"A lot of people don't tend to understand that intergenerational trauma, unless those patterns are changed, the patterns tend to continue. Her studies on Holocaust survivors revealed that their children were more likely to struggle emotionally than kids whose parents hadn't experienced genocide. This is called generational, or intergenerational, trauma.Īlso dubbed transgenerational trauma or multigenerational trauma, the concept of intergenerational trauma was pioneered by Vivian Rakoff in the 1960s. Your trauma can take a toll on others, too - in particular, your children, grandchildren, and other generations that follow. Self-care is community care, and the degree to which we give ourselves time and attention determines our ability to help advocate for others, too.A traumatic event is terrible in the moment, but as anyone who has experienced trauma knows, it doesn't stop there: The emotional and physical ramifications last for weeks, months, and even years.īut it's not just you. It requires a lot of strength to do this, but it’s well worth the fight. It doesn’t matter who’s impeding your growth - you have to ignore those who impose limitations on your potential. This is an issue I seek to resolve by empowering others.Īs soon as I learned to ignore those who were harming more than helping, I learned to set boundaries and prioritize my mental health first. At least, that’s what I was raised to believe by those around me.īut I now understand that there will always be people, including family, who can’t face their own emotional blockages due to unaddressed trauma. I used to think self-care was selfish - that it was egoistic to care about yourself. I live freely and in pursuit of creating a world that will allow diverse communities of color to flourish, recognize their power, and live life in control. Today, as an adult and an activist, I practice self-care as a revolutionary act. Radical forms of self-care as community care It wasn’t until I recognized how toxic, unstable, and uncertain my lived experience as a Latinx person was when I started to dig into the cause of why I’d always felt so anxious, neglected, and misunderstood. For quite some time, I felt alone and lost every sense of trust with others. I sat by, just waiting for the depression to eventually pass. Still, I questioned my existence, not knowing who I was or who I would become. I did all of this to address the anxiety that stemmed from my mom battling cancer and going through years of chemotherapy, my father constantly overworking (and even leaving in pursuit of it), and all the other challenges that came up during those years. In high school, I became an avid runner - cross-country in the fall, track and field in the spring - and started working out. Luckily, I found my outlet through exercise and became diligent in preserving my physical health. I had no choice but to find other methods of therapy. Navigating therapy as a low-income woman of colorĭue to our socio-economic status, I never had health insurance, so seeking professional help was entirely out of the question.Īt school, I wasn’t afforded the resources to properly address my mental health because of the impoverished, underserved community I grew up within. I’ve seen folks around me suppressing their emotions due to traditional beliefs around machismo (a toxic “hustle mentality” around work), emotionally consuming familial practices, and, most significantly, not having the resources to properly address them. Nonetheless, I understood that I was, in fact, depressed, and I’d have to figure out how to overcome it alone.įor many traditional Latinx folks, mental health issues simply don’t exist. I couldn’t thoroughly express my concern for my state of mind without being invalidated. Growing up in a traditional Latinx household with a Mexican mom and a Guatemalan dad, my emotional well-being was often challenged by my family’s cultural notions around mental health. I felt powerless to take control of my life or overlook my circumstances. Many of my mental health symptoms were rooted in trauma I experienced growing up in a low-income community and the effects that come with it: experiencing housing insecurity, confronting scarcity on a daily basis, constantly worrying about money. The role of generational trauma and cultural stigma
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