Generational Trauma
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| Trillium in NC |
My family of origin is scattered and shattered.
Almost all of the separation and estrangement comes from alcoholism and trauma.
I have 3 first cousins living and two are in their late eighties. I'm estranged or distanced from my own siblings. My kids call my best friends "aunt" and "uncle." The last of my parents' siblings died in 1995. My own mother died when I was five, in 1960. I'm raising the child of my niece. Having counseled many individuals, I know I'm in a huge club. The big happy extended family is rare, at least in Western Anglo culture.
But it's common to grow up thinking you are bad and broken. Easy to compare your inside with others' outside.
Of late, as I have taken a deep dive into neuroscience and the mind/body connection, I've come to appreciate how much of what goes on in our minds today is connected with the past. And trauma is embedded in our psyche and shows up in our bodies for generations.
That's both exciting and terrifying.
This weekend I attended a memorial service for my first cousin Patti's husband, Wes, who died in January at age 89. Her father and my mother were siblings. I used to call Patti "aunt" because her two kids are my age; her son is 3 weeks younger than I. Of all the family, Patti and her daughter Taryn have been faithful correspondents. Patti has also been a conservator of my Patton family history. That role will, before too long, fall to Taryn and me. I wonder who will carry it forth in the next generation?
Almost all of the stories we tell (and re-tell) are funny and light-hearted. There's the story about how Taryn's brother Kurt and I met up 20 years ago at an airport in Chicago, completely by chance, because his daughter and mine were playing together during a flight delay, and I suggested she tell her parents where she was. I looked over to the place she indicated and saw my cousin. It had been at least 20 years! I saw him again this weekend, his daughter and two sons grown. He's a grandfather of three with another on the way!
There's my beautiful memory of spending the summer after my mother died at their family home, swimming in the Choptank River and sleeping on the upstairs screened porch common in old Eastern shore homes.
There's the serendipitous story about how Taryn spent years in Romania (when it was still communist) as a missionary and how I traveled to Romania four times as a Partner Church minister. We have been to many of the same places and share a passionate love for the people.
Taryn has written a lovely book for young adults based in Romania! Read about her and order her book here!
But this weekend, I heard some stories and some family history I'd never known. Even though Patti's family was religious and very much non-alcoholic, the disease affected all of them. Both Patti and her husband Wes grew up with severely alcoholic fathers.
The pastor mentioned that Wesley always wanted him to pray for his family, especially that none of them became liberal Democrats! He'd become very conservative late in life. Afterwards, I mentioned that I was actually one of "those," and several of my relatives said, "So are we."
After the reception, Kurt told me more about himself and his beliefs. I realized that I had judged them as evangelical Christians, and lumped them categorically with everything I considered "wrong" about that: homophobia, Trumpism, exclusion, etc. But, just as there are "liberals" who still have some conservative views (I'm one for sure) there are, of course, "conservative" Christians who are open, progressive, and compassionate. Early in my ministry training, I got a letter from another cousin and her mother, scolding me for being Unitarian and telling me my mother (who was a devoted Episcopalian) would turn over in her grave. I was pretty insecure at that time, and that one letter made me feel as if the whole remaining Patton family judged and excoriated me. So not only had I judged, I had been driven by a fear of being judged.
Unforgiveness is a barrier to healing mentally and physically.
It can be a balm and a joy to realize you have been wrong.
