It’s incredibly difficult emotionally to be silenced, isn’t it? Be it from choice, conformity or expectation, or ‘just how it was done’, it’s so challenging because it perpetuates suffering in various ways (in my situation, in terms of never speaking about these things, I feel like ‘nothing changes’, so the trauma feeling remains the same).
None of my family spoke of their trauma or how it affected them, only of the traumatic events that occurred in very descriptive ways (not speaking of the emotional ways these events impacted them). This was not helpful for them or the younger generations listening to these disjointed traumas as they left so many questions and insecurity. As you’ve mentioned, this often led to my family members not liking living with themselves (hating themselves) because of their perpetual emotional unrest/traumatic experiences/resultant PTSD.
I finally realised that regarding my former generations (parents’ generation and former) I would never be able to comprehend and ‘ground’ their experiences, and truly understand them; so instead I decided to just be as supportive as possible emotionally, while not focusing on ‘what happened’ - because I knew I would never know (making it a never attainable goal).
As well, I thought that I had the right to describe how it feels to have generational war trauma, and use it in ways that supported other people (I knew some refugees from Afghanistan who are Hazara people who were targets of dominant groups/militia, and they were alienated in emotional connection to being in Au because they thought nobody knew what it was like to be a generation or future generation of war and trauma, so I have used my family stories and experiences and emotional outcomes of that to help them). What people feel is justified; I tend to think that having some way of reconciling that inside and then feeling comfortable enough to live with it is what helps. However I haven’t ever had any psychological support (all psychologists I have approached here have told me my trauma is way beyond anything they are equipped to cope with and immediately decline further support, and a psychiatrist said to me once that he would not know where to start, and that he was taking a month off work immediately after the first session..hehe, I think this just goes to show the huge gap in treatment approaches for trauma, including the personnel gap regarding those with experience in trauma should be supported to deliver safer psychological services…like the saying, takes one to know one 🙂). Anyway, that’s just my personal thoughts about that.
It’s kinda hard to free yourself from this kind of trauma, but I think acknowledging it’s there goes a very long way 🌺🙂