It Didn't Start with You How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

This book has some interesting science info but I wholeheartedly disagree with how it sets healing the relationships with your parents as an absolute must have for healing. I completely agree that one should have compassion for their parents and their own traumatic experiences but that does not mean you must absolve them of their failings and their impact on you. It should not be the child's responsibility minimize their experience and to do the work their parents won't do. Healing relationships is a two way street in unhealthy dynamics. I did not choose to be brought into a family unable to properly love a child and it is not my job to say what they did and didn't do is okay. It's great to pursue healing a relationship with your parents if both sides are willing to do the work. But it is most certainly not a child's responsibility to excuse their parents failings

Intriguing. Wolynn explains the process by which our parents' parents' (& so on) experiences are remembered in the fundamental coding of our own selves. This concept makes plenty of sense to me especially among other works such as The Body Keeps the Score and the current discussions permeating the mainstream about trauma & potentially traumatic experiences in general. There is also some great stuff in here about the specific ways your parents' dynamics affect your own relationships. Overall, Wolynn fills the pages with anecdotes but lacks psychological and physiological explanations—I needed more of a balance.

Part of me feels a sense of relief with this understanding: not everything that myself & my siblings are hashing out right now are our issues alone. It didn't start with you highlights that there's plenty unresolved coming through from the generations behind us. Some aspects of the theory, such as descendants of holocaust victims struggling with symptoms that the original victims would have experienced, are far fetched; however, when expanded to a general sense (i.e. your core beliefs are shaped by your parents & their core beliefs, which were shaped by their parents & so on) this really clicks.

On the other hand, I find this message teetering on the fence between enlightening and disempowering. To see your own issues as the product of generations and generations of war veterans, troubled relationships, abuse, etc., puts an incomprehensible weight on the individual to either heal everything or accept defeat. I agree that it always helps to be made aware of these patterns of the unconscious, but I can't see this as the primary lens through which to heal yourself... I think all that I read here could be taken with a grain of salt and accompanied by chats with a therapist specializing in family systems.

I read the first 3 chapters only, bcz suddenly the book shifted and the author started saying a lot of red flags and It didn't met my knowledge. I found he stated a lot of wrong facts like, try healing from the place that hurted you. Is this a therapist????

special thanks to my therapist, who let me borrow her copy.

I was on board with this book until I got to the ‘~feminine energy~ of your mother' part. that felt weird. yes, parents absolutely have a large effect on your future relationships, but what the hell? I know I have nonstandard views about gender, but I think most people would agree with my opinion that there is no such thing as ‘feminine/masculine energies' and how parenting affects them. parents do have some effect on gender expression but?? what. I think ‘feminine/masculine energies' falls under pseudoscience.

the genetics part was cool. I found that quite interesting.

The message of intergenerational trauma is needed - but the delivery is missing something.

A big meh and then a raised eyebrow. This author is obsessed with mothers and heteronormative identity. We all know about the epigenetic mouse study, yes? It's interesting and relevant but this book veers into la la land. We certainly do pass things down within families, but he leaves out many ways this happens. Read My Grandmother's Hands for a better idea of intergenerational trauma and innate response.

It took a turn from talking about interesting mouse studies, to bouncing between generational trauma and ‘heal with your parents'. I missed the connection between those. Do most of us have issues with parents? Sure. Is that the same as the generational trauma examples he gave? No. Some of my friends are extremely skeptical of those aspects. I tend toward open mindedness on it. I raise a big eyebrow is skepticism and roll my eyes at some of the suggestions in the end. While ‘fake it till you make it' is a workable solution for some things, applying this to parental relationships feels inauthentic and potentially downright personally neglectful. Don't force yourself to accept a painful parental love unless you're ready. He says regular therapy often ‘blames the parents' and that is a gross misunderstanding of the work I do. So many of us are taught to ignore our own feelings to make others (including our parents) happy. I think it's important to acknowledge OUR perspective. It doesn't mean we have to be mean toward our parent, but we are allowed to have feelings, feel betrayed or let down or angry. And I think sometimes this is even imperative to letting go and forgiving. We can't forgive a parent while we take the blame, and we can't forgive ourselves without recognizing the factors in our own narrative. He's trying to skip that part of the process and force feelings that aren't ready. And I think it may work for a while, but then be met with another major injury.

All that said...I have yet to locate the pdf, and while I still don't see healing parent relationship affecting older trauma, the questions might have value.

Loved parts, hated parts. Some of this was way too out there for me, i preferred the science based parts. The workbook made me ugly cry and was one of the most introspective things i've done outside of therapy, wish i could give that 5 stars alone but some of it just way too out there for me. But also don't want to downplay how helpful the good parts were to me. Mixed messages? Kinda. Sorry.

This book was a somewhat uncomfortable combination of two elements: information about the emerging science on how traumatic events can actually affect our genes and thus the next generations, and anecdotes and practices coming out of Wolynn's therapeutic work with clients who appear to be repeating family traumas in their own lives and psyches. The latter is a more metaphorical / energetic kind of process than strictly biological, and although putting the genetic science first seems to be an attempt to legitimize the therapy, it actually weakens Wolynn's credibility because in many cases there is no evident link (e.g. one of the very first examples he gives involves an uncle who does not have any genetic connection with the subject). As many impatient and dismissive reviews here on GR attest, this turns off some readers immediately, and I think they have some reason. Genes affected by trauma may explain descendants having SOME kind of weakness or dysfunction, but they can't determine them to repeat in great emotional and psychological detail the SAME kind of trauma. This seems to me to require further research.

I happen to be sympathetic to the metaphorical approach, and also a student of karma (which I think is involved in such cases), so I let this disjunction slide and enjoyed the latter part of the book on its own terms. I have come to some of the same conclusions already through events in my own life, so it was very interesting to read the stories about family trauma being passed down through the generations. I wish I had had Wolynn's advice to follow much earlier; it could have saved me a good deal of pain and suffering. Even at this late date, it has helped me to clarify some of my issues and to identify some healing practices I can still try. I'm looking forward to doing more research of my own.