Coming to Grips With Intergenerational Trauma

Photo by Sinisha Karich via Shutterstock.com

Growing up, I witnessed many wrongs against my mother committed by my father’s family. By the age of six, I had seen so much that I made up my mind: whatever I do in life, I will never turn out to be evil like them. These moments stay in the back of my mind and make me question my ability to be a good daughter.

No matter how hard I try to be different from them, I feel like I’m very similar to them in some ways. After all, we share the same blood. I didn’t notice the toxic patterns until I started dating. It was very alarming and made me think I wasn’t worth my partners’ time, efforts and love, just as I did not think my father and his family were worth my mother’s sacrifices and love.

Every day is a struggle to not turn out like them. Call it my secondhand trauma, but the way the whole family treated my mom really makes me flush all this blood out. Some things can never be changed, or at least, I have not found a way to change them. All I have is hope and my daily effort to not be like them.

[Read Related: On Domestic Violence-Model Minority, Private Pain]

Faults in Our Blood

Sometimes the fault lies in our blood
It is bedded so deeply into our skin,
makes it so absurd to be noticed
As the years pass by
the weight we carry also augments,
almost unbearable to carry
Of course, you cannot change
What’s gushing down your veins
Continuously unlearning family norms,
a constant fight to be different
But sometimes, just sometimes these everyday efforts,
can make up for all the faults in our blood
So, never lose hope
That ‘sometimes’ can be you

[Read Related: I Decided to Embrace Emotional Vulnerability, and it Changed my Life]

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