intergenerational trauma podcast episode

When you look at a community or First Nations communities across Canada, when we look at complex post-traumatic stress, we're saying everybody is affected, even if they didn't go to residential school themselves or have a parent that went because the behaviours around them are adversely affecting their ability to see themselves in a positive way. There are just different ways that everybody's affected. It's complex: it means that one son may act out in one way and another son may act another way, be the best at everything the other son may become an alcoholic.

His behaviour is going to collectively affect the entire family. Let's take a family where the father was in the war and came back and he has post-traumatic stress disorder, individually. But they will be affected differently, they're not all going to be the same. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux: We're talking about complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which is basically saying that everyone in a community or a family will be affected. But there have been historical traumas, one after the other, after the other, after the other, over centuries, without time to grieve in between those 'bad things.' So much so that we're talking about PTSD, right?ĭr. Usually we point the finger at residential schools when we talk about intergenerational trauma, and rightly so. We also talk sometimes about 'blood memory,' that's also a genetic thing, and epigenetics plays a role as well, in how traumas that occurred maybe even 100 years before can still be resonating into the present.Īnnie Leblond: You're raising a good point.

People were traumatized by the epidemics that occurred when contact first occurred, the multiple deaths that occurred, through the Indian Wars and the relocation process, through the Indian residential schools and into contemporary traumas like the missing and murdered Indigenous women and the child welfare system, which passes on unresolved grief and trauma to the next generations-not only by storytelling, but by behaviours and by the way people are living their lives and unconsciously doing things that display their hurt and pass it on to their young children. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, Chair on Truth and Reconciliation at Lakehead University, Orillia and Thunder Bay: From my perspective, it's the passing on of traumas that have occurred over generations, going back to Contact on this continent. Could we start by defining what 'intergenerational trauma' is?ĭr. You've been researching and raising awareness, doing public education about intergenerational trauma, for 25–30 years. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, thank you for joining us. Please reach out for help if needed.Īnnie Leblond: Dr. This subject-matter is sensitive and could trigger all sorts of reactions, instantly or later on. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, who has written several academic articles focused on the history of intergenerational trauma that Indigenous Peoples continue to experience in their day-to-day lives. Listen on: Apple | Google | Spotify | Anchor Transcript Transcript: Sitting by the Fire, Episode 3: Intergenerational Trauma, Part 1Īnnie Leblond, Indigenous Learning, Canada School of Public Service: In this two-part miniseries, we explore intergenerational trauma and its impacts on Indigenous individuals and communities. Now playing Sitting by the Fire, Episode 3: Intergenerational Trauma, Part 1

Intergenerational trauma podcast episode