Dear Kiantha: Professional support, generational healing can aid in fight against depression, trauma

Dear Kiantha,

Mental illness runs in my family. I have suffered from depression and anxiety for many years. I now see those same traits in my adult son. How do you get rid of depression if it’s hereditary?

Dear Friend,

In my kindergarten class photograph I am wearing a turquoise, velvet short-sleeve top with an asymmetric pocket across the chest area. My hair is perfectly combed with cotton ribbons on each ponytail. I was picture ready but in the picture taken, there was no smile but more of a blank stare into the light in the camera.

Looking at this photograph 45 years later, I remember being a sad child. Quiet, reserved and always full of heavy thoughts and fear. Through a lion’s share portion of my childhood, that heaviness and what felt like depression followed me.

By the age of 5, I had already experienced very severe childhood trauma. We now call trauma experienced before the age of 18 adverse childhood experiences, or ACES. There is a tool to help identify those traumas and offer a score of their impact.

I have an ACES score of 10 out of 10. I’m certain you can imagine the impact that score could have had on my life.

I share this part of my story with you as a precursor to my understanding about the hereditary nature of depression.

Mental health and depression are complex. Genetics can play a role, as can traumatic experiences, even those experienced a generation or more earlier. My mother experienced a life of childhood and adult trauma and because of this, she parented and showed up in the world as such. Ultimately, this affected the way in which she parented which left her children vulnerable to the impact of her trauma.

Depression is often the star of the show when in fact the main character is trauma and yes, I do believe trauma is passed on when unhealed.

The long and short of this is, as you heal that healing also is passed on to your children. You don’t get rid of it, you heal from it which changes the way in which you exist in the world.

No matter the cause of the depression or trauma, professional support can aid the healing process. The process is different for everyone. Get serious about facing the things that have caused you trauma and encourage your son to do the same. But even if he is not ready, do your work and watch how it transforms everything around you.

I’ll be thinking of you.

Soul to soul,

Kiantha

Dear Kiantha can be read every other Friday. To read the column in Spanish, visit spokesman.com. To submit your questions, please email DearKiantha@gmail.com.