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It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We AreThe past is never dead. It's not even past. Ð William Faulkner, Requiemfor a NunBy Mark Wolynn <http://www.filmsforaction.org/author/mark-wolynn/> /scienceandnonduality.com<https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/an-excerpt-from-it-didnt-start-with-you-how-inherited-family-trauma-shapes-who-we-are-and-how-to-end-the-cycle-viking-april-2016-by-mark-wolynn/>

It didn 

t start with you<https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/book_cover.jpg>Awell-documented feature of trauma, one familiar to many, is our

inability to articulate what happens to us. We not only lose our words,but something happens with our memory as well. During a traumaticincident, our thought processes become scattered and disorganized in

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such a way that we no longer recognize the memories as belonging to theoriginal event. Instead, fragments of memory, dispersed as images, bodysensations, and words, are stored in our unconscious and can becomeactivated later by anything even remotely reminiscent of the originalexperience. Once they are triggered, it is as if an invisible rewindbutton has been pressed, causing us to reenact aspects of the originaltrauma in our day-to-day lives. Unconsciously, we could find ourselves

reacting to certain people, events, or situations in old, familiar waysthat echo the past.

Sigmund Freud identified this pattern more than one hundred years ago.Traumatic reenactment, or ªrepetition compulsion,º as Freud coined it,is an attempt of the unconscious to replay what's unresolved, so we canªget it right.º This unconscious drive to relive past events could beone of the mechanisms at work when families repeat unresolved traumas infuture generations.

Freud's contemporary Carl Jung also believed that what remainsunconscious does not dissolve, but rather resurfaces in our lives as

fate or fortune. ªWhatever does not emerge as Consciousness,º he said,ªreturns as Destiny.º In other words, we're likely to keep repeating ourunconscious patterns until we bring them into the light of awareness.Both Jung and Freud noted that whatever is too difficult to process doesnot fade away on its own, but rather is stored in our unconscious.

Freud and Jung each observed how fragments of previously blocked,suppressed, or repressed life experience would show up in the words,gestures, and behaviors of their patients. For decades to follow,therapists would see clues such as slips of the tongue, accidentpatterns, or dream images as messengers shining a light into theunspeakable and unthinkable regions of their clients' lives.

Recent advances in imaging technology have allowed researchers tounravel the brain and bodily functions that ªmisfireº or break downduring overwhelming episodes. Bessel van der Kolk is a Dutchpsychiatrist known for his research on posttraumatic stress. He explainsthat during a trauma, the speech center shuts down, as does the medialprefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for experiencingthe present moment. He describes the ªspeechless terrorº of trauma asthe experience of being at a ªloss for wordsº, a common occurrence whenbrain pathways of remembering are hindered during periods of threat ordanger. ªWhen people relive their traumatic experiences,º he says, ªthefrontal lobes become impaired and, as result, they have trouble thinkingand speaking. They are no longer capable of communicating to eitherthemselves or to others precisely what's going on.º

Still, all is not silent: words, images, and impulses that fragmentfollowing a traumatic event reemerge to form a secret language of oursuffering we carry with us. Nothing is lost. The pieces have just beenrerouted.

 

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Emerging trends in psychotherapy are now beginning to point beyond the

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traumas of the individual to include traumatic events in the family andsocial history as a part of the whole picture. Tragedies varying in typeand intensityÐsuch as abandonment, suicide and war, or the early deathof a child, parent, or siblingÐcan send shock waves of distresscascading from one generation to the next. Recent developments in thefields of cellular biology, neurobiology, epigenetics, and developmentalpsychology underscore the importance of exploring at least three

generations of family history in order to understand the mechanismbehind patterns of trauma and suffering that repeat.

The following story offers a vivid example. When I first met Jesse, hehadn't had a full night's sleep in more than a year. His insomnia wasevident in the dark shadows around his eyes, but the blankness of hisstare suggested a deeper story. Though only twenty, Jesse looked atleast ten years older. He sank onto my sofa as if his legs could nolonger bear his weight.

Jesse explained that he had been a star athlete and a straight-Astudent, but that his persistent insomnia had initiated a downward

spiral of depression and despair. As a result, he dropped out of collegeand had to forfeit the baseball scholarship he'd worked so hard to win.He desperately sought help to get his life back on track. Over the pastyear, he'd been to three doctors, two psychologists, a sleep clinic, anda naturopathic physician. Not one of them, he related in a monotone, wasable to offer any real insight or help. Jesse, gazing mostly at thefloor as he shared his story, told me he was at the end of his rope.

When I asked whether he had any ideas about what might have triggeredhis insomnia, he shook his head. Sleep had always come easily for Jesse.Then, one night just after his nineteenth birthday, he woke suddenly at3:30 a.m. He was freezing, shivering, unable to get warm no matter whathe tried. Three hours and several blankets later, Jesse was still wide

awake. Not only was he cold and tired, he was seized by a strange fearhe had never experienced before, a fear that something awful couldhappen if he let himself fall back to sleep. If I go to sleep, I'llnever wake up. Every time he felt himself drifting off, the fear wouldjolt him back into wakefulness. The pattern repeated itself the nextnight, and the night after that. Soon insomnia became a nightly ordeal.Jesse knew his fear was irrational, yet he felt helpless to put an endto it.

I listened closely as Jesse spoke. What stood out for me was one unusualdetailÐhe'd been extremely cold, ªfreezingº he said, just prior to thefirst episode. I began to explore this with Jesse, and asked him ifanyone on either side of the family suffered a trauma that involvedbeing ªcold,º or being ªasleep,º or being ªnineteen.º

Jesse revealed that his mother had only recently told him about thetragic death of his father's older brotherÐan uncle he never knew hehad. Uncle Colin was only nineteen when he froze to death checking powerlines in a storm just north of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territoriesof Canada. Tracks in the snow revealed that he had been struggling tohang on. Eventually, he was found facedown in a blizzard, having lostconsciousness from hypothermia. His death was such a tragic loss thatthe family never spoke his name again. Now, three decades later, Jessewas unconsciously reliving aspects of Colin's deathÐspecifically, theterror of letting go into unconsciousness. For Colin, letting go meant

death. For Jesse, falling asleep must have felt the same.

Making the connection was a turning point for Jesse. Once he grasped

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that his insomnia had its origin in an event that occurred thirty yearsearlier, he finally had an explanation for his fear of falling asleep.The process of healing could now begin. With tools Jesse learned in ourwork together, which will be detailed later in this book, he was able todisentangle himself from the trauma endured by an uncle he'd never met,but whose terror he had unconsciously taken on as his own. Not only didJesse feel freed from the heavy fog of insomnia, he gained a deeper

sense of connection to his family, present and past.

In an attempt to explain stories such as Jesse's, scientists are nowable to identify biological markersÐ evidence that traumas can and dopass down from one generation to the next. Rachel Yehuda, professor ofpsychiatry and neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NewYork, is one of the world's leading experts in posttraumatic stress, atrue pioneer in this field. In numerous studies, Yehuda has examined theneurobiology of PTSD in Holocaust survivors and their children. Herresearch on cortisol in particular (the stress hormone that helps ourbody return to normal after we experience a trauma) and its effects onbrain function has revolutionized the understanding and treatment of

PTSD worldwide. (People with PTSD relive feelings and sensationsassociated with a trauma despite the fact that the trauma occurred inthe past. Symptoms include depression, anxiety, numbness, insomnia,nightmares, frightening thoughts, and being easily startled or ªon edge.º)

Yehuda and her team found that children of Holocaust survivors who hadPTSD were born with low cortisol levels similar to their parents,predisposing them to relive the PTSD symptoms of the previousgeneration. Her discovery of low cortisol levels in people whoexperience an acute traumatic event has been controversial, goingagainst the long-held notion that stress is associated with highcortisol levels. Specifically, in cases of chronic PTSD, cortisolproduction can become suppressed, contributing to the low levels

measured in both survivors and their children.

Yehuda discovered similar low cortisol levels in war veterans, as wellas in pregnant mothers who developed PTSD after being exposed to theWorld Trade Center attacks, and in their children. Not only did she findthat the survivors in her study produced less cortisol, a characteristicthey can pass on to their children, she notes that severalstress-related psychiatric disorders, including PTSD, chronic painsyndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome, are associated with low bloodlevels of cortisol. Interestingly, 50 to 70 percent of PTSD patientsalso meet the diagnostic criteria for major depression or another moodor anxiety disorder.

Yehuda's research demonstrates that you and I are three times morelikely to experience symptoms of PTSD if one of our parents had PTSD,and as a result, we're likely to suffer from depression or anxiety. Shebelieves that this type of generational PTSD is inherited rather thanoccurring from our being exposed to our parents' stories of theirordeals. Yehuda was one of the first researchers to show how descendantsof trauma survivors carry the physical and emotional symptoms of traumasthey do not directly experience.

That was the case with Gretchen. After years of taking antidepressants,attending talk and group therapy sessions, and trying various cognitiveapproaches for mitigating the effects of stress, her symptoms of

depression and anxiety remained unchanged.

Gretchen told me she no longer wanted to live. For as long as she could

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remember, she had struggled with emotions so intense she could barelycontain the surges in her body. Gretchen had been admitted several timesto a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed as bipolar with asevere anxiety disorder. Medication brought her slight relief, but nevertouched the powerful suicidal urges that lived inside her. As ateenager, she would self-injure by burning herself with the lit end of acigarette. Now, at thirty-nine, Gretchen had had enough. Her depression

and anxiety, she said, had prevented her from ever marrying and havingchildren. In a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone of voice, she told methat she was planning to commit suicide before her next birthday.

Listening to Gretchen, I had the strong sense that there must besignificant trauma in her family history. In such cases, I find it'sessential to pay close attention to the words being spoken for clues tothe traumatic event underlying a client's symptoms.

When I asked her how she planned to kill herself, Gretchen said that shewas going to vaporize herself. As incomprehensible as it might sound tomost of us, her plan was literally to leap into a vat of molten steel at

the mill where her brother worked. ªMy body will incinerate in seconds,ºshe said, staring directly into my eyes, ªeven before it reaches thebottom.º

I was struck by her lack of emotion as she spoke. Whatever feeling laybeneath appeared to have been vaulted deep inside. At the same time, thewords vaporize and incinerate rattled inside me. Having worked with manychildren and grandchildren whose families were affected by theHolocaust, I've learned to let their words lead me. I wanted Gretchen totell me more.

I asked if anyone in her family was Jewish or had been involved in theHolocaust. Gretchen started to say no, but then stopped herself and

recalled a story about her grandmother. She had been born into a Jewishfamily in Poland, but converted to Catholicism when she came to theUnited States in 1946 and married Gretchen's grandfather. Two yearsearlier, her grandmother's entire family had perished in the ovens atAuschwitz. They had literally been gassedÐengulfed in poisonousvaporsÐand incinerated. No one in Gretchen's immediate family ever spoketo her grandmother about the war, or about the fate of her siblings orher parents. Instead, as is often the case with such extreme trauma,they avoided the subject entirely.

Gretchen knew the basic facts of her family history, but had neverconnected it to her own anxiety and depression. It was clear to me thatthe words she used and the feelings she described didn't originate withher, but had in fact originated with her grandmother and the familymembers who lost their lives.

As I explained the connection, Gretchen listened intently. Her eyeswidened and color rose in her cheeks. I could tell that what I said wasresonating. For the first time, Gretchen had an explanation for hersuffering that made sense to her.

To help her deepen her new understanding, I invited her to imaginestanding in her grandmother's shoes, represented by a pair of foamrubber footprints that I placed on the carpet in the center of myoffice. I asked her to imagine feeling what her grandmother might have

felt after having lost all her loved ones. Taking it even a stepfurther, I asked her if she could literally stand on the footprints asher grandmother, and feel her grandmother's feelings in her own body.

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Gretchen reported sensations of overwhelming loss and grief, alonenessand isolation. She also experienced the profound sense of guilt thatmany survivors feel, the sense of remaining alive while loved ones havebeen killed.

In order to process trauma, it's often helpful for clients to have adirect experience of the feelings and sensations that have been

submerged in the body. When Gretchen was able to access thesesensations, she realized that her wish to annihilate herself was deeplyentwined with her lost family members. She also realized that she hadtaken on some element of her grandmother's desire to die. As Gretchenabsorbed this understanding, seeing the family story in a new light, herbody began to soften, as if something inside her that had long beencoiled up could now relax.

As with Jesse, Gretchen's recognition that her trauma lay buried in herfamily's unspoken history was merely the first step in her healingprocess. An intellectual understanding by itself is rarely enough for alasting shift to occur. Often, the awareness needs to be accompanied by

a deeply felt visceral experience. We'll explore further the ways inwhich healing becomes fully integrated so that the wounds of previousgenerations can finally be released.

 

SAND image<https://reader015.{domain}/reader015/html5/0713/5b48d197cef3a/5b48d19b393fa.jpg>

 

An Unexpected Family Inheritance

A boy may have his grandpa's long legs and a girl may have her mother'snose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle's fear of never waking, andGretchen carried the family's Holocaust history in her depression.Sleeping inside each of them were fragments of traumas too great to beresolved in one generation.

When those in our family have experienced unbearable traumas or havesuffered with immense guilt or grief, the feelings can be overwhelmingand can escalate beyond what they can manage or resolve. It's humannature; when pain is too great, people tend to avoid it. Yet when weblock the feelings, we unknowingly stunt the necessary healing processthat can lead us to a natural release.

Sometimes pain submerges until it can find a pathway for expression orresolution. That expression is often found in the generations thatfollow and can resurface as symptoms that are difficult to explain. ForJesse, the unrelenting cold and shivering did not appear until hereached the age that his Uncle Colin was when he froze to death. ForGretchen, her grandmother's anxious despair and suicidal urges had beenwith her for as long as she could remember. These feelings became somuch a part of her life that no one ever thought to consider that thefeelings didn't originate with her.

Currently, our society does not provide many options to help people like

Jesse and Gretchen who carry remnants of inherited family trauma.Typically they might consult a doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist andreceive medications, therapy, or some combination of both. But although

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these avenues might bring some relief, generally they don't provide acomplete solution.

Not all of us have traumas as dramatic as Gretchen's or Jesse's in ourfamily history. However, events such as the death of an infant, a childgiven away, the loss of one's home, or even the withdrawal of a mother'sattention can all have the effect of collapsing the walls of support and

restricting the flow of love in our family. With the origin of thesetraumas in view, long-standing family patterns can finally be laid torest. It's important to note that not all effects of trauma arenegative. In the next chapter we'll learn about epigenetic changesÐthechemical modifications that occur in our cells as a result of atraumatic event.

According to Rachel Yehuda, the purpose of an epigenetic change is toexpand the range of ways we respond in stressful situations, which shesays is a positive thing. ªWho would you rather be in a war zone with?ºshe asks. ªSomebody that's had previous adversity [and] knows how todefend themselves? Or somebody that has never had to fight for

anything?º Once we understand what biologic changes from stress andtrauma are meant to do, she says, ªWe can develop a better way ofexplaining to ourselves what our true capabilities and potentials are.º

Viewed in this way, the traumas we inherit or experience firsthand notonly can create a legacy of distress, but also can forge a legacy ofstrength and resilience that can be felt for generations to come.

You can order the book here: www.amazon.com/dp/1101980362/<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1101980362/> .

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