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u/Eremitt-thats-hermit 8d ago
Generational trauma exists, but it’s not some magical DNA thing. It exists as trauma that gets passed on by your parents and their parents. It’s not passed through your DNA or your heritage, but your actual family history.
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u/StingerAE 8d ago
So it's saying my shitty parents never got over what their shitty parents inflicted on them and inflicted the same on me?
Great boast!
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u/Heavy_Practice_6597 8d ago
Gotta be the biggest victim, "no, my ancestors and I are the most pathetic people ever, worship me!"
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u/StingerAE 8d ago
Ahh yes. Cos there is no group of people who have suffered more or more recently than former Irish 19th century diaspora.
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u/jckrbbit 8d ago
Suffering isn’t a contest. If you broke your leg, would your pain not matter because somewhere there’s someone who just got shot in the shoulder?
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u/StingerAE 8d ago
I think you are missing the point.
I totally agree with what you said here.
But this is not about whether there was real suffering. This is about performative identity cosplay. If anyone is making a contest about suffering it is those claiming generational trauma 4 generations later in a different country.
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u/jckrbbit 8d ago
Aye, I get that and I agree the person in the screenshot is a bit of a clown. I’m also very aware that I’m coming at this from a British perspective so a lot closer to very recent Irish national trauma. That said, I don’t think four generations deep is completely accurate given that treatment of the Irish diaspora in the US didn’t really improve until a century after the first migration. We’re talking about people who are still alive today growing up as second-class citizens, denied work and living in very poor conditions. It’s not as far removed from reality as you think.
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u/Hayzeus_sucks_cock Bri'ish dental casualty 🤓 🇬🇧 8d ago
This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.6
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u/Standard_Lie6608 8d ago
Well yes but also no. Some things do affect dna expression that gets passed on. Famine and long term significant stress being the big ones. It's just not permanent as it's only the expression of dna not the actual dna itself and will eventually correct itself if the next generations are doing better
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u/Eremitt-thats-hermit 8d ago
Yeah, my comment was maybe a bit too straightforward to do the topic justice. They do not affect DNA, but do affect genetics.
Epigenetics studies genetic variations that do not affect the underlying DNA. And they found effects of generational trauma. It’s way more complex and nuanced than: I’m like this because of this trauma my ancestors had. And like you said: it can fix itself, just like it can break itself.
But what I’m triggered by is how people treat as a ‘magical DNA thing’ and say: I’m like this and I can’t change that. Yes you can. And by doing so you’re helping future generations as well. If you learn to deal with that trauma and teach your kids as well, eventually that trauma will disappear.
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u/Standard_Lie6608 8d ago
Yeah exactly. A pretty easy example would be weight gain both from a trauma affected epigenetics pov and a 'healthy' dna expression. Your dna could allow you to pile on muscle or fat more easily, but it still needs the caloric intake to do that. Your epigenetics from generations of famine could make it so your body isn't great at building muscle but is at building fat, which still requires the caloric intake but might make things like exercising to gain muscle more difficult. Neither situation stops you from gaining or losing muscle or fat, it just changes the way it happens or the barriers you face for it
You can definitely 'blame' your genetics for some of the barriers you face but it's not an absolute just a barrier. In most cases anyway, biology is crazy and things can go wild. I know there's a condition that essentially stops your body from gaining fat, at all. This is usually terminal and significantly impacts life span, that's not just a barrier that's a full on biological fuck you. Humans are flawed and taking responsibility is difficult for some people especially if they do have valid barriers because it's easy to blame things you can't control than it is to take control and do the hard work
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u/smaragdskyar 8d ago
Well, addiction is a condition that is largely influenced by genetics. You might “have alcoholism in your DNA”, not because your great great grandma was starved by the British, but because… your grandma also had alcoholism in her DNA.
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u/PsychologicalHope764 8d ago
I'm no expert, but my understanding is that the field of epigenetics shows that generational trauma actually does encode itself onto DNA and is passed down that way as well as through behaviour. The nature/nurture debate isn't nearly as binary as we once thought - environmental factors can and do change DNA
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u/Baldazar666 8d ago
Got any sources to back up that claim?
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u/Halospite 8d ago
I don't have any sources so take this with a cup of salt (I'm pulling this out of the depths of my science degree memory so people who know better please correct me) but I believe what actually happens is that environmental circumstances turn on certain genes and turn off others, not invent entirely new ones. EG if your immediate ancestors went through a famine your genes are more likely to turn on the "hold onto fat" parts. If you go through trauma then your system will have a high level of adrenaline, so it's plausible to me that that can affect gene expression too. The body is a neurochemical soup where everything ultimately affects everything elss.
But that's not the same as mutation, which is when entirely new genes are created, and that person is talking like new genes are created or changed. They're not. It's like saying the wiring of your house has been changed because someone turns a light on when it's dark; the lights were already there, they just weren't being used because it wasn't dark. If you're going through enough trauma then yeah, your body will turn on some lights.
Again, someone who has more concrete information than my vague memory please step in.
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u/Eremitt-thats-hermit 8d ago
Epigenetics are gene variations that do not affect the underlying DNA, so generational trauma can affect certain genes but won’t affect DNA.
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u/Halospite 8d ago
Yes, that's what I'm describing - epigenetics affect how genes are expressed due to the environment and you can inherit that expression. Just realised that I never explicitly named it as such.
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u/JobPlus2382 8d ago
There are quite a few. It's a well know fact for psicogenetics
https://jmhg.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43042-025-00684-w
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6127768/
Just a couple. Now a days, they are researching the specific works of each dissorder.
Edit: Here, I found the review article that shows the collection of knowledge of epigenetics in personality dissorders. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6252387/
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u/snakelygiggles 8d ago
So, when a fetus is formed, and it is female, her eggs are formed before it's born. When that fetus's mother experiences Trauma that affects fetal development, which is a lot of trauma, it affects not only the fetus, but also the fetus's eggs.
That's three generations just to possible developmental trauma that are affected. Add in other environmental and psychological effects, four generations isn't a stretch.
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u/VeggieLegs21 8d ago
Four generations since the famine is a stretch though, it was 180 years ago.
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u/KS_DensityFunctional 8d ago
The poster could in principle be ancient. If you were 90+, then 4 generations to the famine isn't ridiculous.
Or alternatively, a later initial emigration? Lots of people left europe in the 40s!
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u/Anon-Sham 8d ago
Not necessarily true, trauma can cause epigenetic changes to your DNA that can be inherited by your kids.
But typically how it works is someone is raised in an abusive household with domestic violence and substance abuse and that impedes their emotional development, so that when they have kids they provide the same environment.
The issues this person is facing honestly probably isnt 4 generations deep, it likely goes back far further.
The good thing is, it is possible for the cycle to be broken in as little as one generation. If that's too big a task, do you best to limit the truma your kids are exposed to and let them know how hard you're trying to give them a better life in the hope that they'll try to make things better for their kids.
My parents were alcoholics, at times abusive. But they moved out of Scotland and gave me a better life in Australia than they could have dreamed of. I'm grateful for the steps they took and I'm hoping that I'm taking similar steps for my kids by providing them a childhood full of security and a lack of violence and emotional abuse.
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u/Internal-Role-3121 8d ago
It kind of is a “magical DNA thing” actually. Look up epigenetics.
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u/Eremitt-thats-hermit 8d ago
Epigenetics studies genetic variations that do not affect the underlying DNA. It’s way more complex and nuanced than: I’m like this because of this trauma my ancestors had.
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u/schneeleopard8 8d ago edited 8d ago
Homo sapiens here 20 000 generation deep. Still traumatized by the life our monkey ancestors had. I get fear of heights when I climb on a tree and roaring lions make me feel unwell.
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u/Good_Ad_1386 8d ago
Oook!
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u/RazendeR 8d ago
Oh hey, a Librarian!
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u/Ophiochos 8d ago
Did you say <whispers> monkey?
Uhoh I just heard something outside…
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u/Adventurous-Shake-92 8d ago
Hides under a table.
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u/Plastic-Archer4245 8d ago
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this, at a distance of roughly ninety million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has, or had, a problem, which was this. Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans
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u/Any_Conflict_5092 8d ago
So
Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy.
This, as a 9/10 year old kiddo, came to sum up my feelings about the human pursuit of money as a source of happiness/purpose in the world.
I read animal farm, 1984, and Jane Eyre around the same time and have felt moderately dissatisfied with the way humans assign meaning and value in a bigly way, ever since.
Edit : Douglas Adams was so good a writer, and so tortured by the process - but he taught me to laugh at my pain, because I definitely identify with poor, clunky Arthur Dent, when I'm in real time.
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u/MethanyJones 8d ago
Yeah when I’m deep in my Homo sapiens era and I get up high… At first I completely panic, stay exactly where I am. Then I reach back and around, crap in my hand and throw it. The unwellness is replaced by the exhilaration of seeing it splatter, a sense of superiority over my peers from being literally above them, and revulsion from the crap under my claws.
But I still hoot and shriek and clap my… hands that I was using to hold the tree
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u/tanaephis77400 8d ago
roaring lions make me feel unwell
In this particular case it's still a wise reaction.
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u/HailtheBrusselSprout 8d ago
As an Irishman I ask, what the feck are you taking on you utter langer.
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u/Zestyclose_Might8941 8d ago
You wouldn't understand. The real irish left for America.
And now they cry into their oven ready potato gems every night, due to the trauma... and the high levels of saturated fat.
Show them some pity, for they are Irish and they don't even know what a spice bag is.
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u/Unique-Mystique87 8d ago
I'm British and I had a spice bag last night so does that mean I'm more Irish /I
Though to be fair I am planning a move to Ireland as it's much nice there than over here among other things
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u/Glad-Geologist-5144 8d ago
The Yanks celebrate St Paddy's Day by wearing "Kiss Me I'm Irish" Tshirts and getting rat-arsed on Guinness. I, being a civilised person, am always well dressed when I get rat-arsed on good stouts, or even Guinness.
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u/mmfn0403 Proud Irish Europoor ☘️🇮🇪🇪🇺 8d ago
They don’t even get rat arsed on Guinness, they drink whatever generic swill they produce themselves, only they dye it green.
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8d ago
[deleted]
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u/Fun_Wear7022 8d ago
Ouf no Irish blood for me, all French Canadian, I am so happy I am not an alcoholic I don’t have to stop drinking.
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u/pinniped90 Ben Franklin invented pizza. 8d ago
I think some part of my ancestry is Irish, but it's been more than four generations.
When you get to the fifth generation, the trauma has subsided just enough that you can spell trauma on the Internet without censoring it.
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u/synthcrushs 8d ago
My mother and grandparents literally lived through a war and I don't claim to have generational trauma LMFAOOO these Americans I swear...
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u/Valisk_61 8d ago
"sinead o'connor potato famine'
I'm still laughing. That's absolute fucking gold.
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u/theinvisiblewman 8d ago
i still remember when they were so obsessed with her for like a week. the whole situation was ridiculous. americans on tiktok discovered that the great famine was an actual genocide and not just a crop rotting through a sinéad o’connor audio… and they made it all about themselves. it will never stop being hilarious to me 😭
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u/deff006 8d ago
What happened?
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u/Go-AwayThr0wAw4yy Half Lovely Horse 🇮🇪 / Half Bus Wanker 🇬🇧 8d ago
"I'm a depressed alcoholic and it's because of the English from hundreds of years ago"
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u/DeathDestroyerWorlds Tea Drinking Brit. 8d ago
The English, living rent free in a lot of sad sacks heads for centurys.
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u/ALazy_Cat Danish potato language speaker 8d ago
Alcoholism isn't a trait, it's a toxic local culture
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u/IamIchbin Bavaria🏁 8d ago
its a trait if you Play ck3
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u/Ambitious_Truth_567 8d ago
You definitely feel generational trauma in that as well. I'm still traumatised by one of my kids murdering their brother and wrecking my succession strategy 😂
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u/TheLuckySpades Lux 8d ago
Since transgenerational trauma is primarily spread throughshared family environment alcoholism can be part of it. While environments aren't tied to a person/aren't genetic, they are still are inherited from those before us, and since it is something we have more influence over, recognizing and fixing issues with them is important.
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u/Textiles_on_Main_St 8d ago
Local culture?
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u/Swesteel 8d ago
You don’t find a lot of it in muslim countries, and it is rampant in Russia.
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u/Textiles_on_Main_St 8d ago
Sure, but you’re thinking of alcohol. You can be an alcoholic or a drug addict within any culture. I find it’s a bit dangerous to think some cultures don’t have addiction issues.
People with addiction issues are all around. Doesn’t discriminate, really.
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u/newmamamoon observing the looney bin 8d ago
This is why Irish people hate "Irish" Americans. Do they even know what they are supposed to have trauma about?
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u/theinvisiblewman 8d ago
they have trauma because their ancestors lived in a country filled with depressed alcoholics, obviously.
no other reason.
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u/mattwidd14 8d ago
Human being here, 100,000 generations deep. Loud noises still remind me of the Big Bang, the trauma cuts deep.
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u/VolcanoSheep26 More Irish than the Irish ☘️ 8d ago
My families trauma is a single generation deep after the troubles yet somehow I'm not an alcoholic.
Cunts need to stop blaming us for their own failings.
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u/IrishViking22 More Irish than the Irish ☘️ 8d ago
Same here, being from Derry. I am an alcoholic, but it's not because of Irish trauma. Wish these yanks would finally fuck up and stop this embarrassing Irish cosplay shite.
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u/Dwashelle 🇮🇪 8d ago edited 8d ago
Do they realise when they say this shit they're just repeating malicious stereotypes created by the British establishment?
Generational trauma absolutely exists, particularly in Ireland where there was endemic clerical abuse for the majority of the existence of the state.
I experience it, my family and friends experience it, their parents experience it, but I feel like this person is referring to some sort of trauma related to British occupation 100+ years ago, which doesn't make sense when they're a 4th generation American.
Alcoholism, anxiety and depression aren't traits of being Irish.
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u/ClemDog16 5’5 Leprechaun 🥔🇮🇪 8d ago
Although depression and anxiety are/can be symptoms of alcoholism - maybe Patty McYankface is actually a pisshead but is using their Irish heritage as a crutch?
I’m Irish myself, and fond of a drink - the two aren’t mutual
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u/The_Affle_House 8d ago
Generational trauma is a pattern of abusive behavior, not a fucking cultural heritage.
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u/KilluaCactuar 8d ago
Yeah, it's so exhausting how people literally want to have trauma. So they have something to use as a personality quirk.
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u/Harv-o-lantern-panic ooo custom flair!! 8d ago
Nah mate, I think you just have a drinking problem.
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u/Due_Capital_3507 8d ago
I blame my drinking problems on my ancestors. Taking responsibility is for suckers!
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u/StingerAE 8d ago
Agreed! Much better to fetishise it as a cosplay identity than deal with any underlying issues!
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u/Socmel_ Italian from old Jersey 🇮🇹 8d ago
Italian 100 generations deep and still have PSTDs every time I come into contact with a Carthaginian.
I just have the urge of grabbing a jar of salt and spread it on the soil.
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u/DeskCold48 Eye-talian 🤌🏼🍝 8d ago
I, an Italian from the north (Lombardy), still have the traumas of the Cisalpine Republic, of the Austrian domination, of the Maritime Republic of Venice!
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u/Gullflyinghigh 8d ago
What a load of shite. They'll be the ones who claim a burning hatred for the British as well.
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8d ago
My grandfather was Irish and an orphan. He grew up in a church run orphanage where all manner of depravity was done towards him and his fellow orphans, he was an incredibly proud man and never let his childhood define him, he was a million times the man than this oxygen thief is.
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u/Maleficent_Laugh_125 8d ago
Australian here. Many moons deep.
Still dealing with +65000 years of trauma between Indigenous Nations
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u/front-wipers-unite 8d ago
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar, the barman says "what do you want yank?"
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u/SqnZkpS 8d ago
300 millionth generation mammal here. My family had to live in hiding from dinosaurs. I get severe depression and anxiety when I see a bird.
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u/No_Ostrich_530 8d ago
Xteenth generation human, I still get triggered when I see a sabretooth tiger.
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u/the_best_llama_shoes 8d ago
I am English and I cannot sleep for the sounds of Viking raids screaming through my dreams
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u/wickeddradon 8d ago
Huh! Big bloody deal. I'm of French extraction. Meaning my grandfather's great grandfather immigrated here (NZ) from France. I wake up screaming every night from dreaming about guillotines. Which is odd. My ancestors were definitely not the ones being beheaded.
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u/lokfuhrer_ 8d ago
Absolutely love how yanks think they’re the best nation in the universe but claim to be from any nation but America
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u/Bushdr78 🇬🇧 Tea drinking heathen 8d ago
English going back a thousand years still laughing at the term "generational trauma"
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u/citrineskye 8d ago
English, 6 million life times deep, and I still suffer the pain of my ancestors seeing the first of our evolution eaten when climbing out of the water.
Everyone needs to stop and consider my pain.
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u/NoCelery6194 8d ago
4,000 generation deep English man petrified and crying in the corner from the traumas of the Viking, Norman, Danish, Anglican, Saxon, Spanish, French and Roman invasions. Dear God, when will it ever end?
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u/BlueberryNo5363 🇪🇺🇮🇪 8d ago
Ahh nothing like claiming ancestry through stereotypes. Let me guess they’re also 27% FiEsTy Italian or something.
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u/Competitive-Tooth-84 8d ago
Americans are so obsessed with genes that if mr H came back disguised as a random American man he would be able to convince both republicans and democrats to start a eugenic ethnostate in mere months.
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u/Taken_Abroad_Book 8d ago
I'm literally an Irish citizen on the island all my life and don't have this
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u/DarcyWinterstrait 8d ago
Swedish here for centuries, still feel the need to plunder and set fire to some monastaries
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u/seelclubber 8d ago
The only trauma you get from being an Irish American comes when you visit Ireland and realize how shitty the US actually is
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u/Artistic-Turnip-9903 Ja, genau. 8d ago
Mammal, 5748382 million generation deep - I often regret that my ancestors didn’t re evolve in the sea like dolphins and wales
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u/NoCelery6194 8d ago
Poor girl must wake up every night screaming with cold sweat. The TrAuMA must bE So ReAL!!!
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u/BrilliantTarget 8d ago
If we get rid of the generational trauma what will African Americans have to complain about
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u/Concoured 8d ago
no, that just sounds like a bunch of alcoholics who have extreme levels of self-pity
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u/OrgasmicMarvelTheme 8d ago
It’s funny to imagine an American that’s never left their state screaming in their bed at night over something that one, maybe two of their great-great grandparents experienced
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u/Numerous_Team_2998 8d ago
I understand why we're mocking this, but generational trauma is real. Example: my entire family has (if not nation) has a weird, obsessive relationship with food after what my grandmother (93 now) and her family went trough during the war.
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u/Dwashelle 🇮🇪 8d ago
It does absolutely exist, particularly for Irish people who were born here and suffered or have family who suffered from endemic clerical abuse and conflict during the troubles. There are entire generations of people in Ireland who are survivors of institutional abuse. But this person is 4 generations deep and an American, so it doesn't really make much sense to me.
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u/bdsee 8d ago
Example: my entire family has (if not nation) has a weird, obsessive relationship with food after what my grandmother (93 now) and her family went trough during the war.
You have ascribed this as a cause without proof (and proof is not possible), this is correlation that people are saying is causation. You cannot possibly know whether her family/ancestors also had an obsessive relationship with food.
Firstly, food has changed significantly over the past 70 or so years, the impact of this change is likely significantly more impactful on any "food issues" than any generational impact.
Our work/life balance is significantly more sedentary, this too is likely to have a significantly higher impact than any generational impact.
Then depending on how you are defining "generational trauma" you have nature vs nurture, both can be lumped into generational trauma but the nurture side is again likely to be far more impactful for anything to do with obsession when compared with an impact from nature due to trauma.
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u/elektrik_snek irrelevant europoor 8d ago
Anxiety depression and alcoholism can't be cured by drinking potatoes daily, just sayin'
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u/DraikoHxC 8d ago
I can't even relate to my moms trauma because her parents were dead long before I could have conscience, I can only hear her stories but thank God I never have to see her suffer like that
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u/Inner-Ad2847 🇦🇺 8d ago
Still get scared of police when I remember how my ancestor was arrested and sent on a prison ship for stealing some bread
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u/Odd_Coast9645 8d ago edited 8d ago
German 80 generations deep… still carrying the wounds of the Roman Empire burning down my ancestors huts. Severe anxiety near Italians and alcoholism thanks to the legionaries introducing wine.