Time does NOT Heal Wounds and It Certainly doesn't Heal Trauma
Time does NOT heal wounds and it certainly doesn't heal trauma.
In fact with time trauma can be passed down from generation to generation and start to shape the family and the way people relate to each other in families.
It can destroy families.
Growing up in my maternal family, I was baffled by how family members would be highly educated but carry so much pain and have tantrums that beat mine (as a teen) by a mile.
Why was I often more rational than the adults around me who responded to everything with anger/tantrums?
I was confused by how people were so grown and educated and would still cry over things that happened when they were 10.
I would see my mom bring up things that happened to her as a teen and shout at my grandmother about them. Time had not erased that pain.
I saw how my cousins refused to move out of home as grown men and would stay home and demand to be mothered like small children.
I swore never to be like them but in my early twenties I found myself doing the same - crying every night about the things that I experienced in my teens and crying that my parents were not supporting me financially.
I would call my mom and confront her and blame her for things that happened when I was 10. The pain was so real, soo visceral, it was like it was happening in that moment.
And because I was in pain, a 20 something-year-old-me would be calm for a few days but when I encountered any challenges I would react in anger and self destruction, much the same way as teen me did.
I would call home and blame my mom and remind her of all the verbal, emotional and physical abuse, waiting for an apology that never came.
I didn't understand why I was repeating the same patterns. I mean I was practicing positive thinking and affirming and visualizing and sending love and light.
But all that positivity only lasted as long as things were good, when things went bad I would be back at square one and sometimes feel even worse.
I didn't understand it then but I do now - I, just like everyone in my maternal family, was stuck in a time loop and was being hijacked by the wounded parts of me, not to mention the wounded ancestral parts of me.
Those parts of me were reacting in the way that a child or teen would react, so actually my 4 year old or 16 year old self was running my life.
Ever felt like you are having an outer body experience when you are triggered and find yourself reacting in a wild way but can't seem to stop it?
That’s what it looks like to be hijacked by one of your sub personalities.
Time can actually make wounds worse
Most of us believe that a wounded/hurt child or teen will grow out of their bad behavior.
We get hurt when that child turns into an unruly, angry or resentful adult. When they never show up for family functions, when they destroy everything we try to build or when they refuse to take responsibility for their lives.
We ourselves are shocked/frustrated/ashamed when we keep repeating the same patterns constantly and make ourselves wrong and focus so much attention on hiding these patterns.
Time and growing old will not heal trauma, what it will do is solidify our coping mechanisms with such trauma so that it looks like our personality or it looks like a family trait.
That wounded adult (and even us) goes on to have kids and takes that same behavior into their relationship with their children but now it can be even worse because the trauma reaction is seen as a personality default and so people tolerate that behavior from the adult.
Worse, in our generation we have learned how to spiritual/healing bypass so much of our stuff so we don't even want to acknowledge our ish because of the "high vibe".
But the children have to deal with this parent and get new layers of trauma and they go on to have kids who then get new layers of trauma until eventually one child feels it all and they show us flames.
I was that child in my family but I can see how so many of the kids being born now are those kids so the cracks are starting to show in the family and family units break apart.
And no, our education and Western ways will not save us from generational trauma and the impacts of not healing it.
My mom's family didn't survive, but I see how in time as I heal, they are also coming to the party.
Trauma keeps us in a loop because the parts of us that are experiencing the trauma are stuck in time, in various traumatic experiences and trying to survive those experiences.
Again - trauma is not a big event, it is simply an event that happened too fast or was too overwhelming to process and integrate. It is also an event that left us feeling powerless.
To a little child being shouted at in a store may be super traumatic but for an adult that's just Tuesday, so we move on, but to a child that can stay with them and can become a core memory and a trigger as an adult.
Trauma is subjective and different for different people
Growing older and learning new skills and affirmations doesn't negate the fact that these parts of us are stuck in trauma and that they are still hurting.
Those parts don't care, they don't know you have grown up, they just know that whatever changes grown up you are making are not safe and they will rebel and fight you.
And sometimes this will/does feel like higher grade witchcraft.
Trust me, I know!
I will keep saying this: either we heal our trauma or the next generation feels it all.
