Unresolved Trauma Affects... Everything

“I’m not sure why we do it this way, but it’s just the way it is,” said Sameera. “I think we just made an unstated decision that the best way to protect the family was not to talk to her about it,” she said, explaining why all her siblings have been estranged from their eldest sister, a victim of ongoing intimate partner abuse.

Twenty years into their sister Dalia’s volatile marriage, the siblings have coped with the ostracization of their sister in different ways. One of them blames her, another harbours unconscious resentment, and the other minimizes the abuse and its impact on the family. Dalia herself however, has never been asked about how she’s feeling or how she deals with her husband's harmful behaviour, but the impact on her health is clear to everyone. 

No one was willing to connect the signs of Dalia's declining health with the abuse, instead redirecting the unidentified shame regarding Dalia’s abusive marriage into the 'Closet of Censored Topics'. The estrangement of Dalia, however, strained relationships within the entire family, turning denial into a coping mechanism in the general culture of familial interaction. It wasn’t long into those 20 years that Dalia’s nieces and nephews started recognizing the patterns common to silenced abuse and linked to ghosts of their aunt’s story.  Neglected or denied emotional pain will eventually come out... with or without our permission.

Through the mechanism of carried shame and carried feelings, the unresolved pain of previous generations operates in families like an emotional debt. We either face it, or we leverage our children with it. (~Terry Real)

Unresolved trauma can sit inside the cells of not just the emotionally traumatized body, but the bodies of successive generations as well, passed down from one relative to the next and shaping the dynamics and genetic predispositions of entire families. This is the science of epigenetics. Trauma genes activated in one generation impact the next, and the next. Long-standing neglected wounds, denied and buried under the rug, leave somatic marks within the biological framework of the survivor which echo in the energy and quality of their surrounding relationships. 

Festering psychological pain has been well-documented as being a driver of ill health, chronic disorders, and some life threatening diseases. Holding the nervous system in a chronic state of stress can manifest as various mental and physical health issues, a consequence of unremitting emotional suppression. Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety, depression, along with other more nuanced mental health conditions may result from a single traumatic experience unprocessed or denied, or through multiple layers of trauma, carried in the body and psyche for years.

The quality of one’s work and personal life, relationships, and simple daily levels of motivation, can all suffer as a result. Fortunately, trauma healing with an experienced mental health professional can do wonders to turn it all around, bringing in a healing reflected not just directly upon the individual who’s suffering, but on all who are connected to them. Seeking effective support and developing a stable and enduring sense of Self can help turn pain into a growth opportunity, shift strained relationships into spaces of safety, or empower those suffering to make the changes that create the safety and security they need to thrive.

Image source: Edutopia

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