Understanding ‘Generational Trauma’ with Michele Sorrell DNP, RN

Podcast Transcript

John Horton:

Hello, and welcome to another Health Essentials Podcast. I'm John Horton, your host.

When it comes to your family history, it's not just something that lives on in stories and photo albums. The experiences of our older relatives — particularly, troubling or distressing experiences — can ripple through time and influence who we are today. It's a concept known as “generational trauma.”

We're going to spend today talking with forensic nurse examiner Michele Reali-Sorrell about the causes and effects of generational trauma, as well as how we might be able to break this damaging cycle. Dr. Reali-Sorrell is one of the many experts at Cleveland Clinic who pop into our podcast to offer deeper insight into how our minds and bodies work. With that, let's find out how the past can shape our present when it comes to our health.

Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Reali-Sorrell. We appreciate you stopping by to chat.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here today.

John Horton:

Well, before we dive into our main topic, I want to learn a little more about what you do. “Forensic nurse examiner” is one of the more interesting-sounding job titles I've come across. Can you explain what comes with that role?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Sure. I think, historically, what people are more familiar with is SANE — if you're a SANE nurse, a sexual assault nurse examiner — that's definitely what we do as forensic nurses, but it's just one small part of it. A forensic nurse is a nurse that is trained to come in and help take care of people that have experienced some type of trauma, whether it's historical or acute trauma. Most of the time, in the setting that I work, it's an acute trauma. It's someone who's experienced physical abuse through intimate partner violence, domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking — those are the patients that we really focus our care on.

John Horton:

Yeah. I know, when we were talking earlier, I mean, you end up going to court, testifying, and things like that. You could have your own TV show. “Forensic Nurse Examiner” could be a great series to somebody who's interested in it.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Thank you. Yeah, I think it's really interesting that nursing can take you in so many different directions, from inpatient, ambulatory, school nurse, and all of that. But this part is really interesting because not only do we do to the medical care, we do work with a lot of community partners that include rape crisis centers, include advocates, it includes prosecutors, police and law enforcement, and then, working with our criminal justice system. Really, taking you from not just the bedside, but out into the community and blending it all together.

John Horton:

Now, when you talked about how you work with patients or the people that you see, it sounds like generational trauma would be something a forensic nurse examiner would look for when working with people. For those who aren't familiar with the term “generational trauma,” can you explain what it means?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

It's emotional and psychological abuse that you have experienced through life. It can be the way that your parents have parented. It's the way that cultural stories and narratives are told. There are biological factors. Generational trauma — it means it's something that was passed down from a different generation to you. We take the word “trauma” as always negative, so generational transmission of things can be good, like really great cultural and family traditions and healthy positive things. But then there's also the negative things that are also passed along and that have long-lasting impacts on family members years to come.

John Horton:

Yeah. It seems like the term a lot of us use for it, the general term, is “family baggage” that gets passed along from generation to generation.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yeah. I mean, that's a very simple way to explain it. I think that when you talk about generational trauma, it sounds very negative and that there's long-lasting impacts that cannot be fixed. That's the part that I really hope that we take away from today, that there are ways to help and break those cycles. I remember when I graduated from my first degree with sociology and we learned about generational trauma, I was like, "Well, just break the cycle. If you didn't like the way you were raised as a child, then just change it."

John Horton:

Yeah, it sounds easy.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

It's simple. But it's so much more complex than that. It's more than pick yourself up by your bootstraps and just change. There's just years of patterns, behaviors, what you're taught, what you're told, and it just really impacts.

Yes, you can heal from this. I don't want anyone to feel like you can't, but it takes some time.

John Horton:

We're definitely going to get to that. But just in breaking it down, it sounds like these are the sort of things if you have a generation, your parents, your grandparents or even before that, that goes through just a really tough experience, what happened to them, it gets ingrained in your family's story, their history. It sounds like you just pick this up through time or through all these experiences and carry it with you. It's just hidden in there and it may affect you in ways you could never really think about.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yeah, one of my favorite quotes is, "What's too difficult to process doesn't go away on its own. It just stays in your subconscious." It feels like that's part of what generational trauma has been. You can't process it, so you just store it, and then that storage is sometimes handed over to someone else.

John Horton:

Let's talk through some things that might cause generational trauma, broad things that might cause this to be carried along.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

I think that there's some really well-known factors. For example, if you're in a home that has a lot of unhealthy relationships like domestic violence, that being around and observing that behavior is going to impact how you behave and see what is normal. Lots of screaming and yelling or maybe throwing things, that's the way families talk and communicate. There's a really well-known study called the ACE Study that was done by Kaiser Permanente back, I think, in the... I don't want to say '70s or the '90s. I don't know my exact fact time, but-

John Horton:

A little bit back.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yeah, so … Kaiser Permanente. What it did is, it interviewed adults 18 and older and said, "Go back in your time. There's 10 questions. Tell me, did you at any time in your life experience... " it asked things about abuse. It asks things about being belittled or talked down to. It asks things about food, alcohol, drugs and all of that. The higher you scored, the more likely you were going to have problems as an adult, whether it be emotional concerns, behavioral concerns and even physically, health issues. The ACE study showed that what you are exposed to as a child does carry on into your adulthood. I think that's an example of when you talk about a generation that's raising you, and then you're experiencing those traumas or that behavior or that interaction and how it affects you later in life.

John Horton:

What about non-direct generational trauma? By that, I'm talking about maybe it's your grandparents. It wasn't something that, it was in your house. I know I've seen references … the Holocaust comes up.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

The Holocaust, yeah.

John Horton:

It still ripples through, I think, how people think about things. Wars, genocides, all those just horrific things that happen on this planet — how does that kind of fit in?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

There's this word “epigenetics,” and I am by no means an expert in epigenetics, I'm just really fascinated by all of this. I read a lot and I try and learn as much as I can. When you talk about something like the Holocaust, there's definitely that whole behavior, communication, the cultural memories and all of that that is being passed down. But there's been some research that showed that the way the gene is expressed — it doesn't change the DNA of a gene — but the way the gene is expressed has changed due to that severe trauma that people who were part of the Holocaust had to go through. It actually changed the genes, which led to mood disorders and PTSD, which is being passed on. How a gene is read and expressed, it's changed based by that trauma.

John Horton:

That's so amazing. That gave me goosebumps a little bit, when you think about something so horrific happening that it actually changes the family DNA that gets passed along. It really does show how everything that's going on around us really affects you and even, I guess, in the future, all your future kids, grandkids and everything.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yeah, absolutely.

John Horton:

Would other trauma things that would fit in there be even examples, like natural disasters. I mean, we've seen now, hurricanes, floods and things like that that just really are turbulent situations and cause a lot of distress. Could that also leave this sort of imprint?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yes, I think that. So if you're looking at something that's happening right now, where your town was destroyed by a tornado or something like that, what are the protective factors in place that help you process all of that trauma you experienced? Those protective factors can help you process it, and then hopefully, be able to move through it.

But some people don't have those protective factors and don't have access to healthy coping skills. So I think it all is very individualized. I can live next door to someone and have suffered a horrific trauma or natural disaster, and I'm going to be OK, but they're not. What's the difference in that? Why am I going to be OK and they're not going to be OK? There's generations of things to look at. What were the resources that that person had at that really fundamental brain development time that helped you cope with life? Everyone's different. Everyone processes things different. What I might be able to get through, you might not be able to.

John Horton:

Yeah.

Now, how does this trauma get inherited? I know we had talked a little bit about how it can actually impact genetics, DNA and things like that. But I take it, it can get passed along through stories and just family traditions that start … or people start doing things a certain way because something happened. It seems like there's a lot of forces that come into play to pass this along.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

One of the examples that I like to share that someone shared with me that made sense… As a woman, you're pregnant. It's like the three-in-one generation. My mom was pregnant with me. While I was developing and forming cells, I was potentially forming my future children, so three generations in one person. I think that's a really powerful thought, thinking about that, right? That one person has potentially three generations in them.

As a pregnancy, of course, they're difficult, they're stressful and they're hard. But if you don't have a supportive system, if you don't have the basic human needs — good sleep patterns, good food patterns, know how to manage stress, financial, all of that stuff — that's stress, that's depression that you might have and really experience on a day-to-day everyday basis, most of the day impacts the stress level, your cortisol levels, which then impacts the hormone levels that you're exchanging with your fetus, your baby. Then, that child is not maybe getting the right amount of nutrients or hormones to have good brain development.

From that, when they're born, they might have a lot of … might be colic, they might be anxious, they might be prone to loud noises really scaring them more than another person because that was what they experienced for 10 months while being about to be born.

I think that when you think about it, how that a woman's pregnancy is crucial, that the healthy baby gets all of that healthy stuff from mom, and if that's not there, it can affect that baby. Do they have anxiety? Do they have behavioral problems? Do they have depression? Are they trusting? What is their relationships going to be like?

John Horton:

Yeah, that three-in-one concept really does drive home how that DNA component works. When you're pregnant, you think of the child you're carrying. But then, like you said, all those eggs, those future grandkids of yours, are also in there, too, which is just mind-boggling to think about. But it really drives home the point about how this can be passed along, and there's some biology to it. It's right through that.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Absolutely. It's biological and it's very much environmental.

John Horton:

Now, what about just even the stories and those sorts of things, can that also carry this along? If you keep hearing these tales from the past, in getting shared, does that make an imprint on you?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yeah, I would think so. If you think about when families don't communicate, and we know that there's been something that happened a long time ago — it was very traumatic for the family, they don't talk about it — that secrets and silence create shame and guilt. What might've happened to a family is carried on as if there was something bad and negative, and you have to be ashamed and guilty about it. That affects your self-esteem or the way you process information.

One of the most powerful presentations I ever went to … it was on domestic violence, sexual assault. It was a presentation and there were three women on the stage: a grandmother, her daughter and her grandchild. The grandmother talked about how she was abused by a family member when she was younger, sexually abused. She told her, a parent, and they didn't either believe her or they brushed it under the table. She eventually goes on, gets married and had a lot of problems in her relationship because of this unprocessed trauma of not being believed and all of that. Then, probably was with someone who probably wasn't as healthy or accepting of her as she needed them to be. Then, she had children. The way she parented, because the way she was parented or not parented, or believed or not believed, affected her child.

Her child then gets up and talks about how not knowing what her mother went through as a child, and now knowing, it explained a lot of the way her mom parented. She didn't know it at the time until when her daughter was born, but it wasn't until her daughter was maybe 6 or 7 years old that she learned this stuff, so she was parenting the same way.

You can see generation of generation of generation and how are they breaking that cycle of negativity or unhealthy or whatever it was. It was through acknowledging, processing and then getting the help they needed to release that shame and that guilt.

John Horton:

Yeah. I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier, which is, we talk about things that are passed down from generations … this is one of those things where you talk about the trauma. I know there's people who probably hear it and they go, "Oh, come on. Can this happen?" But I liked how you mentioned all the good things that get passed down, too, and we embrace those, accept those and everything. It's really not difficult to see. You've got the good. You've got the bad. This all gets passed down to us and it forms who we are, who we become, and how we behave every day and interact with others.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Right. We're accepting and happy to take on all the good things that are passed down from generation to generation. But when there is some type of what we consider a negative... What's normal? I don't know what normal is.

John Horton:

Yeah, nobody knows.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

When people say that, “What is normal?” as a nurse, when we are going in and talking to our patients, we understand what trauma-informed care is. “Trauma-informed care” is a buzzword, but what it means is understanding that everyone comes to an appointment or the hospital or life with some experiences that have impacted the way they process information, the way they handle stress, the way they communicate.

This is really important to me. Someone told me this years ago: Trauma-informed care is looking at someone and not saying, "What's wrong with you?" but "What happened to you?" When you look at what happened to them, we're all born this perfect child … what happened that impacted our life to where now, they're a drug addict or now they have anger management problems, or to now where they're really successful or they're really happy? We all have experiences in life that impact us. It's how we process that information.

John Horton:

Yeah. It sounds like you use this information to get a little bit of an understanding as to why they might be in the situation that they're in or why they're feeling a certain way or having certain health issues.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yeah. I think if you think about trauma affects your ability to take care of yourself mentally and physically. There's research that shows that, with a lot of childhood trauma, you might be experiencing more problems with eating disorders. It's not enough food, too much food, a coping mechanism. You're an emotional eater to cope with your problems, so it can lead to obesity. It might be there's a correlation with trauma and asthma and how your body reacts. When you're stressed, the release of different hormones in your body, how you cope and stuff, do you have more asthma attacks than the average person? How does this lead to hypertension? How does this lead to heart disease? There's correlations and much research out there about how trauma and how you process it affects you physically. You think about people who are really stressed and internalized. They might have ulcers. They might have high blood pressure, all of that. There's not this negative connotation with, "Oh, you have high blood pressure because you're stressed," versus "Oh, you had childhood trauma and you're misbehaving. You have behavioral problems." That's not acceptable. We pick and choose, I think, sometimes, what are acceptable ways of coping with childhood or generational trauma and what's not.

John Horton:

Yeah, it sounds like they can all just be pieces of the puzzle when you're looking at something. I love how you brought the physical issues because I think most people can look at it and come up with that this generational trauma can lead to mental health issues. We talk about depression, anxiety, things like that. But it sounds like it also manifests into these very physical reactions, like you said, heart disease, asthma, all that. It really just impacts everything about us.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Sure. Yeah. I think that what is important is when we are talking about understanding … if someone's listening to this podcast and they really want to understand the impact, it's taking a step back, reflecting, and looking at behaviors and patterns. Again, going back to not what's wrong with you, but what happened to you, and trying to help that person in your life process that information. I think as physicians, as nurses, as healthcare providers, how do we help understand that maybe some of the illness that our patients are having is related to that trauma? Are we screening? Are we talking to them about those types of issues in their life? Then, what are we doing to help them process that?

John Horton:

Well, and let's talk about that help. I know, right at the start, we made reference — we want to get into this — about how we can maybe break that cycle and bring about maybe some true healing so people can get past some of this, or overcome it, I guess would be the better way to phrase it.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

In a very, very simplistic way, I've worked at the clinic almost 30 years, and I come the same way to work every day. I do it the same thing, the same way.

John Horton:

Creature of habit. We all do that.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

That's the way I do it. I go this way and everything. All of a sudden, there's all sorts of construction. I'm still going the same way and it's not working for me. It's frustrating me. It's taking much longer. It's throwing me out of my rhythm. What am I going to do with this? I'm just going to keep going the same way.

The other day, I decided I'm not going to do this. I'm going to go left here and I'm going to see where this takes me. It takes me this different way. All of a sudden, I'm like, it might've taken me longer, but it wasn't as stressful of going this way and worrying about, "Oh, that car, they're not braking. They're not slowing down. Oh, this one's so close to me," or "Oh, I'm not going to make that light. That person was on their phone," just all that frustration. Then, I go this way, and all of a sudden, I wasn't as stressed out.

Very simplistically, you think about when someone has been doing something the same way and it's not working anymore, how do you help them navigate that new path to this? Some people, you can talk about therapy, talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, all of that stuff. People don't buy into that and they need to. It is so much better than saying, "Oh, pop this pill. This is what's going to fix you." Medication is very important and is a tool to help you, but it's not the only tool.

I think it's really important for us to talk about how we identify our trauma, acknowledging it, putting it out into the world. “This happened to me. I can't take it back. I said it out loud.” Then, how do we process that? How do we break those negative behaviors? How do we go left instead of right? Who are our resources, whether it's the healthcare system, whether it's therapy, whether it's family, whether it's friends, whether it's reading, it's those apps on your phone that help you meditate. There are ways to process this and heal. But we have to be supportive of that person as they're going through that journey.

John Horton:

When you look at possible treatments, when you have somebody come in and you start trying to break this down, it just really starts with talking about it and trying to understand maybe the forces that led you to where you are?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yes. One of the things we do at the clinic is we have a specialized trauma program that we send our patients to after they've been seen by one of our forensic nurses, and it's called Care After Trauma, CAT Clinic. It's for acute and historical trauma. Basically, it's a really specialized clinic where we have a nurse practitioner that has been really trained in trauma-informed care. Used to be a forensic nurse before she became a nurse practitioner. There's a care coordinator there that is a forensic nurse, so is very experienced with working with people who have had acute and historical trauma.

Then, we have our victim advocate from the Cleveland Clinic that can be there as well.

You get everyone there at one time, so the patient doesn't have to keep repeating story after story. You try and get everything to flow so that patient doesn't have to keep coming back multiple times.

The appointment is an hour long. You might go to your doctor and get a 20-minute visit, 30-minute visit, but now, you can be there for an hour. You can do it virtual. You can do it in person. And so creating a space where people are aware.

You go to your doctor. You might already have anxiety. You have a history of some type of violence where you don't like the doors shut because it makes you feel like you can't leave on your own free will. Just even as much as, “Can I leave the door open or shut for you?” Everyone wants the door shut so you can't hear what's going on in the hallway. You can't see other patients. Privacy for everyone. But that person might be really triggered by a door being shut.

Creating these avenues where people are very aware of your experiences, and again, I'm referencing a lot of physical and sexual trauma, but “Is it OK if I listen to your heart? Is it OK if I listen to your belly?” Consent is ongoing. Before I touch you, I explain everything to you. I think that there's definitely areas in the healthcare system that are helping patients recover from physical ailments just through the trauma-informed care way we approach them.

John Horton:

If somebody thinks that they might have generational trauma or they see how it might be affecting their life, who should they reach out to? Are there any tips as far as where you start to break that down?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Sure. I think about it like, “Is my behavior related to something that happened to my mother or my grandmother and I don't even know about it?” Maybe. There are specialized therapists out there that really can unpack that. That's not the role of a forensic nurse, but our role is to help you find those professionals that can help you unpack that.

There's some really good books. I wrote some down. Where is it on my thing? One of my favorite books is, It Didn't Start With You, by Mark Wolynn, and it's fascinating. He talks about a young man who was really smart, doing great in school, and all of a sudden, 28 years old, he started to fall apart, all sorts of problems. He was seeing a doctor and they were able to unpack that he had a family member that drowned at the same age he started having all of these problems, and just were able to correlate the connection. He didn't experience it, he didn't see it, but there were impacts that affected the family and everything. Somehow, the epigenetics reached him and he started having these depression, mood swings, anxiety and all of that about the same time the person. Really interesting information, and I probably didn't explain that very well. But the book does and the book is really good.

John Horton:

Yeah. I think, one of the things, and you kind of touched on this earlier, is how this affects everybody differently. I think that's one of the most difficult things when you talk about topics like this, because people will go, "Well, I had something similar and I don't feel any of this stress or this anxiety." But the thing is, we all process things a little differently. It sounds like you need to be open to the fact that others may have different experiences and have it affect them in a completely different way. Be willing to sit and listen to that and accept that, hey, this might have been an issue for them or a force that led them to this particular point.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yeah, I think about, just because it appears that it didn't affect them the same way it affected you, doesn't mean that that's honest. I mean, you look at social media, everyone in the world on social media is so happy, they have beautiful lives and everything's perfect until you really see the other side of it, right?

John Horton:

Yeah. That's just kind of a veneer I think a lot of people have.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Right. I think it's important to know that just because we both experienced something that's super traumatic and you didn't have the same experience as me, that's good. We can't fault someone for not having that, and then fault the person who does have the negative experience. Again, environmental factors, social determinants of health, support systems, protective factors, all of these things play into it. There's so many pieces and parts to it. What time your trauma happened to you with brain development. The impulse control doesn't really fully develop until you're in your mid to late 20s. There's just so many variables. I think the best way to say it is to really be kind and allow grace for people on how they handle things.

John Horton:

It sounds like if you're dealing with some of this, reach out to a family member, a friend, a counselor, a therapist, your healthcare provider, and start talking about it. It sounds like with everything, the key to figuring out how to deal with it and work with it is to accept that it's there, then just, you start trying to do something.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Sure, yeah. We have a lot of resources in our communities, but are the resources inviting?

John Horton:

Dr. Reali-Sorrell, this has been a fascinating conversation, which I expected, knowing what the topic was and when we had talked earlier. I guess to wrap things up here, when we start looking at generational trauma and people start maybe doing a little reflection after listening to this, I guess, what's your final words of advice as to what their next steps should be?

You go to your doctor. You might already have anxiety. You have a history of some type of violence where you don't like the doors shut because it makes you feel like you can't leave on your own free will. Just even as much as, “Can I leave the door open or shut for you?” Everyone wants the door shut so you can't hear what's going on in the hallway. You can't see other patients. Privacy for everyone. But that person might be really triggered by a door being shut.

Creating these avenues where people are very aware of your experiences, and again, I'm referencing a lot of physical and sexual trauma, but “Is it OK if I listen to your heart? Is it OK if I listen to your belly?” Consent is ongoing. Before I touch you, I explain everything to you. I think that there's definitely areas in the healthcare system that are helping patients recover from physical ailments just through the trauma-informed care way we approach them.

John Horton:

If somebody thinks that they might have generational trauma or they see how it might be affecting their life, who should they reach out to? Are there any tips as far as where you start to break that down?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Sure. I think about it like, “Is my behavior related to something that happened to my mother or my grandmother and I don't even know about it?” Maybe. There are specialized therapists out there that really can unpack that. That's not the role of a forensic nurse, but our role is to help you find those professionals that can help you unpack that.

There's some really good books. I wrote some down. Where is it on my thing? One of my favorite books is, It Didn't Start With You, by Mark Wolynn, and it's fascinating. He talks about a young man who was really smart, doing great in school, and all of a sudden, 28 years old, he started to fall apart, all sorts of problems. He was seeing a doctor and they were able to unpack that he had a family member that drowned at the same age he started having all of these problems, and just were able to correlate the connection. He didn't experience it, he didn't see it, but there were impacts that affected the family and everything. Somehow, the epigenetics reached him and he started having these depression, mood swings, anxiety and all of that about the same time the person. Really interesting information, and I probably didn't explain that very well. But the book does and the book is really good.

John Horton:

Yeah. I think, one of the things, and you kind of touched on this earlier, is how this affects everybody differently. I think that's one of the most difficult things when you talk about topics like this, because people will go, "Well, I had something similar and I don't feel any of this stress or this anxiety." But the thing is, we all process things a little differently. It sounds like you need to be open to the fact that others may have different experiences and have it affect them in a completely different way. Be willing to sit and listen to that and accept that, hey, this might have been an issue for them or a force that led them to this particular point.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Yeah, I think about, just because it appears that it didn't affect them the same way it affected you, doesn't mean that that's honest. I mean, you look at social media, everyone in the world on social media is so happy, they have beautiful lives and everything's perfect until you really see the other side of it, right?

John Horton:

Yeah. That's just kind of a veneer I think a lot of people have.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Right. I think it's important to know that just because we both experienced something that's super traumatic and you didn't have the same experience as me, that's good. We can't fault someone for not having that, and then fault the person who does have the negative experience. Again, environmental factors, social determinants of health, support systems, protective factors, all of these things play into it. There's so many pieces and parts to it. What time your trauma happened to you with brain development. The impulse control doesn't really fully develop until you're in your mid to late 20s. There's just so many variables. I think the best way to say it is to really be kind and allow grace for people on how they handle things.

John Horton:

It sounds like if you're dealing with some of this, reach out to a family member, a friend, a counselor, a therapist, your healthcare provider, and start talking about it. It sounds like with everything, the key to figuring out how to deal with it and work with it is to accept that it's there, then just, you start trying to do something.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Sure, yeah. We have a lot of resources in our communities, but are the resources inviting?

John Horton:

Dr. Reali-Sorrell, this has been a fascinating conversation, which I expected, knowing what the topic was and when we had talked earlier. I guess to wrap things up here, when we start looking at generational trauma and people start maybe doing a little reflection after listening to this, I guess, what's your final words of advice as to what their next steps should be?

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

We are here to support you, whatever that looks like. We should be there to help support you. Making that first statement to someone that, "I need help," and then, let us help you navigate that and what it looks like. But I think once you say it out loud, "I need help," you tell someone, "I need help," that hopefully, then, we can start the healing process.

John Horton:

This is definitely a good first step in that process, for somebody who's listening to this. Dr. Reali-Sorrell, thank you so much for coming in. And like I said, this is just a fascinating conversation and topic.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

Thank you.

John Horton:

Really a lot to absorb.

Dr. Michele Reali-Sorrell:

It was really nice to be here. Thanks.

John Horton:

If you feel like you're carrying emotional baggage from your family tree, you may be experiencing generational trauma, and it can have a very real effect on your health, both mentally and physically. Talk to someone about what you're feeling so that the past doesn't get in the way of your future happiness.

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Speaker 3:

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