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| Your Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Child |
Most parents want the best for their children and would never intentionally overlook a problem that their children are having. But having an emotional blind spot usually means that the problem is out of your awareness so that you don't see it. And if you don't see it for yourself, you often won't see it when it involves your children.
When the blind spot involves unresolved trauma, there's an even greater chance that the problem will go undetected.
A Fictionalized Vignette About How a Parent's Unresolved Trauma Can Affect a Child
The following fictionalized vignette is based on a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed:
Jane
After years of enduring a chaotic family environment, Jane was relieved to move out of her parents' home when she went away to college. Her family home was a tense, volatile place where Jane never knew when one of her parents would explode.
When the blind spot involves unresolved trauma, there's an even greater chance that the problem will go undetected.
A Fictionalized Vignette About How a Parent's Unresolved Trauma Can Affect a Child
The following fictionalized vignette is based on a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed:
Jane
After years of enduring a chaotic family environment, Jane was relieved to move out of her parents' home when she went away to college. Her family home was a tense, volatile place where Jane never knew when one of her parents would explode.
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| Your Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Child |
Jane was dimly aware that her parents had narrowly escaped from a repressive regime in their native country, but she didn't know what really happened because they refused to talk about it. Their attitude was that, unlike many of their relatives, they were fortunate enough to leave their country and they wanted to leave behind everything that happened to them.
Even though her parents' traumatic experiences were never spoken about or even acknowledged, Jane sensed that her parents' emotional volatility was related to their unspoken experiences, but she didn't know how or why. And since her parents' attitude was that they "left it behind" them and they refused to talk about it, there was no way for Jane to bring this up.
Instead of discussing it, without their realizing it, her parents' earlier experiences came out in other unintended ways, including their constant warnings that the "world isn't a safe place."
Not only were they overly protective of her, from an objective point of view, but they would become hysterical with worry over minor issues, including Jane coming home a little late when she saw her friends. They were highly anxious people and assumed that she had been kidnapped or murdered.
Aside from their anxiety and volatility, Jane's father would often drink too much. This exacerbated the volatile situation at home because he would become loud and even angrier than usual. He and Jane's mother would argue more when he was drunk (see my article: People Who Have Alcohol Problems Often Don't Get the Help They Need).
But whenever Jane tried to talk to her mother about the father's alcoholism, Jane's mother made excuses for him and told Jane that Jane couldn't possibly understand what she and Jane's father had been through in their native country, and the father drank to "take the edge off."
After trying to talk to her mother about it several times, Jane gave up. She realized that, even though her mother didn't like the father's drinking, her mother felt too conflicted about it to address it with him. She knew it was futile to try to talk to her mother about it, so she began to "tune out" whenever her father was drunk, and it didn't bother her as much (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).
Jane felt compassionate towards her parents, even if she wasn't really aware of what happened to them. But after she graduated college, she moved in with her college roommates, and she only saw her parents occasionally because it was too hard for her to be around them.
When Jane got married and had a baby, she was determined to be different than her parents. She loved her daughter a lot, and she made conscious decisions that were completely different from what her parents did with her, and she felt proud of herself.
When her marriage began to fall apart, Jane was determined that her daughter, Alice, would not experience the kind of volatility at home that Jane experienced as a child. She refused to argue with her husband in front of her daughter.
And when she and her husband decided to get a divorce, they spoke to their daughter, who was in her mid-teens by then, together. They assured her that they both loved her and would always remain in her life. But Alice took the divorce hard, she began acting out at home, and her grades plummeted at school.
At the recommendation of Alice's guidance counselor, Jane brought Alice to therapy so Alice could work out her anger and sadness about her parents' divorce.
Initially, Alice was uncooperative in therapy, but as she developed more of a rapport with her therapist, she opened up more and began to like going to therapy.
As part of Alice's therapy, both Jane and her ex-husband met with the therapist and Alice once a month. They were pleased with the progress that Alice was making in therapy and they both wanted the best for their daughter.
During the sixth month of therapy, Alice's therapist requested Jane to come to one of Alice's therapy sessions without her ex-husband. This surprised Jane, and she wondered about it. But she decided to wait to ask questions until after she had heard what this was about.
As soon as Jane entered the therapist's office, where Alice was already waiting for her, she sensed that Alice was very tense and uncomfortable. She avoided making eye contact with Jane when Jane came into the room, which concerned Jane.
There was an awkward silence initially, and then Alice began to speak with an anxious voice. At first, Jane couldn't understand what Alice was trying to tell her. It was as if she heard Alice saying words, but she couldn't understand what she was trying to say.
Jane could see that Alice looked very frustrated by Jane's confusion, and Alice turned to her therapist in exasperation. Then, Alice's therapist told Jane, "Jane, your daughter is telling you that she has a drinking problem."
Jane was stunned and speechless. Her eyes darted from the therapist to Alice and then back to the therapist (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families).
Alice began to cry and then she yelled at Jane, "Mom, I've been trying to tell you for the last year that I have a drinking problem, but it's like you just tune out! You're not hearing me! And you're still not hearing me!" (see my article: Ambivalence and Codependence in the Mother-Daughter Relationship).
The therapy session felt unreal for Jane. It was as if she was having a bad dream and that any moment she would wake up from this dream.
She kept thinking to herself: This isn't real. I just have to open my eyes, and this will be over. But why can't I open my eyes? (see my article: Overcoming Your Denial About Family Problems).
Then, she realized that Alice's therapist was telling Jane about a alcohol rehabilitation center for adolescence that she was recommending for Alice. She offered to make the referral and could have Alice in treatment by the next day.
Alice explained to Jane that she had recently told her father about her drinking problem, and he was able to hear it. But Alice was angry that Jane wasn't there for her about this. Alice needed help and she needed her mother to be there for her now more than ever.
At that point, Jane felt like she was going through the motions. She felt like a robot. She consented for Alice's therapist to make the referral and drove Alice to the rehab.
Driving home from the rehab, Jane had to pull over because she felt overwhelmed with emotion. Alone and frightened, she couldn't stop crying. She couldn't understand how this all happened to her daughter--she thought she did everything right.
During a family visit to Alice's rehab, Jane met with Alice and her rehab counselor. Alice had calmed down since the day Jane met with her and her therapist. She was now able to calmly recount the times when she tried to tell Jane that she was drinking, but Jane seemed to almost go into a trance.
Although it was confusing and emotionally painful for her to listen to this, Jane listened attentively. She felt guilty and ashamed. She would never have hurt her daughter intentionally, so she couldn't understand why she had not heard her daughter's cries for help (see my article: Healing Mother-Daughter Relationships).
The rehab counselor also explained the possible genetic link between Jane's father's alcoholism and Alice's problems with alcohol. She told Jane that Alice was depressed and she was "self medicating" with alcohol (see my article: Adolescent Depression).
When she met with the other visiting families in the rehab, she heard similar stories to her own--many mothers and fathers who had emotional blind spots and didn't hear their children's cries for help.
At that point, Jane realized that she wasn't alone, but she wanted to understand why she had this blind spot and what she could do about it, so she began attending her own individual therapy (see my article: Psychotherapy to Overcome Your Past Childhood Trauma).
During the course of her individual therapy, Jane learned about intergenerational trauma and how it can affect one generation after the next in unconscious ways.
She realized that she was directly affected by her parents' unresolved trauma without realizing it, and that Alice was affected by her unresolved trauma.
Jane also realized that she coped with her parent's volatility and her father's alcoholism by shutting down or, to use a psychological term, dissociating.
She learned that this was her unconscious defense mechanism as a child to cope with an unbearable traumatic situation and that it worked for her at the time. But this same unconscious defense mechanism was counterproductive later on in life with her daughter.
As Jane began to work on her own unresolved traumatic childhood experiences in therapy, she began to feel like a weight was being lifted from her. She also started remembering times when Alice approached her to try to talk about her drinking problem.
These memories, which, until recently were dissociated in Jane's mind, were very painful to remember. As part of her treatment, Jane apologized to Alice, who was much more forgiving of Jane after she heard about Jane's experiences as a child.
Until then, Jane had never spoken to Alice about these experiences because she didn't want to burden Alice. But Jane wanted Alice to understand that these were longstanding unconscious problems and that she didn't know that they were affecting her ability to be completely present with Alice.
Jane also worked on self compassion for not being as good a mother as she hoped that she would be. She developed compassion for herself as an adult as well as for the struggling child she had been in her family home (see my article: Psychotherapy and Compassionate Self Acceptance).
Conclusion
Unresolved emotional trauma often has a way of getting played out from one generation to the next in ways that are unconscious to everyone involved.
It's not unusual to trace back this intergenerational trauma for many years, even though it might be very hard to detect by people who don't have psychological training.
This is one of the major reasons why it's important to get treated for unresolved trauma before it has an impact on your children, their children and generations to follow.
Getting Help in Therapy
We know so much more about psychological trauma and intergenerational trauma and how it can be transmitted to one generation after the next (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).
Trauma therapists are also uniquely trained to help clients with unresolved trauma to overcome the effects of the trauma (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).
Rather than continuing to suffer with the effects of unresolved trauma, you can get help from a licensed psychotherapist who is a trauma therapist so you and your family can live more fulfilling lives.
About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.
As a trauma therapist, I have helped many clients to overcome single event traumas as well as longstanding unresolved trauma.
To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.
To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.
Even though her parents' traumatic experiences were never spoken about or even acknowledged, Jane sensed that her parents' emotional volatility was related to their unspoken experiences, but she didn't know how or why. And since her parents' attitude was that they "left it behind" them and they refused to talk about it, there was no way for Jane to bring this up.
Instead of discussing it, without their realizing it, her parents' earlier experiences came out in other unintended ways, including their constant warnings that the "world isn't a safe place."
Not only were they overly protective of her, from an objective point of view, but they would become hysterical with worry over minor issues, including Jane coming home a little late when she saw her friends. They were highly anxious people and assumed that she had been kidnapped or murdered.
Aside from their anxiety and volatility, Jane's father would often drink too much. This exacerbated the volatile situation at home because he would become loud and even angrier than usual. He and Jane's mother would argue more when he was drunk (see my article: People Who Have Alcohol Problems Often Don't Get the Help They Need).
But whenever Jane tried to talk to her mother about the father's alcoholism, Jane's mother made excuses for him and told Jane that Jane couldn't possibly understand what she and Jane's father had been through in their native country, and the father drank to "take the edge off."
After trying to talk to her mother about it several times, Jane gave up. She realized that, even though her mother didn't like the father's drinking, her mother felt too conflicted about it to address it with him. She knew it was futile to try to talk to her mother about it, so she began to "tune out" whenever her father was drunk, and it didn't bother her as much (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).
Jane felt compassionate towards her parents, even if she wasn't really aware of what happened to them. But after she graduated college, she moved in with her college roommates, and she only saw her parents occasionally because it was too hard for her to be around them.
When Jane got married and had a baby, she was determined to be different than her parents. She loved her daughter a lot, and she made conscious decisions that were completely different from what her parents did with her, and she felt proud of herself.
 |
| Your Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Child |
When her marriage began to fall apart, Jane was determined that her daughter, Alice, would not experience the kind of volatility at home that Jane experienced as a child. She refused to argue with her husband in front of her daughter.
And when she and her husband decided to get a divorce, they spoke to their daughter, who was in her mid-teens by then, together. They assured her that they both loved her and would always remain in her life. But Alice took the divorce hard, she began acting out at home, and her grades plummeted at school.
At the recommendation of Alice's guidance counselor, Jane brought Alice to therapy so Alice could work out her anger and sadness about her parents' divorce.
Initially, Alice was uncooperative in therapy, but as she developed more of a rapport with her therapist, she opened up more and began to like going to therapy.
As part of Alice's therapy, both Jane and her ex-husband met with the therapist and Alice once a month. They were pleased with the progress that Alice was making in therapy and they both wanted the best for their daughter.
During the sixth month of therapy, Alice's therapist requested Jane to come to one of Alice's therapy sessions without her ex-husband. This surprised Jane, and she wondered about it. But she decided to wait to ask questions until after she had heard what this was about.
As soon as Jane entered the therapist's office, where Alice was already waiting for her, she sensed that Alice was very tense and uncomfortable. She avoided making eye contact with Jane when Jane came into the room, which concerned Jane.
There was an awkward silence initially, and then Alice began to speak with an anxious voice. At first, Jane couldn't understand what Alice was trying to tell her. It was as if she heard Alice saying words, but she couldn't understand what she was trying to say.
Jane could see that Alice looked very frustrated by Jane's confusion, and Alice turned to her therapist in exasperation. Then, Alice's therapist told Jane, "Jane, your daughter is telling you that she has a drinking problem."
Jane was stunned and speechless. Her eyes darted from the therapist to Alice and then back to the therapist (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families).
Alice began to cry and then she yelled at Jane, "Mom, I've been trying to tell you for the last year that I have a drinking problem, but it's like you just tune out! You're not hearing me! And you're still not hearing me!" (see my article: Ambivalence and Codependence in the Mother-Daughter Relationship).
The therapy session felt unreal for Jane. It was as if she was having a bad dream and that any moment she would wake up from this dream.
She kept thinking to herself: This isn't real. I just have to open my eyes, and this will be over. But why can't I open my eyes? (see my article: Overcoming Your Denial About Family Problems).
Then, she realized that Alice's therapist was telling Jane about a alcohol rehabilitation center for adolescence that she was recommending for Alice. She offered to make the referral and could have Alice in treatment by the next day.
Alice explained to Jane that she had recently told her father about her drinking problem, and he was able to hear it. But Alice was angry that Jane wasn't there for her about this. Alice needed help and she needed her mother to be there for her now more than ever.
At that point, Jane felt like she was going through the motions. She felt like a robot. She consented for Alice's therapist to make the referral and drove Alice to the rehab.
Driving home from the rehab, Jane had to pull over because she felt overwhelmed with emotion. Alone and frightened, she couldn't stop crying. She couldn't understand how this all happened to her daughter--she thought she did everything right.
During a family visit to Alice's rehab, Jane met with Alice and her rehab counselor. Alice had calmed down since the day Jane met with her and her therapist. She was now able to calmly recount the times when she tried to tell Jane that she was drinking, but Jane seemed to almost go into a trance.
Although it was confusing and emotionally painful for her to listen to this, Jane listened attentively. She felt guilty and ashamed. She would never have hurt her daughter intentionally, so she couldn't understand why she had not heard her daughter's cries for help (see my article: Healing Mother-Daughter Relationships).
The rehab counselor also explained the possible genetic link between Jane's father's alcoholism and Alice's problems with alcohol. She told Jane that Alice was depressed and she was "self medicating" with alcohol (see my article: Adolescent Depression).
When she met with the other visiting families in the rehab, she heard similar stories to her own--many mothers and fathers who had emotional blind spots and didn't hear their children's cries for help.
At that point, Jane realized that she wasn't alone, but she wanted to understand why she had this blind spot and what she could do about it, so she began attending her own individual therapy (see my article: Psychotherapy to Overcome Your Past Childhood Trauma).
During the course of her individual therapy, Jane learned about intergenerational trauma and how it can affect one generation after the next in unconscious ways.
She realized that she was directly affected by her parents' unresolved trauma without realizing it, and that Alice was affected by her unresolved trauma.
Jane also realized that she coped with her parent's volatility and her father's alcoholism by shutting down or, to use a psychological term, dissociating.
She learned that this was her unconscious defense mechanism as a child to cope with an unbearable traumatic situation and that it worked for her at the time. But this same unconscious defense mechanism was counterproductive later on in life with her daughter.
As Jane began to work on her own unresolved traumatic childhood experiences in therapy, she began to feel like a weight was being lifted from her. She also started remembering times when Alice approached her to try to talk about her drinking problem.
These memories, which, until recently were dissociated in Jane's mind, were very painful to remember. As part of her treatment, Jane apologized to Alice, who was much more forgiving of Jane after she heard about Jane's experiences as a child.
Until then, Jane had never spoken to Alice about these experiences because she didn't want to burden Alice. But Jane wanted Alice to understand that these were longstanding unconscious problems and that she didn't know that they were affecting her ability to be completely present with Alice.
Jane also worked on self compassion for not being as good a mother as she hoped that she would be. She developed compassion for herself as an adult as well as for the struggling child she had been in her family home (see my article: Psychotherapy and Compassionate Self Acceptance).
Conclusion
Unresolved emotional trauma often has a way of getting played out from one generation to the next in ways that are unconscious to everyone involved.
It's not unusual to trace back this intergenerational trauma for many years, even though it might be very hard to detect by people who don't have psychological training.
This is one of the major reasons why it's important to get treated for unresolved trauma before it has an impact on your children, their children and generations to follow.
Getting Help in Therapy
We know so much more about psychological trauma and intergenerational trauma and how it can be transmitted to one generation after the next (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).
Trauma therapists are also uniquely trained to help clients with unresolved trauma to overcome the effects of the trauma (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).
Rather than continuing to suffer with the effects of unresolved trauma, you can get help from a licensed psychotherapist who is a trauma therapist so you and your family can live more fulfilling lives.
About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.
As a trauma therapist, I have helped many clients to overcome single event traumas as well as longstanding unresolved trauma.
To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.
To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.