At 14, in 1974, I discovered my torso was deforming. The left side was pushing outward. I wanted girls to like me, so I started lifting weights to build big chest muscles to hide the protruding bone on the left side.
At 19, in 1979, back pain became a problem. Doctors called it "Scoliosis" and promised I'd need pain killers for life, and would be unable to work by age 40. They also begged me not to see a chiropractor. I didn't know what a chiropractor was, but their insistence made me curious. So I went to see one. Voila! My pain was handled and I was able to work hard and live free until retirement, and I'm still pain free to this day.
Here's the really FREAKY part:
In 1992, when my son turned 5. My chiropractor recommended we x-ray him to see if he's got what I've got so we could try curing it early while he was still growing. The x-ray was a duplicate of mine, just smaller. The chiropractor said that the twist to the left at the top, the compensating twist at the bottom, the flattened ribs on one side but not the other, and the crooked pelvis were something that showed we were missing our right arms. We were not. Both of us have all our limbs. He then asked me if I knew what my father's x-ray might look like. I suddenly felt shock. I said "No, but he lost his right arm in the war, 20 years before I was born." This chiropractor, who thought he'd seen everything, and who usually believed in the unbelievable, was stunned. "Your KIDDING!" He shouted.
It seems that when my father was 21, and lost his right arm, his body then began to twist his spine over the next twenty years to compensate for the lopsided stress on his frame. My father was an unbelievably, freakishly strong man who had a reputation for being stronger with his one arm than two, two-armed men. THEN after twenty years of understandable evolution, he passed that spinal compensation genetically on to me, who then passed it, genetically on to my own son.
If physical trauma is transferred through genetics, why can't emotional trauma be transferred also?
I've experienced absolute proof that physical trauma is passed down from father to son to grandson. Now I am trying to understand how emotional trauma is also passed down the same way.
I grew up in the church and a family who routinely called me a liar if they didn't want to accept my problems nor my truth any time it was something they didn't want to face, or couldn't explain, so I know that when I tell this story, there will be those who just call me a liar to avoid having to challenge their own confirmation biases. So, I don't tell this story very often.
Doesn't matter. I read the articles written by so-called professionals who live by their own confirmation biases, who will either call me a liar, or promise it's just a bizarre one in a billion-trillion-gazillion coincidence—twice—but I know. I know, I know, I KNOW that physical traumas that happen during one's life, CAN mutate into the DNA and then be transmitted to the next generation. I didn't read about it. I didn't dream it. I have experienced it myself, against all the biases of the arrogant medical world.
This leads me to believe that emotional trauma can also be transmitted through DNA to the next generation. My same son who got his grandfather's spinal trauma also has CPTSD, even though no one ever abused him in any of the ways I was abused. But he suffers from so many of the same emotional problems I have. He's lucky to have me helping him find good therapists, and good information that I learn on my own journey, but he still swears to this day that he has no memories of me belittling, or abusing, or calling him a liar when he tells the truth. I know there is some truth in the fact that my trauma caused me to behave in certain ways that he picked up on, but I do NOT believe that he started out 100% healthy and then was damaged by my painful behaviors alone. He has unexplained traumatic responses—just like mine—that reach far beyond the experiences I gave him by my own Fawning personality after he was born.
So, this is just a journal entry, with a slight hope that I can learn more from other genuine experiencers rather than arrogant researchers who foofoo this and say that ALL trauma is taught to the children, and that since DNA transference isn't in their paradigm, that means it's not real for anyone else either.
I don't expect anyone to respond. I'm fine if no one does. It took quite a bit of courage for me to post this after years of reading the expert's biases against what I know to be fact, but I just know that when I post things publicly, it gives me some relief from holding it all in...
And maybe—just maybe—someone on this forum has also seen or experienced this phenomenon too??? If anyone does want to share any corroborating stories, I'd love to hear them. It would really help me find the truth in this reality that the medical world bullies are still not ready to accept or admit to.
Papa Coco, I appreciate the stories you shared here.
I don't have concrete stories, but I agree with what you are offering here. I believe my genes were influenced by the trauma of my ancestors. I am just beginning to explore this and it makes me wonder if some of the deeper sadness and pain isn't only about my story but the stories I carry from my family in my genes.
I think a lot about the medical model which focuses on a cure or alleviation for whatever is going on and places the burden on the individual. In my experience this does not acknowledge the connectedness of everything and there are so many things we can't "fix."
Your reflections give me a guide for consideration.
1. Yay! I'm so happy you started a journal. I can't wait to read, learn, and provide support when I can.
2. Wow. What an absolutely fascinating and believable story.
3. 100% belive in the inheritability of all sorts of things including emotional trauma. Epigenetics is the fascinating field of how reactions to stressors in our environment can be passed down along generations on a timescale much faster than evolution. It's essentially the altering in how our genes are expressed rather than the genes themselves. It's a really fascinating field of genetics.
Here are a few articles specific to trauma but this also applies to things like diet too.
https://www.science.org/content/article/parents-emotional-trauma-may-change-their-children-s-biology-studies-mice-show-how
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190326-what-is-epigenetics
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00808/full%20
Oh wow! Raindiary and Armee,
Thank you so much for responding. I'm glad I'm not the only person who's asking this question about how our emotional traumas might leak into our genetics. In so many ways it explains how the baselines for our personalities are born into us. When my wife and I conceived our youngest son, I was in serious depression, and on Xanax just to survive. For 34 years now I've secretly blamed myself for his emotional instability because of my condition during our pregnancy with him. The poor kid had a pretty good childhood, but still suffers with CPTSD and bi-polar swings. He has had such a difficult time keeping himself level. The good news is that his son, my 7 year old grandson, has all the HSP sensitivity, humor, talent and shining personality his daddy does, but that luckly little guy is stable and able to keep his moods the same every day. Hopefully the emotional trauma cycle is winding down.
I've only just begun to explore the research on how we might pass our emotional traumas to our offspring. Armee, it's nearly midnight here in Seattle now, and I'm getting tired and rummy, but tomorrow morning I'm going to hit the links you sent. My first Google search came up with a lot of ney-sayers who think we can only pass our trauma on by how our children react to our traumatized behaviors after birth. I'm excited to find some good research that hits the target more accurately.
Rainydiary, you mentioned one of the most important things we all need to remember: Connectedness. We empathetic types know that all life is interconnected, and I'm now just beginning to explore how that interconnectedness not only travels broadly across living beings, but how it travels up and down between generations as well. I have had many experiences with broad connection. I think my most important example was the day I was shutting off my computer to go to a bridge near my house and end it all, when my phone rang. My one good sister whom I barely knew because she was married and gone when I was 7, called me. When I answered, she didn't say "hello" She screamed into the phone "Jimmy! WHAT'S WRONG?" I started bawling and told her I was about to end it all. She talked me down, got me in touch with the suicide hotline and then told me that she'd been sick to her stomach all day. (She lives on the US East Coast, I'm on the US West Coast). She said she couldn't stop thinking about me. Then a few minutes ago an old friend she hadn't talked to in 2 years called and told her she needed to call the West Coast because something was terribly wrong. She hung up and called me, and saved my life. So yeah: I REALLY believe in our connectedness. We really are all small pieces of a bigger puzzle.
I'm real excited now to take what I know about our interconnectedness to the next level and explore how it travels generationally also.
Seriously though, Armee and Rainydiary, you've put me in a good mood for bedtime. Thanks!
Hi Papa Coco,
Thanks for sharing your post and experiences. My take might be a big out there for some but I think that genes are essentially an expression of energy (well in a quantum physics way). We take it in, it becomes thought (or our perceived reality) and then is expressed energetically (in DNA, our children's DNA etc).
If you're interested, I read a fascinating book called The Energetic Dimension by Ann M. Drake this year about family dynamics, healing etc. In traumatic events there is usually "soul loss" or a transference of energy. Either between the abuser and abused or a part will leave the body (think dissociation). It's more or less an outline of how generational trauma gets passed down, and the energetic dynamics of trauma. I wouldn't think you would knowingly pass on anything to your son. Perhaps we're just acting out the energetic dynamics in our family which show themselves as gene expression.
I'm glad your sister was there for you that day.
dolly
Wow! That's an amazing story. I can completely believe it, but it wouldn't have ever occurred to me to imagine it if you hadn't shared it. I totally agree that we pass at a minimum our emotions to our children. Children learn through mirror neurons - we literally pattern what our parents do, and our children pattern what we do. It's how we learn until we develop enough sense of self to learn on our own. (And of course, those of us with N parents never develop enough sense of self - so we continue the pattern of activating mirror neurons, which I believe is a source for the fawning 4F type).
Papa Coco,
My first response was a nerdy one, and I do hope that reading some science that likely corroborates your own experience and theories brings some relief.
But I didn't acknowledge the deep pain that comes with worrying we somehow - wittingly or not - doomed our children to mental health issues.
My own son was suicidal at the age of 10. The guilt I felt was the most intensely painful I have ever known.
So my heart is right there with you. As (good) parents we want our kids to be OK, happy, and to not suffer. You clearly love your son. He's lucky to have you on his side in fighting the effects of his mental illness. Bipolar seems to be at least in many cases a genetic condition. I don't believe you caused that to happen. I believe you or your wife carry a gene or genes that predisposed him to developing bipolar disorder.
What a journey you've all launched me on.
Armee, I'm reading those links you sent. The science behind the passing down of genes is pretty compelling. I'm really glad to see there are researchers doing a thorough job of figuring out the biological science of how trauma can, and does, pass down to the children born after the wars, as opposed to before them.
Dolyvee, I'm going to get a copy of that book. I, personally, believe that the real truth of how we exist is found in a blend of biological science with energetic and quantum physics. The story I told of my sister saving my life is only one of a hundred events I've experienced that proves to me our lives are connected in more ways than biology can explain. If that had been the only "spiritual" thing I'd ever experienced myself, I'd say it was likely a coincidence, but it was only one of many. The book you recommend intrigues me. I think I'll go onto Amazon and grab a copy this morning.
Dante, you make me think that those of us with selfish or N parents (AND older siblings: My eldest sibling is a great person, but sister #2 is a seriously evil N who tormented my entire family for decades, and eventually destroyed the family completely), we grew up the opposite of N, possibly as a counterbalance to the mirror neurons???? I'm thinking out loud now, but as I begin this exploration of how we pass trauma around in families, that's just more fuel to the exploration.
Everyone, I'm really excited about this. I'm hoping I can learn enough to help my son in his own therapy as well. He's 34 now, a father of two boys, one of whom is biological and the other is a stepson. I'm SO PROUD of how he is raising both of them with equal love. I watch my older grandson, who has a different biological father, just cling to my son with so much love in his eyes that it almost gives me tears to witness. If I can help myself, my son, and anyone else in my life to get a grip on their own suffering, then this will be an exploration worthy of the research.
Thanks all, for helping. The articles and feedback are giving me the proof I need that I'm not on the wrong track.
Keep the suggestions coming! I'm not OCD, but when I get onto an exciting learning curve, I get pretty hungry for information!!!
I love this forum. Best thing I've found in years!
I've started reading It Didn't Start With You by Mark Wolyn. So far, the introduction looks promising.
Papa Coco,
I read your post and I believe you. It brought to my mind something that I heard about four decades ago. I was a patient in a psychiatric hospital. At the same time a mother and daughter (both adults) were also patients. As a little girl, the mother had been in one of the Nazi concentration camps. Her daughter, obviously, was born much later. The psychiatrist was amazed that the daughter showed many of the same symptoms that her mother exhibited.
My T has said that they are learning a lot more about trauma and DNA. I haven't explored anything further. I already have enough mother guilt.
Hi Papa Coco,
That's an interesting book thank you for the recommendation - I think Kizzie mentioned it on her thread as well. We should have an informal CPTSD book club ;D
Although I haven't done a lot of reading on generational trauma, I have seen some family patterns show up in IFS which prompted me to learn about legacy burdens. It was helpful in releasing a little bit of that "burden." Somehow patterns ease the trauma when we recognize these things (ie what am "I" doing wrong) as outside ourselves as well. That it didn't come from us even though we may be using it to cope or be a part of the pattern.
Glad the research is going well.
dolly
Hi Dollyvee, you hit it on the head for me. For me, almost the entirety of my healing to date has been focused on trying to explain things that have been unexplainable all my life. When I look back at the 3 months since I Joined, I am amazed at how much - with the help of the people on this forum - I have been able to untangle the knot that has been my life. I can't heal if I don't know what I'm healing from. I'm still angry at my childhood and the things that made me the way that I am, but I now understand what led me down the path of various maladaptive coping strategies. I have even gotten to a place of understanding for my parents. I'm short on forgiveness, especially for my N mother, but I understand.
There's still a lot I don't understand, and I still have a lot of gaps. In many places, I've been able to put together enough pieces that even with some of the puzzle pieces missing, I can still see the picture. And I can accept that. There are still other places where I don't have enough puzzle pieces yet to tell whether the picture is a purple sweater or an eggplant.
To take this back around to Papa Coco's original post, I see the same thing. I think Papa Coco - and all of us - are comparing notes to try to make sense of it. It's like if there was a textbook for life, we all got one page and no teacher. This forum is helping us to glue the pages back together to make a book, probably with some pages still missing, but acting as a cooperative of teachers and parents that we otherwise lacked. I can completely believe everything Papa Coco shared, because I have seen some weird stuff in my life, and I can see needing so bad deep in our soul to connect with our parents that our very DNA would twist and morph our shape. Like had been shared by others, I believe trauma is encoded in our very genes. I see it in my own children, even though I've worked hard to be NOTHING like my parents. But still, my own kids will have their own stuff to work out. But maybe with enough healing and enough generations, those undesirable survival genes will get naturally selected out. I have to hope.
Sorry, post was on the longer side. Your comment just really connected for me.
Hi Dante,
Yes, I do feel like that too - that as children of N parents you are dropped into a mess (or maze) and have to figure a way out of it. We're given a reality but it's not our reality.
When I started IFS and saw parts coming up as my mom or that there were parts in me that were there in my mom and grandmother, certain behaviours started making more sense. Like, oh this is something I *learned.* I don't have as much as with my dad, but maybe that's because the enmeshment came from my mom & gm but I don't know. IFS has been an important part of putting things together for me and I don't know if I would have discovered it without this forum.
Also, watching that family constellations episode on the new Goop Love and Sex series on Netflix is fascinating, just to see it in action how these patterns play out. Mark Woylen is also affiliated with family constellations.
Sorry for hijacking your thread PC! :hug:
dolly
I just felt like dropping by here with an observation and also mention a book I've read that I found quite useful concerning the 'why' of my life's story.
The observation is only that it always seemed, in the FOO and also my childhood schools and church, that I felt like a passenger riding on the wrong bus.
While I agree there can be certain genetic effects that can influence a myriad of themes that pop up along life's trail, I've built on that instinct of feeling lost and considered the possibility that I don't have to remain trapped in any genetically derived fate, as it were.
The book mentioned is James Hillman's THE SOUL'S CODE: IN SEARCH OF CHARACTER AND CALLING. Soul, btw, is used in a non-religious context. Hillman was a noted psychologist/therapist.
In the book, he dives into the myriad possibilities that shape people's individual character and personality patterns, suggesting that there's more than pure scientific evidence at play regarding how people's psychology and other factors develop.
Some of the language and ideas are built on Jungian concepts. While helps to have token knowledge of those systems, on the whole Hillman's prose is clear and definitely thought-provoking. He includes several biographies to help illustrate his points. These are of people whose lives definitely went against the notion that family backgrounds always had the largest say in how things turned out. My favourite chapter concerning this was titled: "Neither Nature Nor Nurture -- Something Else."
While not specifically oriented towards conditions like CPTSD, it covers topics which strongly relate. For me, it gave me useful insight and encouragement to consider the mystery of 'why' my life may have gone the way it did (and didn't).
I'm getting a lot of great insights through this thread. I have to admit, I'm curious about Woodsgnome's book suggestion by James Hillman, but I'm in my "crazy place" right now. It's Thanksgiving here in the US tomorrow, and the 2021 Holiday season is in full swing, meaning I'm spiraling into my yearly tornado of flashbacks, confusion, and my annual depression/anxiety bi-polar coaster thrillride through my complicated brain, so when I looked at Hillman's book on Amazon and tried to read the sample pages in chapter one, I couldn't make sense of it. He seems to write like a college paper, using long strings of huge words, and intense concepts in every sentence, which require me to be more coherent than I am right now. I am more of a 7-year-old trauma victim than a 61-year-old wise grandfather right now. But I'm still very intrigued. I can handle the big words when I'm feeling stable, but during this time of year, I'm kind of "stupid" and too unfocused to be able to follow complex logic through short, loaded sentences. I may put his book in my wish list and order it in January when my brain starts organizing itself again. It looks like a good book that will make more sense when I'm more stable.
I wonder if my feeling that I'm not who I was supposed to be may be more of a feeling than a reality. Many people have said that our purpose in life is not to find our purpose but to create it. I wonder where the balance is. I believe in some predestination. I also believe in adaptation. The trick is balancing how to find my stable true path, while adapting to the reality of the unstable world I grew into. But AY! There is the rub! My FOO undermined my ability to believe that I have control over my own life by intentionally convincing me that I was too stupid to know what I wanted in life. I was intentionally raised to be a servant. I call myself "Cinder-fella." My will was broken early as if I were a farm animal who was to pull a wagon rather than run free. While my brain was soft and moldable, the hard-wiring was inlaid to guide me through the lifelong artificial reality that I am to do as I'm told, and will never be competent to know what I want. My reality might be this: I was raised to serve my family, and now my family is gone and I'm feelling lost because I'm now a servant without a master. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I am exactly where I am supposed to be, but I'm not able to recognize it.
I suppose my challenge is in finding it within myself to accept all this and go on living in ways to reduce the stress that, no matter who I become, I'm never going to be sure it's the right person. Like I mentioned; I'm in my crazy place right now. There's fine line between insane and genius and I feel I'm a bit on the insane side of that line right now. Ha ha.
Hey, Coco -- I get your reaction to Hillman -- I find he takes some getting used to. In fact it took me 3 reads to grasp lots of the detail and mixing of so much material. In fact the first time I recall just closing it and chucking it across the room! It took me a while, but I'd read enough to be intrigued by it, and went back a couple of years later, and his notions grew on me. It did help that by then I'd found my present therapist, who was somewhat familiar with Hillman's approach and general concepts.
Once I figured him out better, I nodded in recognition of what he was saying, if perhaps a bit giddy even to read his hints that maybe not everything we become is traceable via the family history. That truly scared me, and I was intrigued by his theory that the family history is not the whole story behind the story.
This was a relief for me, as I was hugely tormented by my FOO and the environment I was trapped in. In that way we're quite similar, Papa C. I debated even suggesting Hillman here, but for the help it ended up being for me to build that new perspective from, that I wasn't a sunken ship (albeit still badly damaged).
As you indicate, much of this path consists not only of recovering (if there is even much to re-cover), but of discovering the 'new world' we find once we feel safe enough to peek out from behind the boxed-in places we felt suffocated by in early years.
I just wanted to suggest Hillman as providing a slightly broader perspective to the many takes on how our old story lines developed and/or progressed.
I do applaud :applause: you for sharing your wonders about the 'why' conundrums that confound us. The good news is we did seem to have survived this setback called CPTSD and still have the energy to wonder what on earth happened. It's truly like coming out of episodes that leave one wondering if any sense can emerge from experiences that were so senseless in the first place.
Take care :hug:
Hi PC,
I do not envy you guys in the states for having to go through the holidays right now. There's a lot of stressful memories in there for me too. I think there's a holidays thread here somewhere or you can always check in if it gets too much.
I get what you're saying about not having anywhere to go except back to the family. Everything outside of that was squashed and any attempts at independence by me were met with suffocation. I felt like everyone else had an opinion or ideas about things and I had nothing inside. I moved continents and started going after the job I wanted and it felt like crashing and burning. That I was still constantly trying to measure up to their idea of me, or show them that I was ok, even though I knew the environment was toxic for me. It's still stuff I'm working through and is so deeply engrained I think.
I've started reading It Doesn't Start With You as I just finished something else and it's pretty fascinating stuff. Only 2% of our DNA is actually codable chromosomal DNA. The other 98% is non-coding DNA, what they used to call junk DNA which produce epigenetic tags that affect the gene expression. So, while the mother and father (and gm, gf, g gm and g gf - mind blown here) can pass on stress responses to the baby, these can be changed. They also prepare the baby with resiliency to these conditions. I'm still trying to get over how things will show up in families 30 years later, or how members will act out family member's roles if they were cut out of the family.
dolly
There's so much food for thought in this thread. It's fascinating and a little overwhelming.
Woodsgnome, I'm glad you recommended Hillman's book and I'm looking forward to reading it. I had a thought today; I've never done audiobooks, but I often have to drive for up to 3 hours at a time, so maybe I'll be that old dog who learns a new trick, and, rather than buy the paperback, maybe for this book I could join the 21st century and listen to it on one of my long, meditative drives.
I agree with you and Dolly both, that there's truth in the passing down of family history, but it's not the whole truth. I believe in physical predestination, given to us through our genetics, and, personal choice to take what we were given and turn it into something of our own choosing. The goal here is to try and gain a healthy sense of where one ends and the other begins. I have, too many times, seen the disappointment in those who've struggled to become something they just weren't wired to become. Also, I've seen the satisfaction in those who've become what their bodies and brains were designed to give them.
I'm on a mission to grasp both sides of this Nature/Nurture coin. I believe we are each unique because we are each the product of three intersecting realities: 1) What we were born to be, 2) what we were raised to be, and 3) what circumstances we have lived through. From there we have the responsibility to find our own happiness. The astronomically complex possible combinations of those three things allow for 7 billion unique human beings on one planet. The luckiest people are those who knew what they were prewired for, and then put forth the energy to follow their natural path to success. Like a Ferrari that learned to race and a Jeep that learned to climb mountain trails. Neither would succeed in the other's place. Those of us who try to become something our DNA can't support find a lifetime of struggle, often ending in soul-crushing disappointment. As a younger man I had a beautiful singing voice, (Like my mother's) but I had absolutely zero sense of rhythm, so I tried for two decades to become a singer, only to be crushed when the reality finally hit me that I could never do it. No matter how much coaching I received I was never able to maintain the proper rhythm in most songs. My goal now is to better understand where my genetic power starts and stops so I can take control of my strengths and move myself forward on the right pathway to my unique place of happiness. Like the old Serenity Prayer; I want the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage the change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Quote from: Papa Coco on November 28, 2021, 01:10:12 AM
I agree with you and Dolly both, that there's truth in the passing down of family history, but it's not the whole truth. I believe in physical predestination, given to us through our genetics, and, personal choice to take what we were given and turn it into something of our own choosing. The goal here is to try and gain a healthy sense of where one ends and the other begins. I have, too many times, seen the disappointment in those who've struggled to become something they just weren't wired to become. Also, I've seen the satisfaction in those who've become what their bodies and brains were designed to give them.
Hi PC,
I'm quoting the research done in Woylnn's book on epigenetics (around pg28) and the differences between chromasomal DNA and non-coding DNA. Interested to hear your thoughts when you get to it. We are wired by previous environmental stressors but these are also changeable ie there could be a genetic trait passed down but the factors need to be in place whether or not that gene is expressed. The research on reversing or altering that expression in the future is also interesting.
dolly
For what it's worth, audiobooks are helpful. I also have never really listened to them - I'm a visual learner. But I tried and failed to read Pete Walker's book at least 5 times. I'd get to about chapter 3 or 4, and then I was just too overwhelmed. So I got the audiobook version and listened to some of it. In that case, because I was getting like 10 - 25% of the content audibly that I would have gotten visually, it wasn't so overwhelming to me. So I was able to listen to the rest of the book, and then went back and read the book because it was no longer so scary. I knew what it said. It was a lifesaver to get me through the book and it took more than one pass, but it worked for me.
If you think about genetics from the simplest survival-of-the-fittest mechanism, it makes complete sense that stressors our ancestors had would be expressed in our genes. Addiction comes to mind. Maybe that's why addiction runs in families. Over the generations, we've found peace from EF's and whatever else in an addiction of choice, and it codified into our DNA. Now, it's not helpful anymore, and so we (or at least me) have to fight against it, but that's why it's so hard. Because it's literally written into my DNA. Just a thought.