Is it really necessary to sort through family archives and send inquiries to the state, in search of the truth to pester grandparents? Maybe it would be worth thinking only about the future? But something is stopping us…
“Set the dough in the evening, knead the dough in the morning, let it rise twice,” the grandmother instructs about pies. “In our village there was no word “willow”, they used to say “willow”, we made fishing rods out of it as boys,” says dad. “Love ends, but work saves,” the aunt assures.
Each of us has many such memories. Are they ours? Certainly! But at the same time, they belong to loved ones who share what they know and remember, what they have experienced and felt throughout their lives. And we absorb them.
These are not always words: gestures, attitudes, habits, preferences.
“We carry a part of the people with whom we are connected, learn from them and then pass on the tradition to those who follow us,” says Viktor Zaretsky, a psychologist and one of the creators of the method of cultural-historical sociodrama. “And this happens in all areas of life: in science, in society and in the family.”
Without this past, we would not be ourselves. But what if there are gaps in it?
The hole where the energy goes
A family secret is an event that is not talked about. This zone of silence affects everyone who enters the family.
“The secret is always like a hole, a gap, a psychological void, the one that nature does not tolerate,” emphasizes family psychotherapist Natalya Tumashkova. “It is an unfinished gestalt that, by its very nature, strives for completion. The edges of the hole have to shrink, so the energy goes there.”
Mystery is an uncertainty that gives rise to enduring anxiety. And sometimes a minor incident is enough for an explosion of emotions, a break in ties in the family. Especially if this secret is long-term, which is passed from the elders to the younger.
“If the gestalt is not closed from generation to generation, then, according to the law of family systems, the aggravation of the symptom begins,” explains Natalya Tumashkova.
Initially, a real fear about a particular issue, if we avoid talking about it, turns into a blurry, vague threat that all family members, including descendants, feel.
“Therefore, in a healthy family as a whole, someone can develop endogenous depression, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which they wash their hands forty times, check if the gas is turned off,” the psychotherapist gives an example. There are no reasons in the present, they are in the past.
Not quite the past
The past does not disappear without a trace, but continues in the present. When choosing partners, we give preference to those who will help maintain the habits acquired in our parental family. For example, “we don’t talk about sex.” Maybe something terrible is hidden behind this, or maybe not, but there is an awkward thing that “decent people don’t talk about.”
“There were no rapes or murders, but the topic is shrouded in mystery – why? Yes, it’s just that grandmothers didn’t talk about it, and in the XNUMXst century, for some, this is still indecent! Natalya Tumashkova explains. “And this closed topic makes it difficult to build normal sexual relationships: a woman cannot say that she is pleased, a man cannot ask her and thinks that since she is silent, then everything is in order, or she doesn’t think, but she still can’t ask.” .
What used to be considered normal may become unacceptable
In many families, Jewish origin has become a secret. They tried not to talk about this, because the 5th item (“nationality” in the passport of the USSR) influenced the career, there was even an ironic euphemism “disabled fifth group”, that is, a Jew. Is it past or not?
Until now, this topic is so difficult that many cannot talk about it, refuse to believe that there was a Holocaust. If we admit it, it turns out that cultured Germans are capable of such inhumanity, which means that I, and someone nearby, anyone belonging to the human race, is also capable of this.
“For a child, it is not clear what is wrong with being a Jew,” the psychotherapist develops the thought, “but he hears adults lower their voices, encounters aggression that he does not understand, and he has a transference: something is wrong with me.
Moreover, “not so” at a level that I cannot influence, it does not depend on whether I behave badly or well. Until it is clarified where the opinion of society, attitudes, family history, and where I myself and my personal responsibility are, anxiety will not go anywhere.
Public attitudes are changing. What was previously considered normal may become unacceptable and go into the area of silence. One example is sexual orientation, attitudes towards which have changed markedly over the centuries, from calm in antiquity to persecution in the Christian era, in some countries up to our time.
“The trend of civilizational development is to accept diversity and openly talk about certain of our features, which reduces tension.
In those cultures where there is still forced silence, where gays cannot calmly accept and express their identity, psychological tension is expressed in social aggression and in personal tragedies,” emphasizes Natalya Tumashkova.
There is something that does not brag about, for example, diseases such as enuresis, but if someone admits it, others will only sympathize with him.
Until recently, those infected with HIV were discriminated against, and when the mechanism of transmission was precisely established and treatment was found, the attitude towards them changed. But where something is surrounded by mystery, fears arise, the number of sick people is hidden, and then tension grows in society, in families, and among individuals.
Restore history
The family secret cuts us off from the family memory, which can become part of the personality. It is clear that we cannot learn much even from the archives, and not all of them have survived.
Methods of psychology come to the rescue. They allow you to get not the truth of facts, but the truth of the soul.
“Human history enters the collective unconscious, and if we send a request there, we get an answer and feel when it happens,” notes Natalya Tumashkova. “Ancestors who have sunk into oblivion can come back, tell their story, give you advice if you want. You get contact with the energy of the family.”
Everyone interprets the same events in their own way, and this shows our uniqueness.
“We have no past or future at all, it is always “my past”, “my future”, individual, personal, and how we comprehend the past of the family, and therefore our own, depends on the individual future and present.
The past is being rethought and reconstructed,” emphasizes Victor Zaretsky. “Reconstruction is a way to find reference points in order to develop your own attitude, opinion, in order to understand what kind of part that exists in us.”
Reading will not replace psychotherapy, but will help to understand what is happening to us. Processing trauma is hard work, but it can close the hole and make the past a resource. After all, behind each of us is the history of the family, dating back to antiquity, storing tremendous vital energy.