The Surprising Connection Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Intergenerational Trauma

I’m currently working on getting my CADC certification in Illinois and I stumbled across your channel while doing some research for an online course. I am so grateful. It’s crazy how much education and knowledge you offer and I am very grateful for your expertise and hard work. We need more people like you in our world. Thank you

Thank you, your videos help me recognize and understand my own trauma and how to help myself.

Great work ... thank you

Good video. Thank you.

I love your work especially the hormones explanation are so pro 💝⚜️🩷Thanks for Sharing blessings

This video made me cry. 😢. So true!

Good evening from Kenya

good morning everyone

This is long.....so, keep on reading if you are bored. My maternal birth Great-Grandmother died when my birth Grandmother was about 4 or 5. I believe they were living in Minnesota, she was mostly of Irish Catholic lineage. Her father (my birth Great-Grandfather) moved to Southern California with his young daughter to be closer to his parents. But, it was decided that she would be sent to a convent to live. At 18, she left the convent. She met my birth Grandfather, shortly thereafter. He was 24 and the youngest son of a very well-off Pasadena family. To my birth Grandmother, they must have seemed so normal. Normal.... whatever that is... But, he was a drinker and a momma's boy, who liked to "fire the boss." He couldn't hold a job and it was always the fault of the boss. And I believe he liked to hit. He was a coward. (And, in my opinion, after meeting him once, a real POS.) So, at 19 and 25, they have my mom. I truly believe that my birth Grandmother tried to be a good mom to my newborn mom. There must have been some maternal instinct past down from her earliest years. As my mom is kind and nurturing and loving to babies. But, by the time that my uncle was born, 4 years later, the marriage was a wreck. My mother remembers being beaten with hangers and burned by an iron. She was the one who was tending her baby brother, who would cry for hours, unattended by their parents. My mother remembers hearing her mother confess to a friend that she knew she'd made a mistake marrying him the morning after they were married. Anyway, along comes a door-to-door shoe salesman. And she fell in love. (I suspect limerence.) She proceeded to take my mother and uncle to the babysitter's house and never came back. My mom was 6. She ran off with the shoe salesman. The baby sitter had no idea where the children's family was, so they went in to a group home, then a series of foster families. Finally, the family was located. (My mother doesn't speak of this time much. I'm not sure how long it was, but I know that it was several years before she was finally placed in a permanent home. I know that she was very sickly and went to many different schools and bad things happened.) When they were located, my birth Grandfather didn't want the kids. He was unable to care for himself, let alone two children. So, his siblings stepped up. His elder brother, the middle child, was a Professor of Radiology at Stanford. But, he only wanted the boy. He didn't want my mom, as he had a daughter her age and only wanted a son. But, the eldest sibling wouldn't hear of it. She demanded that the children be kept together. And so, they were adopted my their aunt and uncle. She was a CPA and he was a USC educated lawyer. This woman, I knew as my Grandmother. She was a real spitfire. She had lost the ability to have children during a childhood illness... or maybe a ruptured appendix... can't remember. But, she and her husband had settled in to a nice DINK lifestyle. (Double Income, No Kids) My Grandmother had zero maternal instinct. She was tough and no-nonsense. As a little girl, she terrified me. But, she was loving and good and taught my mom how to be strong. Resilient. My Grandmother, during the war, ran an airport and a steel foundry. She was an accomplished equestrian. Hunting and Jumping. She was petite and sophisticated and was treated as an equal by the men in her life, because she was... and was treated like a lady by the men in her life, because she was. And as a couple, they were connected to old Hollywood. My Grandfather was a member of the Pasadena Playhouse. He was fraternity brothers with John Wayne and best friends with LB Abbott...look him up. He was a founding member of the Sierra club and spent a lot of time hiking (and rescuing hikers.) He did a lot of pro-bono law work. They sailed on their boat and traveled and camped... They were living the life. And then, in an instant, they had two terrified, traumatized children to care for. My Grandmother decided to quit her job and became a full-time mom. She was PTA pesident and incredibly active in trying to heal her new children. My mom thrived. She was a dancer and painter and read voraciously. She was a competitive swimmer and 10 meter diver. She was a chearleader and on class council. She was a finalist in the Rose Court, she led the Rose Parade 2 years in a row as a flag twirler. She was president of the Job's daughters one year. She went off to UC Santa Barbara, where she was a cheerleader and obtained her Masters degrees in Art History and Education. She thrived. My uncle... a genuis. He, unfortunately, didn't get anything good in his earliest years. He became a true narcissist. He married and dumped 2 families. He worked on Wall Street and lived in affluent Connecticut, drove a Ferrari and had a string of Polo ponies. Then, he conned a bunch of people out of their money, put all the debt in my aunt's name and left... Nice. He's a real piece of work. But, knowing his early years, I understand why he told my brother, "Family are just people you stay with for awhile." I really feel for my cousins. So, back to mom. She met my Dad when she was 23. She had recently graduated from college and moved home. Then, shortly after, she got a job and moved out. My father was a small town, Mid-Western boy who'd recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He had been hired by a defense industry contractor and was new to the area. They were set up on a blind date. Very sweet. He was calm and kind, with beautiful, blue eyes. As my mom recounts. Just a few short weeks in to their dating life, my mother's adoptive father (the lawyer), shot himself in the head in my Grandparent's bedroom. Why? He was a drinker. And a heavy smoker. He had been diagnosed with emphysema. His sister had died a slow, painful death that way, so he took the "easy" way out. I guess. Very, very cruel to do to your family, especially to kids who had already been so traumatized. My mother was devastated. At 86, she still wonders if she could have done something to stop it. "If only I'd called home." My Grandmother was strong, as always. And so was my Dad. He stayed beside my mom through it all. I think they'd been dating for 6 weeks when my mom's father killed himself. It would have been so easy to run. But, he was strong and steady. He and my mother were married 6 weeks later. 3 months! My mother thought he was from a nice, normal family...which he was. His family were the calmest, kindest people I've ever known. What my mom didn't know was that my Dad was tightly wound. He was a perfectionist. And he drank to regulate his emotions. The day after they were married, my father raged at someone. My mother was terrified. But, unlike her mother, she was going to stay. My father was a Jeckyll and Hyde. If he was sober, he was the best. If he was drinking, he was the worst. And I got the worst of the worst. My two older siblings looked just like him. Blonde. And I look just like my mom. Irish. I honestly believe he didn't like me from the moment he saw me. I didn't resemble him. And so, I became the Scapegoat. I was raged at and beaten and.... At about 6 years old, my mother completely voided out, where I was concerned. She was attentive to my siblings, but barely remembered that I existed. I went without food, without being cleaned, I became delinquent at school. It was as if she had left me at the babysitter's, metaphorically. She had zero to give me. I've spent a lifetime trying to heal from the abuse and neglect. I never could understand what I had done to deserve the treatment I received. Of course, when I grew up, I heard all the secrets. I knew that the abuse and neglect weren't uncommon in our family. I learned that my father was an alcoholic and my nature was to stand up to bullies. My siblings were compliant. I was independent and willfull. I often wonder if my father had married a woman who didn't believe abuse was normal, if he'd become a raging alcoholic. And I often wonder if my mother had met someone who had, in fact, been calm and kind, would she have lived a calm life... instead of jumping up from the couch and looking busy when my Dad got home. She spent 43 years married to a man who terrified her. And when he raged, she hid. I got hit. She never once protected me. She ran. Sad.... Did it all happen because one young mother died when her child was young, generations before?

I m in second year of master of mental health counseling and trauma counseling. Please let me when should take what courses on your academy. You are a wonderful trainer and professor. Salute 🫡