I am interested in your experience regarding intergenerational trauma. In my own life, I experienced a great deal of trauma, much of it the result of abuse and neglect by my parents and extended family when I was a child. I found therapy and healed a great deal of those wounds, for which I am grateful. I still, however, struggle with anger and resentment towards my family members for what they did back then. On one hand, I feel like I should somehow get over it because it's been so long ago and because I've come to understand, intellectually, that they were just operating within their own limitations at the time (and many of these limitations, I think, reflect their own trauma responses from their own past histories with abuse, war, deaths, and other destabilizing events). Emotionally, though, I just can't get there. I have (carefully, gently) brought talked about some of this with these family members, but it hasn't brought much peace because ... well, long story short, their own limitations didn't magically evaporate back then but still persist. Do you have any advice for re-orienting my perspective on this?
secretstoneraccount78 karma
I am interested in your experience regarding intergenerational trauma. In my own life, I experienced a great deal of trauma, much of it the result of abuse and neglect by my parents and extended family when I was a child. I found therapy and healed a great deal of those wounds, for which I am grateful. I still, however, struggle with anger and resentment towards my family members for what they did back then. On one hand, I feel like I should somehow get over it because it's been so long ago and because I've come to understand, intellectually, that they were just operating within their own limitations at the time (and many of these limitations, I think, reflect their own trauma responses from their own past histories with abuse, war, deaths, and other destabilizing events). Emotionally, though, I just can't get there. I have (carefully, gently) brought talked about some of this with these family members, but it hasn't brought much peace because ... well, long story short, their own limitations didn't magically evaporate back then but still persist. Do you have any advice for re-orienting my perspective on this?
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