The Weight of Unspoken Wounds: A Journey of Generational Healing

Lately, I’ve found myself standing at the edge of a vast, unfathomable chasm, one I never knew was carved so deeply within my family’s history. The revelation about my mother being physically assaulted by her own mother, thrown to the ground and kicked in the stomach while pregnant with my half-brother "J" is a harsh, chilling truth. It stirs the waters of an already turbulent past—a past steeped in intergenerational pain, trauma, and unspoken wounds that have shaped the women in my family, and in turn, me.

Reflecting on this new discovery, I can’t help but trace its roots back to my great-grandmother. A woman who abandoned her child—a move that must have carried its own untold burdens, secrets, and sorrows. Whatever her reasons, her departure left my grandmother adrift, a young girl with no choice but to be hardened by the boot camp rigidity of a military upbringing. That same hardness became her armor, her way of coping with a world that seemed set against her softness. She wasn’t given the space to grieve, to question, or to heal. And so, she passed forward what she knew: survival through suppression.

The cycle continued with my mother, the eldest of eight children. By 16, she was thrust into the role of provider, all while navigating the complexities of living in a house dominated by unhealed wounds—a mother hardened by abandonment, a grandmother who sought solace in her own addictions, and a father too passive to shield her from the chaos. I see now how my mother had no choice but to construct a façade of strength. Her heart must have longed for the love, security, and sense of belonging she never received, but instead, she became a fortress. She disconnected from her own pain to survive. To protect herself. To carry on.

The assault she endured while pregnant with my half-brother is an agonizing layer of this legacy. My grandmother’s violence toward her own daughter, the one she was supposed to protect, speaks volumes of the unprocessed rage and pain festering within her. In that moment, it wasn’t just a mother striking her child—it was generations of unacknowledged wounds erupting into violence. It’s a visceral reminder that pain that isn’t transformed will inevitably be transmitted.

This is a deeply profound realization that I have been grappling with since finding this extra piece of the puzzle that is my mother's family. Trauma has a way of burrowing itself so deeply within us, twisting and tangling through generations, waiting for moments to resurface in unexpected—and often destructive—ways. My great-grandmother’s abandonment and the mystery surrounding her own father must have carved scars so deep that they became part of her very being. Wounds left unspoken, left unhealed, can become a heavy legacy.

When I think of my grandmother’s violence toward my mother, I can’t help but see it through the lens of her own unprocessed pain. Perhaps the sight of my unwed pregnant mother reflected back all the shame, the worthlessness, the raw grief of being unwanted, of being left behind. In that moment, all her repressed emotions, all the ghosts of her past, surged forth and lashed out—not with reason, but with the desperation of a wounded child who never had the chance to heal.

This isn’t an attempt to justify her actions by any means. Far from it. But it does illuminate the patterns of intergenerational trauma—the echoes of pain that repeat until someone has the courage to confront them. Her actions were a tragic manifestation of unresolved grief and bitterness. If my grandmother had been given space to process her abandonment, to heal, perhaps things would have been different. But pain that is buried is never truly gone; it surfaces, uncontrolled, when triggered by echoes of its origin.

My great-grandmother’s sense of invisibility, of rejection, may have filtered through her daughter’s experiences and into the way she related to the world. It’s a sobering reminder of how unhealed wounds are handed down, often without words, but always with weight.

I am here to break this cycle, not by ignoring their pain but by giving it voice.

I will see the parts of them that were hidden, acknowledge the pain that was passed on, and choose a different path. This work is not about excusing or erasing; it is about transforming and healing. It is about ending the echoes and creating something new—a legacy not of pain, but of healing and compassion. This is my testament to their strength and my commitment to breaking free from the weight of what they carried.

Standing here, at this intersection of past and present, I am filled with both rage and sorrow. I rage at the injustices my mother suffered, at the cycle of harm that has perpetuated itself in different forms. But I also grieve—for the girl my mother once was, for the grandmother who never found her way out of her own pain, and for the great-grandmother who carried secrets too heavy to share. And for myself, the child who grew up sensing the weight of these unspoken wounds, even if I didn’t have the words to name them.

This pain lives in the feminine lineage of my family, weaving itself into our stories, shaping our relationships, our choices, and the ways we see ourselves. It’s a legacy of abandonment, harshness, and survival at the expense of vulnerability. But I’m determined to change that narrative. I cannot change what happened to the women who came before me, but I can choose to walk a different path.

My healing is messy and often excruciating. It means feeling the anger that my grandmother buried, the grief my mother refused to touch, and the confusion of a little girl trying to make sense of the chaos around her. It means facing my own inclination to numb myself, to harden my heart, to disconnect. But I am determined to do more than survive. I want to heal. I want to transform this pain into something that honors the strength of the women who came before me, while refusing to carry forward their unhealed wounds.

Healing doesn’t mean ignoring their suffering; it means acknowledging it with open eyes and a compassionate heart. It means recognizing that my grandmother’s hardness was a shield, that my mother’s emotional unavailability was a coping mechanism, and that their pain was never truly theirs alone—it was inherited, carried, and passed down. It’s time to stop the cycle. It’s time to feel what they couldn’t, to release what they held inside, and to create space for something new—compassion, softness, love.

I carry their stories with me, but I will feel the rage they could not express, the sadness they buried so deeply, and even speak it out loud. No longer will this shame be allowed to fester, hidden in the shadows of unspoken memories. It is time for it to experience the sublime warmth of the light—to see that it is no longer forbidden or forgotten. This pain, this anger, this grief, is not a stain upon my lineage, but a testament to the humanity that fought to survive in every generation before me.

I will honor their unexpressed anguish with my voice, my tears, my willingness to hold what they could not. As I stand in this light, I recognize that these feelings are not mine alone; they are fragments of countless moments of abandonment, betrayal, and longing that they carried in silence. But silence will no longer be their resting place. I will name their pain, give it space to breathe and be seen, and in doing so, I will release its grip on my own heart.

By allowing this rage to surface and the sadness to flow, I am breaking the cycle of suppression. I am refusing to let it simmer beneath my skin, turning inward and festering as self-loathing, bitterness, or fear. Instead, I am choosing to embrace it, to feel its jagged edges and depths, to let it wash over me without resistance. In this surrender, I am reclaiming my power—no longer bound to repeat the patterns of the past.

This process of writing this chapter of my mother's story, is not easy; it is raw, it is vulnerable, and it demands courage. But in facing it, I am transforming inherited wounds into something new—into compassion, into understanding, into strength. I am creating space within myself to hold both the darkness and the light, to acknowledge where I came from without letting it dictate where I am going.

This is my alchemy: turning pain into purpose, grief into grace, and shame into liberation.

In choosing to feel, to express, and to release, I am honoring every woman who came before me. I am saying to them and to my beloved sister: “You are seen. You are heard. Your pain matters.” And in that acknowledgment, I am giving myself permission to be seen and heard, too. I am allowing the light to touch every hidden wound, every place of sorrow, so that healing may take root. This is not the end of their story—it is the beginning of something new, something freer, something whole.

I carry their strength within me, but I no longer carry their unspoken shame. It stops here, with me. Humbly, I will be the vessel that transforms it into something worthy of the light.

My journey is one of integration—of taking the broken pieces they passed down and making something whole, something beautiful.

I may stumble along the way. There will be moments when the weight of it all feels too heavy, when the anger threatens to consume me, and when the sadness seems endless. But I know that by facing it, by allowing it to exist without judgment, I am healing not just myself, but all the women who came before me. I am breaking the chain.

I choose to believe that I can carry their strength without their wounds, that I can honor their stories while creating a new one. And in doing so,

I am reclaiming my place in this lineage—not as a passive recipient of pain, but as a conscious, compassionate healer.

This is my work. This is my legacy. This is my burden—and my gift. To see, to feel, and to transform. For myself, for them, and for all who come after.