Genograms

I felt I did the genogram "wrong", but I have to put that in quotes because those terms can be highly subjective. I did benefit from it, and those benefits probably make sense for the activity.

In addition, one of my results feels very important to go into before doing the next section.

I found this activity in The Transformation: Discovering Wholeness and Healing After Trauma by James S. Gordon. This link is from his organization, the Center for Mind-Body Medicine:

https://cmbm.org/jordan/strength-family-past-present/

I did mine in two sessions, because I didn't want to do a bunch of graphing that first night - find paper and all of that - but I thought I could at least get down what I knew about the stories and relationships in my journal. I went back and drew all of the names and lines and things later.

The first thing that was striking was how much I knew about so many people whom I have never knew, often from people who didn't know them. There weren't even deliberate attempts to capture the stories, but just things that came out in conversations about other things. 

The example in the book included a woman who needed to end a long marriage to a prestigious man where she was going to face a lot of resistance from family. In doing her genogram she realized that she had an aunt who would support her, and started there for building up her resources.

I don't think I learned a lot about myself or my relationships from this; maybe that knowledge was already there. That is why I say I may have done it wrong.

What I received instead was more about understanding other people. 

Writing in my journal that first night, I suddenly understood the dynamics of the women in my mother's family better. They all had a tendency to worry. I noticed it more with my mother and her oldest sister, but when I mentioned it to my uncles they assured me that they were all that way. 

As I wrote about them, it became clear that was something from their mother, but that it also made perfect sense. From the death of her mother in childbirth when she was five and the effects that had on her birth family, to the loss of two children and some serious illnesses, to having a late-in-life pregnancy during a war (while one of her sisters who had married a Jewish man was hiding from the Nazis), my grandmother knew too well all of the terrible things that could and often did happen. 

That sometimes comes out in stories that are told humorously, like how she would chase owls away from the house with a broom, because if an owl cries near your house it means someone will die. I heard that and thought, Wouldn't chasing the owl make it more likely to hoot? 

(She was born in Italy in 1896 and raised by nuns after her mother died. Her being superstitious is not a shock.)

You don't have to look too far behind the laughter to find the pain, and it doesn't mean her life was only fear, but it was a real thing. Her children could laugh at it, but they also (especially her daughters) picked up some of it, much like I thought I was not a worrier until I realized that it only in comparison to my mother.

The next time, when I did the charting, my feelings centered more on my father's side. I was struck by how strong my great-grandmother had to have been. 

She had to be strong because of my great-grandfather's severe alcoholism, but I saw that in a different light too. The losses that must have fueled it it all become clear, even though none of the information was new. I just saw it differently.

(It also reinforced strong indicators that alcohol and Harris family do not mix, but that had been clear for a while.)

The overall result for all of it was stronger compassion for my family. Everything makes sense for how I turned out, but it makes sense for them too, strengths and weaknesses.

It doesn't mean that there weren't choices, including wrong and hurtful choices, but I could still offer understanding. 

This was important. It worked out well that I had done the genogram before I started the expressive writing, because a lot of anger did come out. That anger was important, and we will spend more time on it, but then it was also important that I could understand and let go.

I wanted to cover that before I start covering my trauma, because as I go into some of these choices and the impact they had on me, there does not need to be any anger on my behalf. I am better now.

It has been a journey.