Breaking Generational Trauma: Worst Deal, Best Timing
Being tasked with breaking the cycle is a raw deal. Why you? Why not your parents, or their parents, for that matter? Why didn’t they do the work?
Why do you now have to spend so much of your young adulthood working so hard to not only get your life going, but also wear behavioral and thought-pattern training wheels to learn how to simply function in the world?
It’s unfair. I will be the first to say that it sucks. That breaking generational trauma is complex, intense and touches every part of your life. That it’s exhausting. That you shouldn’t have to work twice as hard just to have the foundation that others were handed.
But I’m also here to tell you: There has never been such a powerful opportunity as right now to get this done.
For most of human history (and sadly, still, in some parts of the world), generational trauma and breaking the cycle wasn’t even a concept. If you were born into a harsh reality, you lived in it. You lived what you were taught, what was modeled. Your only choices were to endure or escape—if you were lucky enough to have a way out. Therapy wasn’t a thing. Mental health wasn’t a conversation. There were no resources, no guides, no community spaces for people who were drowning under the weight of generational trauma.
Even when psychology emerged as a field in the late 1800s, it wasn’t concerned with everyday people trying to heal. Freud wasn’t exactly handing out self-help books for families struggling with abusive cycles. And in the early 1900s, therapy wasn’t even an option for most—it was reserved for the wealthy or those deemed “mentally ill” enough to warrant treatment. For everyone else? You kept your head down and survived.
It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that things started to shift. The rise of family therapy in the 1950s acknowledged, for the first time, that dysfunction wasn’t just an individual issue—it was systemic. Still, many families resisted these ideas, viewing mental health struggles as something to endure in silence.
The 1970s and 80s brought a wave of self-help books, support groups, and recovery movements that finally gave people language for what they had experienced. Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families (ACA) started in 1978. Codependent No More was published in 1986. Suddenly, there were names for the things that had been happening in families for centuries. Suddenly, people had maps out of the chaos.
But even then, healing was a slow, isolated process. You had to find the right book. You had to stumble upon the right therapist. You had to be in the right place at the right time to find a support group that made sense to you.
Today? The barriers are gone. Everyone with internet access has an opportunity to better their lives.
This was true for me. When I was starting my recovery journey long ago, I remember stumbling across the self-help section at bookstores, reading the back cover summaries, and being amazed that I found something that could possibly help me. That moment of discovery—finding the right resource by chance—was how healing began for so many of us.
Even with those early resources, healing was slow and isolating. Luckily, by then, the internet had emerged so I could find some early resource leads for support groups and some leads on therapists. But it was nothing like it is today. The resources today are truly amazing.
If you feel called to break the cycle, you don’t have to search in the dark. The knowledge is right here. The vast array of tools and resources are endless. Books, podcasts, online courses, trauma-informed therapy, AI-powered mental health support, virtual meetings, guided meditations—anything you need, you can access in an instant.
And for the first time in history, you’re not alone in this. There are entire communities of people, just like you, untangling their past, rewriting their future and who are willing to share about it. Younger generations have shattered the silence around mental health. What was once hidden behind closed doors—trauma, anxiety, family dysfunction—is now openly discussed, normalized, and actively worked through.
No generation before us has had this kind of access to healing. No one before us had instant, real-time support while breaking the cycle. No one before us had an entire digital archive of wisdom at their fingertips, teaching them how to rewire their nervous system, practice healthy thought and behavior patterns, and build a life that doesn’t just survive—but thrives.
Yes, it’s deeply unfair that this work fell on you. Yes, it’s overwhelming, frustrating, and exhausting. And you certainly aren’t obligated to do so. But if you do feel called to have it all stop with you, you have a real shot at this. You are the first who gets to say, “I am fully empowered to heal my past, clear the path to a wonderful future, and lead a fulfilling life!” And for the first time in history, the knowledge, tools, resources and access exist to make that true.
And that? That is the shift of a bum deal into an exciting opportunity. That is the shift from a disempowered past to an incredibly bright future for you and generations to come.
