Poll Transgenerational Trauma

[Deleted member 12723]

I come from a very long line of abusers and I was the only one out of my four sibs that broke the cycle of abuse in my family. I survived the best out of all of them. I went and got good help and suffered the bad effects of PTSD all of my life.

I am finally in a much better place feeling and doing better and managing my symptoms.

 

[rightkindofme]

My too, gizmo. All three of my siblings either passed on abuse or killed themselves. I'm only six years in but I'm doing pretty well so far.

 

[greenleaf]

The statistics go: most people who are abusers were abused, BUT most people who were abused *do not* go on to become abusers. So in a way, maybe almost all abuse is transgenerational.

Explanation is not an excuse! @Lucycat, the adults who abused us were responsible for their actions. Even if a minor abused us, we have the perfect right to be angry... it's a tricky thing, "explanation" vs. "responsibility"... The question of whether someone who turns to abusiveness as a "solution" for dealing with being abused themselves, had a "choice", is really hard and gets at all sorts of brain/mind things that no one seems to really understand anyway.

Luckily, we don't have to answer it, we still have the right to be angry at what happened to us, and heal ourselves, and perhaps healing ourselves will help more than ourselves. :hug::hug::hug:

 

[Justmehere]

I come from 4 generations of trauma, on both my mother's and father's side of the family. My therapist looks stunned sometimes when I share the family history.

I am finally the one to get help and break the cycle!

 

[Nighthawk]

@Lucycat

I was not aiming to see if people who abuse become abusers.

My fathers trauma was from pre and post world war 2. I seem to be the one in the family affected with the paranoia and issues he carried through his life. Umongst other things in my family.

 

[Whirlwind]

Been there, done that got the t-shirt. I want my money back

Yeah, I get that people back in the day may have been limited but ..... some people I look back on I realize they abandoned us, they could have doen something even if just offer an ear, a glimpse of a different future.

I want to go and cry in a corner

Hugs.

My mother was sexually abused as a child and suffered agoraphobia and panic attacks

Interesting - mine was similar add severe anorexia, mental illness addictions. Her life was a nightmare frankly.

I deeply fear becoming even a percent of her.

 

[suzisavage]

My mother was molested by an uncle although she downplayed it. I was molested well brutally raped by a step-father when I was 7, who severely abused my mother most, and myself and my half-brother. I married a man who was raped by an uncle and said to have been molested by his mother. We later separated, after we had a son together. After a short vacation with his father he told me he was sexually abused by one of two people, then promptly blocked it out of memory. My only son at age 20, abused a boy who was 7 at the time. He is now serving a life sentence. His here-to-fore absent father turned out to have been in prison for 8 years for molesting two pre-teen girls. His two sisters were likewise abused, and married sexual abusers.
This makes me want to scream, cry and vomit at the same time. Yes it's generational and perhaps it is what the bible calls a generational curse.

 

[Changing4Best]

Yes, both myself and my cousin were raped by folks in our families, same bloodline. Also, I strongly suspect that my abuser as well abused my sister and my mother. My mother was not his child either, he was my father's father. After my mother was placed in a mental hospital due to post partem psychosis, when she was released, she rescued me from him, as my father did nothing to do so. I think he was molested by his father too, so he just thought it was "normal". I know that there is a lot of "I think" in this and no proof, no actual prosecution or anything, because it was all hush hush. However, when I was in my 30s, I asked my parents if they knew anything about what my grandfather had done to me and my father immediately said, without missing a beat, that it was past the statute of limitations! I wasn't even thinking that he had anything to do with it, but when he said that, I definitely got the impression that he did know and had done nothing to protect me from his father. I assume it was my mother that convinced him that it was not OK.

 

[void]

it is sadly common

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I said no, as it didn't seem to fit with what JoeyLittle described.

Just a lot of dysfunction all around. Alcohol issues, but on different sides.