Trigger Warning: The blog below contains details of residential schools that may be upsetting for some readers. Canada’s Indian Residential School Survivors and Family Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.
We at Sana Counselling acknowledge with gratitude that we live and work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Our emotional development starts from the day we are born and carries into adulthood. Our ability to form attachments and feel safe is the foundation of forming relationships and having healthy bonds with others, but what happens when we are not able to do this when a cycle of trauma exists within our families lineage?
Intergenerational trauma is defined as:
“The transmitted trauma through attachment relationships where the parents have experienced relational trauma and have significant impacts upon individuals across the lifespan, including predisposition to further trauma.”
Individuals who deal with intergenerational trauma can be the child of immigrants, refugees, and persons who experienced persecution or forced displacement. The impact of what their parents or grandparents experienced was so significant that the impact of their pain was passed down from generation to generation.
The ability to feel safe with others is the foundation of mental health, however, those who have experienced intergenerational trauma don’t always feel safe in the place they should - their own homes.
When the trauma of your family's experiences is the source of your suffering and is inhibiting your capability of feeling safe and trusting of others, it can leave an individual feeling isolated and traumatized and perpetuate further mental health issues into adulthood.
Intergenerational trauma can often be ingrained in an individual to the point that sometimes, it gets overlooked or brushed aside. Our parents carry learned behaviours from their childhood that they might perceive as being normal, but actually, have a serious effect on the psyche and emotional wellbeing of an individual and unless dealt with, this pain gets carried into adulthood and the following generation if not addressed.
Intergenerational trauma in Indigenous peoples
Intergenerational trauma is seen in every culture. In Canada, it’s important to acknowledge and discuss the intergenerational trauma that resulted from colonization. Indigenous folks in Canada still suffer from intergenerational trauma due to the genocide experienced from 1894 to 1996. Since May 2021, Indigenous folks have been shocked and retraumatized by the discovery of unmarked mass graves at the sites of residential schools.
Under the guise of assimilation, the Catholic Church with the help of the Canadian government forcibly took Indigenous children from their homes and families and placed them into Residential Schools where they stripped Indigenous children from their culture, languages, clothing, and traditions.
Aside from cultural genocide, many children who went to residential schools were neglected in various ways a child should be cared for including access to proper nutrition and medical care. They were physically as well as sexually abused. Thousands of children went to these schools and many children, like Chanie Wenjack, did not come home. This is why Indigenous folks who attended and graduated from residential schools are referred to as survivors because they survived an atrocity.
The effects of this prolonged trauma have seriously impacted Indigenous groups on an individual and collective level. This includes markedly high rates of depression, suicide, use of substances to cope with intergenerational trauma and a lack of support and access to mental health resources which furthers their struggle.
Additionally, there is a mistrust of those outside of indigenous communities and rightfully so. Many lack the right cultural sensitivity surrounding the Indigenous struggle and how the lingering impacts their genocide has had generationally on the Indigenous peoples.
Parents, trauma, and their children
Oftentimes, parents themselves are blind to their own trauma and this is where the cycle perpetuates itself. As children, we believe the behaviours of our parents are normal and this can result in us finding comfort in behaviours or things that other children would find distressing.
For children, there are no options other than to stay in these types of environments. However, even as adults, some individuals don’t even think of leaving their environments because culturally it is shamed. For many cultures around the globe where family is the centre of everything, speaking against or leaving one's parents might be seen as ungrateful or disrespectful, even if it is abusive. Usually, it is the expectation that the ones who cared for us will be cared for later in life.
Parents who have mental health disorders or trauma themselves can pass this down unknowingly. This is because trauma can cause preoccupation, emotional vacancy or emotionally instability in a parent and inhibit them from providing their children with the support they need to build healthy attachments.
How Trauma Affects Parents
Parents may have inherited genetic vulnerabilities based on a traumatic event that happened to them directly or a parenting style that was passed down from their parents.
Survivors may face many obstacles when they become parents themselves. This includes difficulty bonding and emotionally attaching to their children. Survivors of trauma are often sensitive to stimulation of any kind, which can isolate them from the rest of the world, and their families.
There are three common outcomes that we see.
Victim Mentality: Depression is a frequent friend of trauma, which may cause a parent that has experienced trauma to self-isolate or be combative and argumentative.
Fighter Mentality: Alternatively, fighters may arm themselves with a hard outer shell and are intolerant of weakness or self-pity.
“Those Who Made It”: Defined by social-economic success but have distanced themselves from their experience of trauma and other survivors.
How Trauma Affects Children
Children are like sponges, mimicking and absorbing behaviours from their parents. This is how they learn to navigate their future relationships. Coping mechanisms may be formed to avoid or fix a parent’s abusive behaviour, anger, depression, neglect, or other problematic behaviours.
For individuals to heal, the cycle of intergenerational trauma needs to be addressed and broken. Putting love and warmth back into our homes may start with you but is not a journey you have to walk alone.
Speaking with a professional counsellor can help you untangle your feelings of shame, anger, and mistrust and begin to heal.
Contact us today to book a consultation.
