About a year ago we were contacted by Pam via Ancestry.com about my paternal grandmother and her parents. She had found a poem written by her great-great-grandmother about the evils of alcohol specifically in regards to my drunken great grandfather murdering my great grandmother, and leaving my beloved grandmother and her siblings motherless. Pam additionally forwarded the dates for several newspaper articles about the murder, the trial, and tidbits of my ancestors' lives.
One of the things that struck me was the similarity to my own parents' relationship. Now bear in mind my grandmother never spoke of the murder of her mother; instead she had told everyone that her parents were too poor to support the children so they gave them up for adoption, not that mom was dead, dad was in prison, and they all went to the "Poor Farm" until they could be adopted out for farm labor. My father like his grandfather was an alcoholic, who happened to be obsessed with the idea that any man who came around was going to take his wife, AND they both threatened death by bullet; only my great grandfather went through with it fortunately.
Anyway, all of this got me thinking about generational trauma. The traumas that get passed from generation to generation; sometimes via repetitive patterns, but sometimes by something that get passed through DNA. Although today's blog isn't about this particular story, it is what has gotten me thinking about Generational Trauma (but, there will be more to come on grandma). Instead today's trip into my meanderings is was inspired by a meme I saw last night: "Mama Bear is such a sweet way to describe the fact that I'd tear you open and eat your insides if you hurt my child (the mom life uncensored)."
I've heard the term "mama bear" my whole life, but I never had thought about it that way; like mama is a BEAR who will kick you ass if you fuck with her child, not "oh, mama is a cute teddy bear" or whatever. This idea of a mom who would kick someone's ass if they hurt me is quite a foreign concept to me. In contrast, my mom is, well...not a mama bear. The generational piece of this is that my own mother's mom was definitely not a mama bear. Mom's mom Grace (for those who know me, "HA!") said that her mother abandoned her when she was a child, although she reported that her mother "went back to the Cherokee reservation"...but I just took a DNA test, and guess what, that's a hundred percent bull=shit, so I don't know how much truth there is to her being abandoned, but considering how she treated her children, it's not a hard sell.
So, Grace was probably never nurtured, and she birthed a bunch of children who she likewise did not nurture, nor protect, and was only the kind of bear who would eat her own offspring. Then her children, particularly the women, grew up with scars of their own to pass down to their own children. Now I won't say that my mom would eat her own young, but in her own way I think she tried to be nurturing...I think she at least wanted children, if only so that someone would love her.
Generational Trauma (or Transgenerational Trauma) manifested in mental illness, poor coping skills and poor life skills, and repeating patterns of dysfunction. I see other's in my family breaking these patterns, and others dousing themselves with gasoline and running into the burning house. I have never had the desire to have children, so I won't be sending the curse any further down the line. I've spent about 25 years in therapy trying to recover from my own traumas, and each time I start to untaggle a knot I see that it has a leader thread back to GT. Most notably the fact that my mother was not a mother bear. She did not protect me, she put me in situations as a minor that put me at great risk and often resulted in further trauma, and she did not acknowledge my trauma (because she was always so focused on her own), and since she couldn't acknowledge it she certainly couldn't be an ally, a nurtured, or a healer.
As I ponder this term I realize I know Mama Bears, most notably my friend Mona...who has in fact used that term, but again until last night I didn't get the full meaning. And she is 100% rip your guts out mama bear, and I love that about her. My grandmother (the one who worried about about who would give the baby her bottle when her father murdered her mother, per the poem) was a mama bear for me, and I don't think I would have withstood the storm that was my upbringing without the anchoring in love that she blessed me with in the short time I had her in my life. So, to all of the Mama Bears out there, especially those who didn't have a mama bear who modeled the behavior to them, I salute you!
One of the things that struck me was the similarity to my own parents' relationship. Now bear in mind my grandmother never spoke of the murder of her mother; instead she had told everyone that her parents were too poor to support the children so they gave them up for adoption, not that mom was dead, dad was in prison, and they all went to the "Poor Farm" until they could be adopted out for farm labor. My father like his grandfather was an alcoholic, who happened to be obsessed with the idea that any man who came around was going to take his wife, AND they both threatened death by bullet; only my great grandfather went through with it fortunately.
Anyway, all of this got me thinking about generational trauma. The traumas that get passed from generation to generation; sometimes via repetitive patterns, but sometimes by something that get passed through DNA. Although today's blog isn't about this particular story, it is what has gotten me thinking about Generational Trauma (but, there will be more to come on grandma). Instead today's trip into my meanderings is was inspired by a meme I saw last night: "Mama Bear is such a sweet way to describe the fact that I'd tear you open and eat your insides if you hurt my child (the mom life uncensored)."
I've heard the term "mama bear" my whole life, but I never had thought about it that way; like mama is a BEAR who will kick you ass if you fuck with her child, not "oh, mama is a cute teddy bear" or whatever. This idea of a mom who would kick someone's ass if they hurt me is quite a foreign concept to me. In contrast, my mom is, well...not a mama bear. The generational piece of this is that my own mother's mom was definitely not a mama bear. Mom's mom Grace (for those who know me, "HA!") said that her mother abandoned her when she was a child, although she reported that her mother "went back to the Cherokee reservation"...but I just took a DNA test, and guess what, that's a hundred percent bull=shit, so I don't know how much truth there is to her being abandoned, but considering how she treated her children, it's not a hard sell.
So, Grace was probably never nurtured, and she birthed a bunch of children who she likewise did not nurture, nor protect, and was only the kind of bear who would eat her own offspring. Then her children, particularly the women, grew up with scars of their own to pass down to their own children. Now I won't say that my mom would eat her own young, but in her own way I think she tried to be nurturing...I think she at least wanted children, if only so that someone would love her.
Generational Trauma (or Transgenerational Trauma) manifested in mental illness, poor coping skills and poor life skills, and repeating patterns of dysfunction. I see other's in my family breaking these patterns, and others dousing themselves with gasoline and running into the burning house. I have never had the desire to have children, so I won't be sending the curse any further down the line. I've spent about 25 years in therapy trying to recover from my own traumas, and each time I start to untaggle a knot I see that it has a leader thread back to GT. Most notably the fact that my mother was not a mother bear. She did not protect me, she put me in situations as a minor that put me at great risk and often resulted in further trauma, and she did not acknowledge my trauma (because she was always so focused on her own), and since she couldn't acknowledge it she certainly couldn't be an ally, a nurtured, or a healer.
As I ponder this term I realize I know Mama Bears, most notably my friend Mona...who has in fact used that term, but again until last night I didn't get the full meaning. And she is 100% rip your guts out mama bear, and I love that about her. My grandmother (the one who worried about about who would give the baby her bottle when her father murdered her mother, per the poem) was a mama bear for me, and I don't think I would have withstood the storm that was my upbringing without the anchoring in love that she blessed me with in the short time I had her in my life. So, to all of the Mama Bears out there, especially those who didn't have a mama bear who modeled the behavior to them, I salute you!
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