Private Practice for Psychotherapy & Coaching
Heilpraktikerin für Psychotherapie
Phone: 01520 6778748
My vision:
The trauma ends with me
Our ancestors were busy surviving. We now have the chance to live.
There is much to do, but so much more to gain.
Life is about relationships....
...to other people, but also to ourselves. We have the greatest love for our families, but we also experience the greatest hurt there. Why is that?
I've never met a parent who didn't want to do better than their parents. They really did! And then, when the baby arrives, they're so overwhelmed by their own hurts that they can't fully and openly engage with their child. They may even be physically there, perhaps even perfectly providing the child with food, clean clothes, and a roof over their head, but the bond is missing.
The child doesn't experience unconditional love and isn't allowed to trust (or even trust) that the world fundamentally means well. They don't experience others enjoying themselves or the adults around them having fun. Instead, they experience them—their mother, father, grandparents, or older siblings—as a burden. Perhaps they even have mental illnesses, traumas, or addictions.
Most often, the very young child—in an attempt to make sense of this chaos—blames themselves. They think they're not good enough; otherwise, their parents would be happy and enjoy being in real contact, in real closeness, with them.
Save your parents out of love?
This way, they at least have the idea of control, because they could simply try harder and everything would be fine. Children often then consciously or unconsciously develop a plan to save their parents.
Many still attempt this as adults. And they have to fail every single day, which deepens the deep feeling of not being good enough, of being a failure.
The hope is always: If my mother and father were finally well, they could finally turn to me and give me what I've always needed. And then I would finally be well, too. Unfortunately, none of that is true.
Science has now shown in studies that there are so-called transgenerational traumas, that is, that traumas can be passed down from generation to generation, even without (!) the trauma being explicitly discussed.
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And then, of course, there are families where emotional or physical violence and abuse occur. The protective parts of the parents attack their own child! Ultimately, and tragically, it's to protect themselves. But in doing so, they pass on the hurt they themselves have experienced.
Transgenerational trauma
The trauma ends with me!
On the one hand, I'm fascinated by the deep love that parts of us often have for our parents, our family, despite the worst experiences. We couldn't choose the family we were born into.
And yet it is our history and it is our task to look at it closely, to understand it, to learn from it and ultimately to accept it and come to peace with it.
This is often—in its entirety—a lifelong task. If we have children of our own, it's even more important! True to the motto: The trauma of our family ends with me! My children shouldn't have to bear it!
Dealing with feelings
Most people don't learn what to do when they experience stressful feelings. On television, we're often shown how someone drinks alcohol after an argument, or becomes aggressive and "loses their temper." Or simply represses the feelings. As if nothing else existed. And that's simply not true.
There are now many recognized and researched techniques that can be used to work through and thus "reduce" unpleasant feelings such as fear, anger, annoyance, sadness or shame.
It's like when a guitar string is strummed—that is, a feeling arises—and it can simply fade away without us holding on to it. The "energy," the "charge" of the feeling, flows away. This way, no damage is caused; the feeling doesn't have to be transferred into the body, for example, causing it to react with stress, tension, and numerous altered physical processes (in the nervous system, the hormonal system, the immune system, etc.).
We should all learn how to deal with our emotions and our psyche (mental hygiene) in school. Very few are fortunate enough to learn such things in their families or to learn from their parents and other family members.
Most people go through life using the two strategies of repression and distraction (and projection, too...). But when things suddenly happen in life that are so stressful that these techniques are no longer sufficient, the whole person is often suddenly in great distress.
This can happen after a divorce, a job loss, a serious illness (in yourself or a family member). Or sometimes there's no specific trigger at all; it's simply the sum total of years of poor self-management.
If this sounds familiar, let me tell you that it's not your fault!
Your parents didn't know any better, otherwise they would have shown you better!
Transgenerational trauma
Trauma
Often, situations from our past or childhood still haunt us, even many years later. Our nervous system feels as if the situation were happening right now.
Since we have very limited resources as children, it's clear that we easily experience many situations as traumatic (overwhelming our processing mechanisms). When we are overwhelmed, we fall into a trauma reaction, such as freezing, dissociation, overexertion, an inability to relax, and others. The nervous system of many adults is still stuck in these reactions, without us being aware of the cause.
Sometimes we haven't thought about certain events for years, and then suddenly flashbacks and memories come flooding back to us, as if an internal film were playing before our inner eye. Often, we can't stop it or push it away.
Sometimes there are specific triggers, such as becoming parents ourselves and suddenly feeling much closer to our own childhood. Or perhaps we've simply grown and become stronger, so that our system now trusts us to deal with these memories and integrate them into ourselves.
Finally processing the situation, letting go, like closing a read book and putting it on the shelf. And then truly feeling for the first time: "It's over. It was terrible. But it's over. Now I'm safe." That's the goal.
Trauma processing
People who break the trauma cycle!
My heart goes out to all those who choose to be the one in their family who breaks the cycle of trauma. Often, these people are not even welcome in their families; they are usually opposed, treated as the black sheep of the family, and often even excluded from the family.
Yet, such a family member, who is the first to no longer remain silent and sees and addresses things that are going wrong in the family, would be the family's chance for healing! Such a family member should really be celebrated. Instead, such people often become the index patient of their family system—the one who doesn't function, can't fit in, and is constantly ill.
The family thinks that everything would be fine if he would just pull himself together, that they themselves don't have a problem, and that this one person alone is the problem.
I know that the role of trauma cycle breaker is often a lonely one.
I know that many people feel alone in our society, longing for contact, for closeness, and for love. And that they often have to wait so many years, sometimes a lifetime, until a very old wound can finally be healed.
It is such a shame that so much potential cannot be realized in our society because the lives of so many people are limited by fears and false beliefs about themselves.
I know how much love is often hidden, blocked, in families, but which never comes out because of trauma.
Our ancestors were busy surviving. We now have the chance to finally live.
Our ancestors generally had a much harder life than we do. They often literally had to fear for their lives. Death was much more present in their lives, infant mortality was high, there were many diseases without effective medical treatment, and many people lived with pain, suffering, hunger, violence, and fear. They had no opportunity, either in terms of time or money, to work on any of this or to develop their personalities.
Quite apart from the fact that modern techniques for emotional (trauma) processing are still quite new; many were first developed in the West in the 1980s.
We, on the other hand, live—despite all the difficulties of the imperfect world we live in—in a much greater sense of security and comfort. The very concept of leisure time, of work-life balance, was nonexistent for most people throughout human history. We now finally have enough stability.
We are the generation that has both the time and the knowledge to finally take care of our healing. Our ancestors were busy surviving. We have the opportunity to live! So let's roll up our sleeves and get started.
There is a lot to do, but so much more to gain!