Can Trauma Be Inherited? — Or Is It Invisible?

Look at the hibiscus above. The flower is still attached to the stem, tree, and its root, but is rotting. Everything else around it seems to be fine. I can see this trauma and where it’s coming from. Did this plant inherit its trauma?

Where does our childhood trauma come from?

99.99% of children I know are living with some kind of childhood trauma. The same for the adults. I swear. My world is cruel and unforgiving, and to survive, you must be both. I know because I know life, and I feel all of its pain, yours too.

Trauma takes us right into adulthood, is allowed to grow, bear fruit, be shared, and continue for generations, destroying lives, hopes, and futures in the process.

As a volunteer teacher’s aide, I listen to and see trauma played out in these children’s actions, choices, and decisions. It’s played out in their behavior, attitude, and school performance. How do they think, too? They are drawn to me and tell me things they don’t tell any adult.

I go back to their age, think and act like them, so they open up, and what comes out will tear your heart apart.

Yes, I can go back to any age I want to understand your pain and life. I can go forward too.

An eleven-year-old said that because her mother refused to go back to her cruel father, he refused to support her and her sister. He tells her to go drown herself when she asks him for lunch money for school. When they go where he is, he doesn’t feed them. She is tiny and underweight, and she is always tired and sleepy when she comes to school. Many times she can’t remember what was taught in class yesterday. Her mom is struggling to find food and other things for her and her sister, so she brings candy to sell to friends at school to help ease her mom’s financial burden.

This eleven-year old can see and feel her mother’s pain. Isn’t this just bbbeeeaaauuutttiiifffuuulll?

Do you have any idea what this does to a heart that cares! This is the beginning of childhood trauma for her generation. She said that, because of what her father is doing to her Mom, she doesn’t want to have any children and will remain single.

This child is feeling and seeing all of her pain. She is only eleven. How many 11-year-olds are thinking like this? I am smart, but I wasn’t thinking like this at her age, and my life was hell before I was eleven years old.

I volunteered for five years, seven years ago, and realized that these children were raising themselves and had more problems than Trump did. I swear. The trauma passed down destroys everything these children want, need, and hope for.

It’s not invisible because it’s alive and playing out in the lives of all its victims and survivors. Yes, it’s unconsciously inherited. Humanity must find a way to halt childhood trauma. We must put an end to the pain these children are enduring, which is destroying their lives and future.

I am still in a state of shock. How could a father tell his child to go drown herself?

Isn’t he aware that he is igniting pain that might never let go for generations?

How can an eleven-year-old child feel her mother’s suffering?

She sees and worries a lot about her Mom and what she is going through. My eyes are filled with tears as I write this. This is not something children should be carrying around. Children are hurting in our world, and it must stop! Now!

Please, for the sake of a child, add something positive to our world every day. Every chance you get.

Thank you for reading this piece.