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The podcast discusses generational trauma, specifically in relation to historical events such as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China and the Tiananmen Square protests. The speaker shares personal experiences of how these events have affected their family relationships and coping mechanisms. Another speaker discusses generational trauma in the context of military veterans and their families, highlighting the impact of PTSD and the challenges of transitioning back to civilian life. Both speakers emphasize the need for understanding and support in dealing with generational trauma. Our podcast is centered around generational trauma. By definition, generational trauma is trauma that extends from one generation to another. However, each one of us has a different definition, and all of us will provide a story. For me, the definition of generational trauma is how the influence of some large historical event affects current generations and future generations. In the year of 1966 in China, a socio-political movement formerly known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution started. During that time, many people with an identity of capitalism became the target, and the crowd were encouraged and also got the right to punish them. Unfortunately, my grandfather's family was the richest in town. Therefore, as the head of the house, my great-grandfather was punished to death, and every single person in the family were forced to cut the relationship with him and join the group to punish him if they want to escape from the threats. My grandfather was the only one who refused to cut the relationship. Therefore, he suffered as much as his father did. Luckily, he survived. Thirteen years after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, when the whole country was slightly repaired from the harm caused by the previous movement, another large movement started, the Tiananmen Square protests, known in China as the June 4th Incident, were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, lasting from April 5th to June 4th. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts between the demonstrators and the Chinese government to find a peaceful resolution, the Chinese government declared martial laws on the night of June 3rd and deployed troops to occupy the square in what is referred to as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. By the record, at least 500 to 1,000 citizens died. I know talking about this makes you nervous. I remember everything you said to me, so I'll speak on your behalf, whether this event changed how everyone in China treats one another and how it connects with education and your coping mechanisms. First, you always considered that the relationship between people in China is very vulnerable. It seems like every person is very kind, but deeply sensitive to trust and ignorance. You believe that it is reasonable to consider that the influence of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution because people were forced to cut the relationship or forced others to cut the relationship with their own families. Since then, even the relationship between families is no longer sustainable and trustworthy. There's no way they can still rely on the relationship with others. With regards to education, you said that the Tiananmen Square protest was a movement that was started by college students and professors. The movement did not make the government consider their attempts. It rather led the government to consider them as a potential threat to the stability of the nation. Even after decades until now, it is still forbidden to discuss politics in universities, which proves that students are still considered a significant uncertainty to the country. It is also forbidden to criticize political issues in public or publish anything about them in social media in China. I think remaining silent did not hurt him until he went to study abroad and after experiencing the freedom to speak, he started to get depressed when he found out that he couldn't speak what he wanted in his own country. He had to smooth his feelings to throw away those negative feelings. His method is the same. It's an alternative way to speak out. To me, generational trauma means forcefully letting harmful people into my life and maintaining a family relationship with them. The people who were like doing harm to me in my life came from different generations of my dad's extended family. So this has occurred throughout my whole life and I didn't realize this behavior was wrong until I was a bit older. My dad's family hasn't been like very subtle in showing their displeasure towards me and my younger brother. They also had very clear favoritism towards me and my other cousins. So to appease them, I was forced to maintain a family relationship with them despite how they treated me. This relationship was at first minor matters such as wishing them a happy birthday, attending family events and just talking to them. And also another thing was not being able to say anything when they said hurtful things to me. I had made it clear to both my parents and my mom especially, but it was always brushed aside and dismissed. My mom in particular was the main source of encouragement for this behavior growing up so that strained our relationship a lot. So how has that changed your relationship with your family? So with my family, with my dad's extended family at least, I did not connect really much with them anymore. And between my parents, like my dad normally is in favor of his extended family so there's like a bad relationship there. But we weren't always like close either so I don't really mind that we don't really have much of a relationship together. And then with my mom, because she was a big enforcement of his behavior, it was really hard to like reconnect with her. And like now we're like kind of just rebuilding that relationship a bit. But it's a very slow process. So how has lack of knowledge harmed this situation? So in my experience, the lack of knowledge mainly stems from not willing to accept that family isn't always everything. And because most Hispanics at least don't want to acknowledge this segment, it really becomes hard to say it out loud to them as well. So how did you deal with this situation? So for me, I've managed to distance myself very slowly from my dad's extended family. And it's really helped a lot because it's helped me, I guess, reconnect with myself and heal a little bit from what they've done to me in my childhood. And then since I said it earlier that when me and my mom, we're slowly rebuilding our relationship because we're both seeking help, it's also like really helping her to like more understand where I want to go to or like where I stand emotionally with her. And yeah. So how do you accept the fact that your family's not changing and stuff in this whole situation? So because I'm enforcing distance among myself, I think that helps me with my self-acceptance too and learning to heal as I mentioned earlier. And with my family, with my dad's extended family, I've come to terms that they're not going to change, so I'm not going to also keep forcing myself to be near them too. And then with my parents, like, I think I've already come to accept like the racial relationship or like lack of relationship we have with each other. So what about you, Jeremy? Well, for me, generational trauma is a psychological wound that are transferred to the future generations by either veterans with PTSD and how that affects the children that they've already had, or the idea that one parent enters the military, they're traumatized and their kids want to follow through and they become traumatized. And a lot of people, a lot of families, they continue on with that routine. And then there's also DNA expressions that can alter veterans' DNA, which affects later generations. Many military members have been in multiple appointments due to current involvement in protecting the world. Some troops come home with depression, anxiety, and the majority of the disorders the government is seeing are PTSD, which is fairly new, and they're still trying to figure out how to deal with it. The term 22-day is for members not being able to cope with home after going to war. What that is is 22 veterans taking their own life every day. The trauma that the veteran has affects the family is by dealing with the veterans and the trauma symptoms they have. For instance, here's some of the symptoms from the DSM-5. Negative beliefs and expectations about oneself, persistent negative emotional state, fear, anger, guilt, shame, attachment or estrangement from others, behavioral behavior, angry, outbursts, reckless or self-destructive behavior, hypervigilance, problems with connection, and sleep disturbances. A lot of these I've experienced myself because I do have PTSD, and the negative beliefs, you not really care. You kind of feel like you're doing something wrong. You don't do it enough. You try to perfect everything you do. Even when you do things right, you tend to don't think that it was a good job. Persistent negative emotional state, like I said before, you're always sad, down. You feel like you're emotive and you're sad because you feel bad that our better ones didn't come home with us. They're stuck, they're in the grave, and we're home. Feeling detachment from others, that's just a no-brainer. They all just don't feel comfortable being around civilians. They feel better being around other veterans. And then the irritability, angry, outbursts. Some do have it, some don't. And problems with concentration, some do, some don't. Sleep disturbances is a big one. A lot of us don't get much sleep. I get about a couple hours of sleep at night, majority of the time. How has the change from a military environment to home been for you and your family? Change is extremely hard. We don't know how people are when we first come home. People are very different. We notice that they move down with their lives, and it changes. You feel like you're an outsider. And the veterans change. They're not the same person anymore. They don't look the same. They lose hair. They age about, like, 10 years, 5 to 10 years. They don't find the jokes the same anymore. It's funny. They have this dead, like, they're dead inside. They don't show a lot of emotion. And also, it tells you how well it's going, how hard it is. The force rate in the military is higher than any other job. So, how does it affect you? Well, I can acknowledge the military. They have PTSD spread to you. It has a rippling effect. Not having the proper knowledge of passing on to the veterans. The veterans go through life knowing something's off and not getting help from programs that are supposed to help. Military places the thought and the minds of troops tell them that not to help is a weakness. Suck it up, drink water, drive on. So, veterans mask all the time. But they get the education, like I did, learning about our disorder and accepting it and reading behind it. It definitely helps. What coping mechanisms for youth and among veterans, good or bad? Bad coping mechanisms, a lot of alcohol. First come home, want to party, but then you realize that's the only way how you can have feelings and stuff. A lot of them do drugs and mask and unhealthy, angry outbursts. That's why a lot of veterans are on the streets, at least 80%. Good ones are doing exercise, changing their diet, exercising, and seeking mental health. So, what about acceptance? Acceptance, veterans need to accept that they have a mental disorder. That's not, in part, a bad thing. And the government needs to accept that, and the civilians need to accept that, and put this stuff on them. So, do you think there's a possibility for change? No, I've tried too many times. I think yes. There must be some way. We just didn't find it yet. I think yes, and I'm trying to do it myself. I love you, baby.