29/03/2024
Mother’s Day
And multigenerational trauma
I was a runaway at age 16. Pregnant at 17. My relationship with my mother heavily strained and estranged. Molested as a 12 yr old child, r***d for my First time at 13. Heavily traumatized with childhood trauma, sexual abuse and then assault. I was married to my domestically violent husband by age 18. I had two more children in my marriage. My marriage lasted 12 almost 13 years. I obtained á confidential address through the Women’s center, and moved several towns over from my marital home address.
We tried marital counseling, and I recall my exhusband threatening the counselor and pinning her in the office in her seat as he verbally assaulted her. The courts did not help me at all. Domestic Violence services were minimal. Meanwhile I tried to put myself through grad school, and eventually I lost my home- and graduated homeless, living from my car.
My children were placed with their abusive father. He was officer, and a Freemason, as was his lawyer, and the judge for whom he literally worked for, in the exact courtroom of our divorce. I asked for recusal and was denied.
DCP&P/CPS was absolutely no help. Our custody evaluation completed by a white, PHd in Education. He slandered my Ancestry, my Tribe, and my indigeneity. The records of this are sequestered.
Plagued by the removal of my children, who were placed with their and my abuser, multigenerational trauma impacted me. Suicidality, Complex PTSD, and left with absolutely 0 supports.
Parental alienation was the entire theme of my divorce. I was the primary caretaker of the children. My husband was in the military, then worked for the county, then the state. He went away through several boot camps throughout the years. He became more and more abusive.
I homeschooled my children for many years. I was an at home mom for the duration of my marriage. I had little to no primary supports. The abuse by my husband was emotional, verbal, physical, and sexual.
My family feared his employment status and retaliation. They did not help me. Just like the cops who would come to the DV calls, absolutely apathetic to my situation.
After the children were removed, I lost my will to live. I succumbed to homelessness, dependent living conditions thereafter, and basically ended up in the ghetto barely able to support myself with fulltime work and fulltime grad school, of which I maintained Presidential Recognition and high honors while working in the Restaurant Industry in which I was climbing into management positions in, and yet, my depression, anxiety, and panic disorder were at an all time high.
I was betrayed by my sister who assisted my exhusband to devastate me. I was isolated from the rest of my family through his and hers manipulation of my family. I had severe depression and anxiety and panic disorder all for which I have been treated for since I was around 18 yrs and had insurance to do so. The treatment was through my primary care doctors. I reacted terribly to many medications, I have a long list of allergies to medications. Antidepressants made me more suicidal and the suicidality was pervasive and persistent.
Three days after my childhood r**e, I told my mother I was r***d. As a trauma victim herself, her reaction was less than logical and did not include a medical evaluation with a r**e kit or treatment. I tried to commit su***de. I took every pill I could find in my mother’s house. It didn’t kill me. Only made me unconscious and the need to get my stomach pumped. The hospital pumped my stomach, and sent me home.
My dad sought treatment for me but trauma informed care was not a thing then. I was not treated for trauma. I was misdiagnosed and sadly diagnosed with a highly controversial disorder, that is illegal to make today in contemporary society. This had severe consequences on my family dynamics. I was then treated as if I had no emotions thereafter by my Mother. I had severe attachment issues during my whole childhood and it persisted worse through my adolescence.
I was very smart and excelled scholastically, and later in life I was diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum after maintaining excellent grades in high performance enrichment classes. I was offered the opportunity to skip grades in school due to my scores on educational assessments. My parents left that up to me to decide, and I didn’t want to leave my peers and end up in one of my older sister’s classes, so I stayed in my grade. I progressed to 11th grade when I dropped out and got my GED. They called me “Hippie,” “Trouble,” and “the Kid,” throughout high school. I was definitely not in Gpop (general population) as an adolescent, and presented as a Punk Rock girl, getting tattoos, with an Alternative appearance, with much older friends which gave to much more exposure.
Becoming a Mother was everything to me after all, I was raised to be a wife and a mother. My obsession with Dolls and Playing house my entire childhood, became a quick reality. My eldest son, and my two boys from my marriage to my husband, all spanned from pregnant at 16 birth by 17, then when my eldest was 2, I had my middle son, and 2 yrs after that my youngest baby was born. All of this occurred by age 23 yrs. At this age I was sterilized, in conjunction with my husband’s wishes despite crying in the hospital about not wanting it at all.
Meanwhile, none of the treatment I received took into account the multigenerational trauma, my acute and complex stress, my mental health conditions, and my being a woman in transition from a dependent relationship with my abuser.
The trauma I was exposed to, perpetuated further dysfunction, estranged and traumatized both up a generation and down a generation for everyone involved.
My great grandmother experienced an attempt to traffick her. She burnt the house down of her abuser. My grandmother was 1 of 9 children from the San Juan Mission Juaneño Tribe or as we say, the Acjachemem Nation with her grandparents being from Gabrieleño, Digueño, Yaqui, and Sonoran in descent. Her uncle was the last acting Chief Clarence Lobo. Her great grandfather’s father is considered one of the founders of Los Angeles.
Trauma pervasively impacted every generation which all were affected by mental health, substance abuse, and the families all lacked generational wealth and land ownership. My grandmother leaving the west coast left her Indian Health Services (IHS) but did have her military husband’s benefits. Her children did not have access to IHS.
The trauma I endured, of which the worst in my opinion was the children removal, and being left with no supports made me highly suicidal, and drained joy and happiness completely out of my life. The acute stress of going through it left me highly traumatized, with no judicial recourse after being threatened financially by the court. The whole adult employment process of which I was basically in abject poverty, contributed to very unsafe conditions in my life and left me highly vulnerable in the community, in which I was subject to many other highly traumatic experiences and situations pretty much continuously throughout the years. All of this resulted in physical health problems. I scored a 9 on the ACE’s study for Adverse Childhood Experiences.
This is what Multi-and Inter generational trauma looks like. This is what it feels like. All of the Trauma between members of the family, trigger with interaction, damaging relationships both up and
down generational bridges. I’d like to say that it stops with me but I can’t because of how traumatizing it was for my kids to grow and develop with high exposure to crazy levels of violence against me. Likewise to my mother and her mother, and her mother before her.
The worst part of it is that my reality, is consistently rejected by those around me. It’s too painful for people to hear. I literally cannot tell my story without freaking people out, making it continuously a lonely experience.
Friends worry if I talk about it, lovers don’t want to hear it, and people in general don’t know how to take it or what to say to me if I simply acknowledge it, let alone try and talk about it.
It’s just facts.
Trauma repetition is when trauma repeats. Trauma anniversaries, such as Mother’s Day is for me, can be triggering and cause re-experiencing, and other PTSD symp
toms. There are some promising interventions for trauma. It needs to be culturally responsible.
I planned this writing activity, of this narrative, to express emotions I otherwise would not have the chance to express. It’s my ceremonial offering to the sacred fire. To try and hold something so big would be a burden and maybe, just maybe, it’s not all mine to carry.
My experience and my expression entwined emphatically in an embrace. A gift of the present leads me back to now. Mindfulness, Intention. Ceremony. Cedar for my Ancestors, Sage for me. A time of Cleansing.
This isn’t intended to hurt anyone. It’s just what happened. If I can’t talk about what happened to me, then I can’t answer to the trauma informed approach question of “What happened?” as in what happened to traumatize you?
A bunch of unwilling participants are as culpable as willing participants to become someone else’s experience. You can’t change what happened to you, only how you respond to it, not to how you react to it.
To be thrust into Silence. When I’m Silent No More.
But this is why Red is my color.
It is my Red Paint.
Creator sees this
https://gofund.me/79db27f5
