Repressed emotions will only come back to haunt us later on. We don’t get a chance to process the emotions, and we may temporarily push them aside, but that doesn't mean they disappear. When we avoid dealing with things, we end up perpetuating unhelpful patterns of behavior, propelling us into a cycle of repeating our trauma. 

I've been in therapy for the past 18 months, and I can unquestionably say that I’m probably not even halfway through my therapeutic journey. I went into the process thinking I would be in it for six months, tops—cut to three ‘six-months’ later, and I'm still working on rewiring the patterns of thinking that I've carried with me for the past 21 years of my life. It hasn’t been without progress, though: I’ve learned a lot about my own trauma-inflicted behavior—why I respond to certain triggers the way I do, including my need for order and organization, which stems from unstable parental figures in my childhood (i.e. the passing of my dad when I was only 5 years old)—and can better understand why the people around me react the way they do, too. This includes friends, but more close to home, it includes parents. 

Communicating my emotions has always been difficult for me, and in the past I would often avoid those conversations entirely if I could help it. I always thought of myself as “more of a listener,” when really I just couldn’t put my thoughts and feelings into words. This makes sense to me now, as my therapist and I have gotten to the root of where this habit comes from: communication in my family has never been our strong point. Over this past summer, my therapist encouraged me to open a line of communication with my mom, which included asking questions about my deceased dad. I went home for a couple of weeks at the end of July, and my grandparents surprised me with a visit at the same time. I began the conversation with my mom by asking basic questions about my dad, like how they met and the dates they went on, which, as my confidence grew, led me to ask my grandma questions about her young adulthood in an attempt to better understand how she was raised, and in turn how my mom was raised. 

My grandma, born in Japan, opened up to me about how it’s uncommon in Japanese families for there to be much dialogue. Children don’t express their feelings, or rather, aren’t given an open space to do so. In her own experience, she said she wasn't encouraged to voice her discomforts or opinions to her father, her main caregiver. I reflected on how this was the first time I had an honest and engaged conversation with my grandma—something I can acknowledge I have taken for granted in not having more of these conversations—as well as how it explained the lack of dialogue between her and my mom, and my mom and myself. In our family’s case, my grandma wasn’t encouraged to communicate in her childhood, which influenced the way she brought up my mom, which then influenced how I was raised. It’s this cycle of lack of communication in each of our childhoods that has perpetuated through generations.  

Generational trauma usually begins with an adverse childhood experience, but, of course, trauma can be experienced at any age. The person’s experiences as a child then impact their decisions as an adult. For example, many children of parents who lived through the Great Depression were taught to stockpile food and resources and prepare for crises. 

Most of what we learn about behavior and communication comes from what we see modeled for us by our parents and caregivers. If your parents frequently talked about their feelings or encouraged you to share how experiences made you feel without judgment, in addition to other helpful communication patterns, then you most likely are comfortable expressing your emotions as an adult. Alternatively, it might be harder for someone to connect with their feelings or express them in a helpful way if their parents rarely talked about their feelings or shamed the expression of emotions. We carry all of our early lessons from childhood into adulthood. 

We aren't the only ones holding onto repressed trauma: if there is anyone that could use therapy, it's our parents, whose behaviors in raising us and interacting with us are clear indicators of how they were raised and what behaviors they repeat. Just like how my grandmother was raised to not communicate her feelings, so was my mom, and so was I. It has been a snowball effect of sorts, whether it was conscious or subconscious. 

Many people reenact their trauma unconsciously. We end up repeating these actions and modes of communicating in our interpersonal relationships based on what was modeled for us growing up. There is familiarity, and, ironically, comfort, in these behaviors. We often imitate the behavior of our parents and perpetuate it further when we have children, as well. 

Our mental and physical health are so intertwined, and if there’s one reason to encourage you or your parents to go to therapy, it’s for their health. Repressed emotions can lead to health problems, including depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, digestive problems, infections, and low energy, to name a few. Our bodies are vessels, and they carry all of our stressors. While communicating, stretching, exercising, and meditating are all helpful ways to manage your health, the best way to learn to take charge of your emotions is to see a licensed therapist, where they can help you understand and manage your emotions. Healing isn’t linear—it can look different for a lot of people. It might take 18 months, or, for me, longer, and there is a lot of learning and unlearning. Breaking the cycles of generational trauma takes work, but it’s not impossible—just time-consuming.