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Hurt People Will Hurt People. But Healed People Heal People, Too.
What happens when parents manage their own trauma and focus on themselves
I never imagined my first few weeks of graduate school would feel like a sucker punch to the gut. Not because my paper-writing skills are lackluster or my teachers are awful — I’m getting good grades and I think of my instructors as wise, endearing, quirky aunts.
I’m in a Master of Social Work program, and during each class, in some way, it all comes back to trauma. We discuss trauma at length — the ways it shapes how we grow, act, think, and feel as humans. Trauma is the hammer to our nail. Sometimes it hits us just right so we learn something helpful, grow from it, and connect one important thing to another. Other times trauma hits us at an edge, or pokes us sideways, and we become bent out of shape and barely useful. And sometimes, trauma breaks us completely.
There’s no getting away from trauma; it happens to everyone. And there’s no getting around the fact that our original caretakers are responsible for our first, most significant experiences with trauma.
This is why I’ve felt defensive in some of my classes. This is why my foot is tapping under the desk. This is why I’ve taken a break from my weekly readings to cry.
I am someone’s original caretaker. As a mother, I care for humans who will model themselves after me, try to do everything in their power to be the opposite of me, and perhaps one day go to therapy because of me.
I am responsible for these two, innocent humans and their first experiences with trauma. And that is a tremendous weight to bear.
I was the one responsible for the chemicals and nutrients that entered their tiny brains in utero. I was the one holding them when they screamed at 2 a.m. while I frantically searched for lost pacifiers under their cribs. I am also the one who makes their breakfast, and has a once-per-month breakdown when they have to be asked four times to come to the bleepity-bleep table.
I am responsible for these two innocent humans, and their first experiences with trauma. And that is a…
