Thirteen years ago, I was hired as a trauma specialist at a domestic violence/sexual assault coalition. The primary objective of my job was to assist domestic violence programs in enhancing services to women and children who had been impacted by substance abuse and mental health issues. I had been working for domestic violence and mental health programs for several years and felt prepared to jump into the work and help others provide support to survivors of trauma. What I did not know, however, was the impact that the work would have on my own life.
The Adverse Childhood Experience study was just beginning to become known more broadly and I began to incorporate the study into my work. Personally, I had a low ACE score based on the items on the survey but was able to acknowledge that there were a few things I had experienced that were not on the survey and had impacted me dramatically. I had an attitude of “it is what it is” and held some resentments against people in my life that I had felt were not available for me when I needed them. I had gone through a period in my thirties of blaming my parents for their inability to support me in the way that I thought I had needed. After receiving loving re-parenting by a friend in my forties, I was able to move on with a healthier attitude toward life and release some of the resentment. I recognized that this person was the one caregiving adult I needed to help expand my resilience even though I was well into adulthood.
A few years ago, the work of Rachel Yehuda and others expanded knowledge of epigenetics and generational trauma. There was something about this topic that I couldn’t get enough of. I started reading more and realized that I had missed a huge piece of the puzzle that contributes to understanding the impact of trauma in my life. Most recently, ACES research showed that we need to start taking a two to three generation approach to understanding the impact of childhood trauma. I realized that it wasn’t just about what had happened to me but what had happened to the generations before me.
I created a family genogram of trauma. It was nothing fancy, primarily a rough sketch in a notebook. I know some of my family’s history going back to my grandparents but there is very little beyond that. What I did know was significant. My mother’s father was a survivor of the Indian boarding schools in the early part of the 20th century. He had told my mother that the goal of the school was to “beat the Indian out of him.” He grew up to rely on alcohol to manage his trauma. My grandmother, his wife, was institutionalized for a while in her forties for an undisclosed mental health issue. These events impacted my mother and her ability to parent effectively. Parenting was hard for many people who had been in the boarding schools, and this had an impact across the generations.
My father’s father was a World War I veteran who also used alcohol to manage his trauma. He was not available to his family during the Depression and my grandmother was left pretty much on her own to raise eleven children. Given her ability to grow her own food and provide for the family, I feel she was resilient, but she also was not the nicest person at times and abused my father when he was a child.
This genogram gave me what I needed to forgive my parents and the generations before them. It is one thing to be resigned to “this is how it is/was” but it is healing to understand what had happened and forgive the people who, because of their own childhood adversities, were unable to function as the parents I wish I had.
Unfortunately, this all came a little too late for my own experience as a parent and for my child. I have, though, offered myself forgiveness knowing that the intergenerational impact of adversity had been a factor in my own lack of parenting skills.
I was fortunate that this exploration of adverse childhood experiences occurred because of the need to be more informed and able to educate others. I doubt that this would have happened in therapy as many therapists may not be as informed about adverse childhood experiences and their impacts as they could be and may not encourage people to explore family history as a part of therapy. I hope this is changing.
I found that by doing my own family ACE history I was engaging in a personal trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy. I was able reconstruct my thought process so that when I became focused on what I felt I had missed in my early life, I was instead able to focus on the resilience had been created through my family members’ experiences and let go of resentments. I hope that others will considering engaging in this process and experience the benefits of release and forgiveness.
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