Trauma Births Trauma 1

Part One: What We Carry Forward

“Trauma births trauma.”

Those words came to me while I was in the shower. And as I thought about them, I began thinking about the things we inherit that never appear in a family photograph.

The instructions.
The silences.
The ways we learn to love—and the ways we learn to protect ourselves from needing it.

Then I thought about my own.

Be strong.
Depend on yourself.
Be willing to help others.
Keep your head up.

But don’t let people in.

There is strength in some of those lessons. They can teach you how to keep going, how to take responsibility, how to show up when someone needs you.

But what happens when you know how to help everyone else and struggle to let anyone help you?

What happens when keeping your head up becomes the only response you allow yourself, even when you are tired?

I began wondering how much of what I call independence is a choice—and how much is something I learned before I understood there could be another way.

Sometimes we say, “I will never be like my mother.”

We mean it. We remember what hurt. We make promises about the kind of home we will create and the kind of love we will give.

Then a difficult moment comes.

Someone questions us. Someone needs more than we feel able to give. Someone tells us we hurt them.

And we hear something familiar in our own response.

Perhaps we withdraw. Perhaps we raise our voice. Perhaps we begin explaining everything we sacrificed before we have listened to what the other person is trying to say.

That moment can be uncomfortable. It asks us to examine ourselves after spending years believing the problem belonged entirely to the generation before us.

Sometimes we repeat what we recognize before we understand what it cost us.

When I say “trauma births trauma,” I am thinking about how unresolved pain can reach beyond the person who first experienced it. A child may learn to stay quiet because speaking honestly brings conflict. Another may learn that needing comfort is a burden. Someone may grow up believing that love must be earned by being useful.

Those lessons can travel with us.

They can enter our friendships, our relationships, and the homes we build. We may find ourselves wanting closeness while keeping people at a distance, or longing to be understood while struggling to explain what we need.

But being wounded does not mean we are destined to wound others. There is room to notice. There is room to learn. There is room to choose differently, even when that choice takes practice.

For me, one of the questions is trust.

“Can you catch me if I fall?”

Can I let you see me before I have gathered myself together? Can I admit that I do not have an answer? Can I receive care without feeling that I have surrendered something essential about who I am?

And am I willing to give someone the opportunity to show me?

Because sometimes I ask whether people will be there for me while making very little room for them to get close.

That is something I have to examine honestly.

It is easier to recognize a pattern in someone else’s family. It takes a different kind of courage to ask how it lives in our own behavior.

We can begin with the messages we carry.

What did I learn happened when someone cried?
What did an apology sound like in my home?
Could we disagree and still feel loved?
Who was allowed to need help?
What happened when someone said, “You hurt me”?

There may be love in those memories. There may also be pain. Both deserve honesty.

Our parents and grandparents lived within circumstances we may never fully understand. Some had very little support. Some were taught to endure everything quietly. Some gave what they knew how to give while carrying hurts they never had the opportunity to name.

Understanding that can make room for compassion.

It can also leave room to say, “This hurt me, and I do not want to keep repeating it.”

We do not have to erase their sacrifices to acknowledge our experience. And we do not have to defend every choice they made in order to love them.

The same is true when someone speaks to us about pain we caused.

“I did the best I could” may be honest. But can we stay in the conversation long enough to hear what our best felt like to them?

Can we say, “I’m sorry”?

Can we make a change they can experience?

Healing asks something of us. Prayer can give us a place to speak honestly before God. Therapy can offer support as we examine painful experiences and familiar responses. A trusted conversation may help us name something we have carried alone.

And speaking can take time. Sometimes the first honest sentence is simply, “I don’t know how to talk about this yet.”

We can begin there.

We learned to cover the wound so well that we mistook being hidden for being healed. Now we have an opportunity to give what hurts some careful attention—and to seek support that helps us do so safely.

I think about what I want to carry forward.

I want strength that leaves room for rest.
Love that can listen.
An apology that does not arrive with a demand to forget.
Help that I am willing to receive as well as give.

I want the people I love to know they can tell me the truth, even when it is difficult for me to hear.

I will not do all of that perfectly. But I can take responsibility when I fall short. I can return to a conversation. I can practice a different response.

The words came to me in the shower, but the question followed me out:

What have I inherited—and what am I choosing to pass on?

That is where this journey begins.

With enough honesty to examine what we carry.

And enough hope to believe we can learn another way.

— Valrelyn Heard

What did you learn about love, strength, or trust growing up—and which of those lessons are you reconsidering today?