Trauma and its Far-Reaching Potential

“Trauma has the power to reach out from the past and claim new victims.”

~Dr. David Sack, addiction psychiatrist

In Mark Wolynn’s book, It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle, he dives deep into the specifics of epigenetics.

For the last few years I’ve been tremendously interested and devouring books on intergenerational trauma, epigenetics and emotional inheritance. However it has been classified and from what lens, I am curious to understand how my grandparents and parents experiences have shaped me.

Wolynn dives deeper in than I’ve seen other general audience for target readers go. For example, he details how both the past traumatic experiences can be inscribed into the DNA that affects how a child develops in utero even when/if they do not have cognizance as to why.

These inscriptions can present as PTSD, addiction struggles, depression, anxiety or even general fears of death, related to traumatic experiences of their parents and others in the ancestral line.

The in-utero experience with ‘non-coding’ DNA can also affect a baby in terms of their personality and behavior.

In the DNA, babies born to parents with traumatic experiences or PTSD also show lowered levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) because of the intense levels the parents have had to produce in their lifetimes. They may also have a stronger flight/fight and startle responses.

I must admit, I have sat and marveled with the possibilities—how my parents’ lives and their trauma was/has been imprinted on me. I consider my aunt’s suicide before I was born, my grandmother abandoning my mother, my father’s brother’s tragic car accident death—and how they have shaped me.

And, of course, how many more that I do not even know about. Cannot know about. That I can only speculate about or critically imagine…

I have recently heard it said that many Native American and other indigenous groups have long since recognized that at least 5 (and up to 8) generations have their imprint on the lives of their descendents.

I did think about my brother. In exploring the perennial question of—why him and not me…

I think about the above events that were much closer to his birth than they were to my own.

I also think about how his behavioral traits described as a baby were more dire. He didn’t sleep. Like at all. Screamed all the time, I was told.

My mother didn’t sleep even after he started to. Her post partum depression was awful and it was before anti-depressants to help, at least for the first year.

I consider what I’ve read about when the bond is broken between mother and newborn baby because of some stressor or trauma that causes that relationship to be compromised.

I wonder about the many, many ways that that must have affected my brother in utero and as a baby, imprinting on him and affecting his brain, behavior, who he would become.

I wonder how my experience, both gestational formation and formative years, was similar and different.

It is astounding how much we are given that forms us, that we didn’t choose.

As a society, we often look at the superficial, the genes that appear outwardly.

We also consider the genes that contribute to diseases that we may find out later in life.

But all of this other crap? The unseen? The intangible? We focus less on it.

Apparently even scientists have because until only recently they have started to understand more of it—like the non-coding DNA, that was not tied to appearance, for the longest time they called it “junk” DNA but now they know that it is tied to behaviors and personality patters, among other things that we get passed down to us.

A lot of times these books emphasize the healing and growth, the knowledge that such intergenerational trauma and epigenetics is not a sentencing, but, rather, as liberating.

Because when you have the information you may feel more empowered and capable to address the issues and understand a bit more of “why am I the way that I am.”

I also think it is too depressing to embrace that, so instead, much like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, they try to emphasize the growth and healing and transformation that is possible as a result of knowledge.

And indeed, for some who are able to access and understand their family’s stories, it does liberate. Provides insight and understanding to then free themselves from some behavioral and mental illness that they did not before understand were the results of family trauma.

I do find myself marveling at how much in-utero and gestational influences affect a child’s permanent development, as noted by Wolynn and also by Mate in the Myth of Normal, which I just read.

And, if I am to be honest, as the overthinker, over-analyzer, worrier person that I am, and still grappling with my own trauma, a woman who is now middle age, 40, my child-bearing age quickly disappearing—

I am a bit thankful that I have not reproduced to pass on these PTSD genes.