive and you are aware of their past sufferings, it is easy to push that pain because “that’s how they were brought up”, or “it’s the world they know”, and this only allows that pain, abuse and neglect to be spread around as if it were a plague. It's important to remember that these people are as human as we all are, and having seen the worst of the world cannot enable them to make others go through what they went through, which means we have two options here (again). It’s either giving them the option and resources to heal, which doesn’t always work if the person’s not willing to; or getting away from them. Because protecting yourself and other loved ones is important, no matter how hard it is or seems. People often forget about their own safety when it comes to these cycles, because at some point, they had love and closeness with that person. But sometimes you can't escape the truth. Sometimes blood isn’t thicker than water for others, and that’s something our society fails to accept.

Taking all of the discussed points into account, we can reach to the conclusion that the key of minimizing risks of allowing trauma be passed from a generation to the other, is not only starting to deconstruct the distorted ideas of what’s part of a healthy upbringing our society has, but to stop allowing victims to throw their suffering onto their loved ones because they failed to reach out for help or to recognize their needs. Some people have been scarred by their families, and it’s up to us to create safe places where we can help those who’re wounded.