Are we the ones willing?

“Generational trauma falls hardest on the ones willing to heal.”

Nate Postlethwait

Abuse, often, doesn’t just appear out of nowhere.

It is learned. It is observed. It is practiced.

And, often, it has existed for generations. Perhaps, our parents learned maladaptive, harmful behaviors by watching their parents. And our grandparents, more than likely, learned destructive ways of being from watching their parents.

And how far back does that whole dreadful situation go?

What is especially painful to learn and cope with is the issue of willingness. Who was/is willing to embrace, accept, challenge, or change behavior, abusive, intergenerational trauma included?

For, as much as we can find, looking back, those individuals who engaged in and terrorized via abusive, traumatic behaviors and choices, we can also find people who were willing to challenge, change, and stop toxic dynamics.

The willingness of individuals can largely determine how issues like abuse and trauma are handled. Some people enable and turn a blind eye to unhealthy situations. Some people choose to abuse; it is a choice they willingly choose.

 For those of us who dare to defy abusive environments and behaviors, however, we must ascertain how willingness shows up for us.

Therefore, we need to be willing to…

Notice trauma.

Think about it. As you heard family stories, especially involving older generations, was anyone ever labelled as “crazy?” How about “a problem?” Or “difficult?” These are just a sampling of words used to dismiss someone or give them a certain reputation.

Why were they labelled this way?

Perhaps, because of the willingness they demonstrated.

Did they willingly resist, fight against, and protect others from abusive and traumatic situations?

Were they exiled, shunned, and persecuted as scapegoats for their willing choices?

And what about situations we personally experienced? What have we personally seen and encountered?

Were we hit, punched, kicked, spat upon, or shoved? Did we witness someone else experiencing those things? Were there verbal tirades? Did someone exercise control over finances? Did people lie about, cover up, make it easier for these dynamics to exist?

Was it hell on earth?

The huge lie many of us have believed, confronted, and defied has been that “this is normal.” Someone getting harmed is “normal.” Constant terror and instability are “normal.” Feeling unsupported, unheard, unseen, and trapped is considered “normal.”

Breaking the toxic spell of that lie is often the first step of our recovery. And it’s not easy. It requires us to look at what we lived. It requires that we notice. That means scrutinizing and paying attention to what happened. Not what we wish had happened. Not what was more appealing or easier to view.

What really happened?

Willingness is the prerequisite of moving into that space and seeing things as they are.

We cannot go any further if we don’t notice what happened.

Make no mistake. It “falls hardest” on us willing individuals because we are going against “the norm.” Often, we do this alone, unsupported from others, like family members. The consequences of our willingness to notice, rather than to ignore, can include shunning, ridicule, withdrawal of love, and smear campaigns. We can become outliers, simply for noticing. Toxic individuals view our observations as betrayal. We don’t fall in line and agree with the assertion that there is “nothing to see here.”

And this often can be a deeply entrenched intergenerational belief system. It was in in place before us. And, sadly, it can go on after us, despite our seeing and alerting people to its toxicity. Family, especially, are often not interested in new information that challenges how “we’ve always done it this way.”

Our willingness to notice is powerful. And, once we see it, then what?

We need to also be willing to…

Get help.

Okay, so we see something; we notice something.

What action do we take?

Getting help. Therapy. Outside intervention. Changing our patterns.

Are we willing to do this?

For many of us, it can feel like we don’t have a choice but to change. It has gotten so bad, that our lives, our health, our well-being, our finances, and our children are in jeopardy if we don’t “get help.”

Willingness can come out of sheer survival. And it can come from a desire to improve our lives.

We see that an entrenched, destructive way of doing things is NOT working. It destroys life, rather than creating and preserving life.

Some people don’t see that. Some people see that ugly reality, yet choose to ignore it, and do nothing about it. Some people choose to keep engaging IN it, allowing abusive, harmful, and dysfunctional behaviors to continue and flourish for years or decades to come.

Hardness falls on us as, yet again, we are unsupported. People, especially family, may label us as “crazy,” “the problem,” or “difficult” for our choice to get help. Again, we’ll be judged and ridiculed. Sometimes, we may even be threatened. Dysfunctional and abusive people may also try to sabotage and interfere with our pursuit of getting help.

Often, they don’t want us to get better; they want us to stay miserable.

It can be that ugly.

It takes great bravery and strength to get help, in the face of that hostile, painful, and unsupportive reality.

But getting help can liberate us to experience the quality lives we should have always had. We deserve that experience.

Willingness opens the door to that happening.

And, after getting help, we need to be willing to…

Decide it’s not our fault.

Yes, we’ve noticed the trauma and the dysfunction, and, yes, we are seeking help.

But the work is not done yet.

We need to embrace this concept: it’s not our fault.

That’s the exact opposite of the message many of us have believed and lived. All too often, our abusers blamed us; they made us responsible for their abhorrent behavior. We were “bad boys/girls.” We were “dirty,” “not good enough,” and the problematic reason why someone drank, used, beat, hit, or mistreated us in so many ways. And this, again, can go back generationally, so much so, it is simply regarded by the system as how things are done here.

Replacing that entrenched way of thinking and viewing ourselves is not quick and easy. Realizing that we are not to blame for another person’s choice, let alone, another generation’s choice, is strange and unfamiliar to us. It can feel unnatural.

To look at the concept of where, exactly, fault lies, we need to face unsettling, disturbing, and ugly truths of who people are, what a situation was, not what we’d like to be, and what our part needs to be, from here. Generational context can aid in explaining how we wound up here.

And it’s not a simple blame game, and that’s that. “Blame,” yes, may be a part of the process. However, we need to move forward and do our healing work from there. It’s not enough to simply declare it’s “so and so’s fault,” and then proceed with our lives, unchanged.

Change, on our part, is a necessary component of our work and healing.

It’s about accurately assessing the situation, with the people involved, for what it is. It’s about identifying and challenging abusive, toxic, harmful, and dysfunctional behaviors. And then, we need to act accordingly, and change the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that are not healthy as they show up in us.

“It’s YOUR fault!” is one of those damaging, intergenerational beliefs and behaviors, shifting blame away from an abuser to, instead, the abused and the vulnerable.

The trauma should never have happened. We didn’t deserve it. We didn’t deserve it getting passed down to us, taught to us, forced upon us.

Yet here we are, with its aftermath.

Therefore, we need to recognize our need to work to change any vestige of that trauma’s impact on us now.

And, therefore, we need to be willing to…

 Heal lifelong.

“…‘Do you want to get well?’"

John 5:6

Willingness is an ongoing choice; wellness is an ongoing choice.

It’s not a “one and done” thing.

And so, “the ones willing” commit to healing lifelong, with all that it entails.

It’s an imperfect quest.

Healing is not linear or predictable. It’s filled with failures, setbacks, heartache, loss, and feelings of insecurity and instability.

Many of us who have been in abusive and dysfunctional systems, including intergenerational trauma, have been cast as scapegoats, black sheep, outsiders, and the “defective” or “crazy ones.” We didn’t go along with the agenda of the “others.” We did not pleasantly participate in the dysfunction in the way toxic people expected us to participate.

Therefore, we won’t get their support in our healing. That can be a shock to our system.

That is part of the hardness that often falls to us. We may need to go it alone. We may encounter resistance, sabotaging efforts, and hostility as we pursue our healing.

Others may not want us to get better. It may be too threatening to them. That’s an unfortunate possibility we need to accept and prepare for.

We still have our choice. Will we choose to heal, for the long-term?

Where do we stand on willingness?

We repeatedly decide what to do with this approach in life. Are we willing, or aren’t we? We decide what we’ll do daily. It’s not just the large issues. It is also the smaller, perhaps, more pervasive, and tedious details.

We’re the mavericks, the pioneers, and the change agents if we choose to heal. If we are willing. That’s not to be underestimated. Other people and other generations may not have been willing; they may not have been in a position where they felt they could pursue the willingness to heal.

But we are who and where we are in life. We have the knowledge and the access.

Will we be willing to do what we need to do with those things?

Copyright © 2024 by Sheryle Cruse