[listen]
[read, with an open mind]
The vast majority of the people who are employed by the restaurant and hospitality industry are either immigrants, children of immigrants, or lifelong members of the working class. We come from generations of laborers and tradesmen prized for their skills - craftsmen, steel workers, mechanics, plumbers, teachers, and domestics alike. Chances are that kids from wealthy backgrounds rarely end up in the service industry (unless their parents acquired wealth by climbing the corporate ladder).
Know what else the working class has in common?
It makes up most of the military.
As family income increases, the likelihood of having ever served in the military decreases. 96.6% of the US military attended public schools, while private schools account for only 3.4% of those who have served. [1]
In short : war/conflict veterans make up a staggering percentage of the working class, meaning that most of us have either been raised by war veterans, or are war veterans ourselves. The likelihood of PTSD is 1 in 20 (for WWII vets) and over 30% for those who served in Vietnam - and that's just what's reported by those who seek treatment. [2] Countless others suffer(ed) in silence due to the cultural stigma surrounding mental health - for decades, "suck it up" has been the coping method of choice.
I had never considered the implications of this until a few months ago. During a particularly difficult meditation, I found myself facing and picking apart an event from my childhood that had always bothered me. I saw my grandmother's words in my own mother, and was hit with a moment of extreme clarity and compassion for her as I realized that I couldn't be angry with her for what had happened, because she quite literally had never been taught to consider another perspective outside of her family's.
Both my parents were raised by WWII vets, and my grandparents were raised by WWI vets - and both sides of my family struggle immensely with healthy coping methods and emotional expression. One grandfather deflected emotional expression with humor (which often turned cruel) and turned to prescription pills; the other either shut down entirely, exploded in anger, or succumbed to vices that should have put him in prison.
One ignored their trauma altogether, while the other projected theirs onto their family. Both showed obvious signs of post-traumatic stress disorder - after 12 years of dealing with it myself (and finally coming out on the other side!), I've gotten pretty great at spotting signs of it in others. I've talked to dozens of friends, coworkers, and strangers about this in the last year, and most have childhood experiences that mirror my own.
Generational trauma is not a new concept in academic circles, but this awareness rarely trickles down to the average working class person. Most of us in the working class are too busy actually working and don't have the luxury of time to sit around and actually think about - let alone research - these types of things. Generational trauma is most frequently discussed in conjunction with slavery, but has been documented in many different demographics - from children of Holocaust victims, war and genocide survivors, refugees, assault survivors, and - not surprisingly - extreme poverty (many in this industry in particular can attest to the fact that having to choose between paying rent and buying groceries is pretty damned traumatizing in itself). [4]
In biology, epigenetics is the study of heritable phenotype changes that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix epi- in epigenetics implies features that are "on top of" or "in addition to" the traditional genetic basis for inheritance. [5] Basically, epigenetics explains how events in someone’s lifetime can change the way their DNA is expressed, and how that change can be passed on to the next generation. Think of epigenetic traits like a switch attached to the gene - that switch can be flipped on or off based on factors in a person's environment and the choices they make.
Traumatic events can chemically alter our DNA expression based on environmental changes - for example, if a parent experienced starvation from war or poverty, hoarding food was probably something that kept them alive. The genetic trait which enabled the parent to survive that period of their life (a tendency toward obesity for example) was then "bad" during normal times. The next generation doesn’t always show exactly the same trait that their parents developed - for example, in terms of war survivors, it's not that fear itself is being passed down the generations – it's that fear in one generation leads to increased sensitivity to fear in the next. It's really fascinating, and I highly suggest researching it on your own.
Offspring of war veterans with PTSD have shown higher depression scores than those of war veterans without PTSD, and also a higher rate of aggression and anxiety than those of non-veterans. [4] I would be willing to bet that the majority of people reading this have a veteran with (probably undiagnosed) PTSD in their immediate family. Children of a parent struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, can sometimes develop their own PTSD, called secondary PTSD. [15] In a sense, the parent’s trauma becomes the child’s own and their behavioral and emotional issues can mirror those of the parent.
So what happens? We get generations of traumatized people, doing the best they can with the limited information available to them at the time, inadvertently passing on their trauma to their offspring, because it was never acknowledged, dealt with, and released.
We get "oversensitive" millennials
raised by emotionally numb baby boomers
who were punished for expressing their sensitivities
because they were raised by hardened and traumatized WWII vets
who never received the resources they needed to learn how to cope with the abject horrors that they saw and experienced.
At some point during the healing journey, trauma eventually manifests as a LOT of anger - anger at everything and nothing at the same time. Rage is a stage of healing, but many people get stuck in this stage because it's the only coping mechanism that they've ever been exposed to. Most people born in the last century were taught to deal with emotions in one of three ways:
lash out in explosive anger or violence,
numb everything with substances/distract with vice,
or sweep it all under the rug and pretend like it doesn't exist.
Explode. Distract. Ignore.
None of these are healthy coping mechanisms. None of these work.
Honestly - most of the working class has been dealt a shit hand in life from the very beginning. Lacking concrete examples of emotional regulation, many of us kind of flounder passively through life, getting tossed by the tide from one catastrophe to the next, never able to actually relax and enjoy the small pleasures of simply existing in this world because we're too busy putting out fires and trying to simply survive our own lives.
What we see in our outer reality is directly related to what we have experienced in our inner subjective experience of life. If all we have ever known has been pain and struggle, we will be primed to see more pain and struggle in our world. If the only emotions we were exposed to as a child were anger, guilt, and shame - we're going to have a lot of issues experiencing things like happiness and relaxation in our own lives.
Overly judgmental people are usually their own worst critic. Bullies have usually been bullied by a parent or peer in their past. Genuinely happy people tend to have genuinely happy friends, while those conditioned to view life through a lens of negativity and fear tend to form social bonds with others who see the world in similar shades of black and white.
We see in others what we have experienced ourselves.
It is a cause-effect relationship between our current personal reality and the way we have processed our life experiences.
As within, so without. As above, so below.
It's well documented that repressed emotions and trauma have a tendency to cause anxiety disorders [6] - and anxiety disorders are often linked to digestive issues and an increased risk of infection. Anxiety can also change the function of the cardiovascular, urinary, and respiratory systems. [7]
Disease is often a chain reaction of emotional dysfunction -> mental distress -> physical manifestation, yet modern treatments tend to only address the symptoms relating to the physical manifestation instead of taking a step back and looking at the issue from a more holistic perspective.
Instead of solely treating the symptoms of IBS, for example, a more effective integrated approach would be to examine the underlying causes of the anxiety - examining both life experience and emotional upbringing to isolate and fully understand the root cause of the anxiety, then tracing the anxiety through all of its physical and mental manifestations, from personality quirks to physical dis-ease.
The problem with applying this approach is that the prevailing cultural narrative for the majority of the working class is that "talking about emotions makes you weak" ... which is a real shame, because not talking about emotions is literally killing people. We reject "alternative" methods of coping (such as talk therapy, journaling, CBT therapy, EFT, meditation, yoga, etc) in favor of medication because a) we have been culturally brainwashed into thinking that the only way to fix any physical or mental problem we encounter is with a drug and b) we have been trained to want quick fixes for deep-rooted problems - and most people will do anything to avoid actually dealing with their issues!
Quick side note: I am absolutely NOT bashing modern medicine. Modern medicine is absolutely necessary and life-saving in many cases - I am simply suggesting that in some cases, modern medicine takes the easy route of placation with numbing pills instead of the more difficult route of understanding and addressing the root cause.
As a culture, we have become terrified of emotions - due to generations of historical trauma and an overwhelming lack of public knowledge/education of how to manage our own state. We desperately want to fit in, so we hide what makes us "different". Owning our deeper needs is often seen as selfish - when in reality, it is a compassionate act of self-preservation.
Instead of seeing ourselves as horribly broken and unfixable, we need to shift our thinking to embrace the radical act of curious self-discovery. We need to ask different questions if we truly want different answers. Why do we react the way we do? What might be causing the physical sensations that we are experiencing? How did our upbringing shape our emotional expression? How have we been taught to respond to pain? When faced with difficulty, do we immediately default to deflection, blame, or people pleasing? Where did we learn this?
When I was first learning about healthy emotional expression, the thing that initially struck me the most was the realization that all emotions are physiological phenomena - "feelings" are actual physical sensations in the body - and that each "feeling" has its own distinctive somatic sensation. [14] Before exploring this, I had really only felt a handful of emotions - fear, anger, stress, sadness, shame, and guilt dominated my life, occasionally interspersed with brief moments of pleasure experienced mainly through hedonic vice. Things like "joy" and "love" and "gratitude" were concepts that I intellectually understood - but under the heavy filter of depression and PTSD haze, were never things that I had somatically experienced. Just like anger has its distinctive warm, tight sensation in the chest and head, joy is physically felt as an all-over tingling sensation of the skin - a sort of somatic ecstasy that's difficult to put into words. [11]
Often, I'd discover that the root cause of a particular personality quirk was way less scary than I had imagined it to be. As an example - for most of my life, I couldn't fall asleep until 2am or later, spending hours tossing and turning. I tried sleeping pills, alcohol, reading horribly boring books, movies, counting sheep, you name it - nothing seemed to work. I had written myself off as a night owl, dooming myself to a lifetime of heavy caffeine dependency with no hope of ever getting on a "regular" schedule.
One day, I had a thought to ask my mother what my sleeping habits were like as a child - was I ever an early sleeper?
Her answer floored me.
My father worked long, late hours for the majority of my life, and it turns out that my mom regularly let me stay up hours past when most kids went to bed so that I could spend some time with him when he got home - otherwise, I would have never seen him. In that moment, I realized that I had subconsciously associated staying up late with "getting to do cool things with dad" - and much to my surprise, my sleep improved dramatically. I was able to release the identity of being a night owl by identifying where it originated in my subconscious. I'm still not a 5am riser or anything, but it's no longer a struggle to fall asleep at a decent hour (midnight counts as decent, right? :p).
See what I mean? Not even remotely scary.
Older generations set the stage for how things within a family are addressed. If ignoring and minimizing (and even accepting) the trauma is “normal” for the family, younger generations will adapt to this way of “survival” and mimic the behaviors for generations to come. [8]
Can you think of anything in your own family that could possibly be linked to generational trauma? Are there behavioral patterns that seem to get passed down from one generation to the next? Could your family include a multi-generational history of stifled emotional responses and/or unhealthy coping mechanisms?
Common behavioral patterns
linked to generational trauma:
Emotional distance (surface level conversations; never any depth or realness; strong desire to conform to societal expectations) [8]
Defensive behaviors around expression of emotions ("suck it up" "be a man" etc)
Denial (refusing to acknowledge that a trauma happened) [9]
Minimization/internalization (ignoring the impact of the trauma and making the traumatic experience appear smaller than it really is) [8]
Unhealthy/Unstable Relationships (characterized by physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, or verbal abuse)
Addiction (numbing emotions through substance or vice)
Eating Disorders (often a manifestation of perfectionism - "If I can have a perfect body, I will avoid bad things" // overeating as a way to deal with difficult feelings/emotions) [9]
OCD (an attempt to create some sense of predictability and safety, usually seen in people who grew up in very chaotic/unstable environments) [9]
Autism (speculatively linked to passive emotional neglect in early childhood) [16]
Borderline Personality (often linked to invalidating childhood environments where emotions are ignored/dismissed - leading to emotional dysregulation and an unstable sense of self) [13]
Sociopathy (usually stems from childhood abuse, neglect, and trauma) [12]
Questions to ask yourself:
Did any of my parents or grandparents experience any type of major life trauma? (war, violence, assault, holocaust, racial/religious/sexual persecution, immigrant discrimination, etc)
Do I (or does anyone in my family) display any of the behaviors listed above?
How was I trained to deal with my emotions?
How do my parents deal with their emotions?
How did my grandparents deal with their emotions?
What is my family's view on therapy, mental health, and admitting that help is needed?
Was I ever shamed or punished for expressing my feelings as a child or adolescent?
Does "mental illness" run in my family? What variety, and when did it begin? What did that person experience, and how might they have passed those patterns down to future generations?
Do I feel like my parents truly know me and accept me for who I actually am, or do I feel the need to hide parts of myself to gain their approval/avoid their judgement?
We can't change the cards we're dealt, but we CAN change the way we play the hand. We can un-learn what is no longer helpful by learning where we picked it up in the first place - and then consciously choosing to release it.
You are not doomed by your genetics, your past experiences, or your socioeconomic class at birth - the only thing that dictates your future is your vision of it.
You have a choice in how your life unfolds.
Give yourself permission to transcend your family patterns.
It's up to you to unlearn what no longer serves you.
Did something click with this article? Share your thoughts in the comments or on our forum. Please share this article with anyone who might need it - siblings, friends, and coworkers are a great place to start. Start a discussion. Be the one to break the cycle.
[integrate]
[references + further reading]
Lutz, A. "Who Joins the Military?: A Look at Race, Class, and Immigration Status." Journal of Political and Military Sociology (2008)
Albrecht, B. "Post-traumatic stress disorder hitting World War II vets" The Plain Dealer (2009)
Wikipedia - Transgenerational Trauma
Castro-Vale, I., Severo, M., Carvalho, D. et al. Intergenerational transmission of war-related trauma assessed 40 years after exposure. Ann Gen Psychiatry (2019)
Henriques, M. - Can the legacy of trauma be passed down the generations? BBC Futures (2019)
Patel, P., Patel, J. - Consequences of Repression of Emotion: Physical Health, Mental Health and General Well Being International Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research (2019)
Leonard, J. "What does anxiety feel like and how does it affect the body?" Medical News Today (2018)
Hill, T. - Inter-generational Trauma: 6 Ways It Affects Families PsychCentral (2018)
Portney, C. - Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma: An Introduction for the Clinician Psychiatric Times (2003)
Asoni, A., Sanandaji, T. - Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Fight? Socioeconomic Representativeness in the Modern Military Research Institute of Industrial Economics (2013)
Murphy, C. - This is How Joy Affects Your Body Healthline (2018)
Stamatakis, J. - Can You Make a Sociopath—Either Through Brain Injury or Other Types of Trauma? Scientific American (2012)
Webb, J. - The 2 Types Of Childhood Emotional Neglect: Active and Passive PsychCentral (2018)
Antonio, D. - The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness Harcourt New York (1999)
Sack, D. - "When Emotional Trauma Is a Family Affair" Psychology Today (2014)
Yi, C., Zhou, T. - "Autism as an Infantile Post-trauma Stress Disorder: A Hypothesis." Journal of Mental Disorders and Treatment (2017)
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