When trauma is inherited: what the growing body of research on this says

He was often jolted awake in a cold sweat by a recurring nightmare of deafening crashes and desperate cries. But Aidaan*, just seven, had never lived through any of that. He couldn’t even describe what was weighing him down. Those around him were at their wit’s end. As far as they could tell, nothing like this had ever happened in the family before. That was because Aidaan’s father, Shabir*, had never spoken of his own fear of clouds and winds, a fear so visceral that he refused to go out even in light rain. Had Shabir not died young, he might have been able to relate to his son’s fraught nights.

Shabir was eight when he lost his elder brother to militancy in 2003. Two years later, seven members of his family were claimed by a massive snowstorm that buried his entire village, Waltengo Nard, in south Kashmir. He had been trapped under rubble next to his sister’s dead body for two days before help arrived. From then on, he lived under a shadow, his mind teetering, but his lips sealed.

Tragedy struck again when his nine-month-old daughter, the youngest of his three children, succumbed to typhoid. Days later, Shabir was gone too. But his pain, denied closure, found continuity. And Aidaan, too young to even remember his father, ended up with a scar that was never his.

Grief without a grave

Ancestors sometimes bequeath their wounds to generations that come after them. Aidaan is one of many who have inherited unfinished grief from their elders. This transgenerational trauma, now a growing field of psychiatric and biological research, has become pertinent in India, where emotional armouring continues to be glorified and pasts are routinely weaponised.

“Trauma results from events, which, even if not extreme by objective standards, overwhelm an individual’s or a community’s capacity to cope,” explains Rajat Kanti Mitra, professor of clinical psychology at Amity University, who has worked extensively on trauma in various countries.

“Research shows that there is no single cause for the transmission of trauma,” says Mushtaq A. Margoob, founder of the brain and behaviour science academy SAWAB and former head of the department of psychiatry at Government Medical College, Srinagar. “It results from the interaction of biological, psychological, relational and socio-structural pathways, which are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.”

Biology of inherited pain

Transgenerational trauma can manifest in varied, often puzzling ways and intensities. It revolves around a feeling that something is fundamentally wrong, without the ability to put a name or cause to it. It was long viewed as a function of family dynamics, attachments, relationships and beliefs. But recent research suggests that ancestral stress can sometimes be passed down biologically through epigenetic mechanisms, in which external influences guide the working of genes without actually altering them. Factors ranging from stress to the environment can sometimes determine which genes are turned on or off.

Severe stress can set off a chain reaction in the body involving the brain, nervous system and various hormones. Protracted or pronounced stress has been found to be associated with changes in genes that control responses to stress. Emerging evidence suggests that when this happens during pregnancy, it can impact the development of the baby’s own stress response.

Over time, those affected may feel anxiety, depression or numbness without knowing why, or grow more prone to sleep-related, autoimmune, gastrointestinal and inflammatory conditions. They can also internalise controlling or distant behaviours from parents whose own traumas may have made them overprotective or withdrawn, making it harder to achieve trust and closeness in relationships.

In a recent Yale University study of war-scarred Syrian women, researchers discovered DNA alterations through methylation, where tiny chemical tags got added to the DNA and changed genetic activity. Interestingly, this was also observed in their children and grandchildren not directly exposed to war. An earlier study of Alaska Native communities too, had found a connection between changes in individual DNA and collective traumas such as colonisation and land loss.

Chemistry of dread

While much of the research on transgenerational trauma began in the West with descendants of Holocaust survivors, more recent studies in India have documented elevated rates of PTSD, anxiety, identity and grief issues among descendants of survivors of Partition, insurgencies in Kashmir and the North-East, the anti-Sikh violence of 1984, the Bhopal gas disaster, forced displacement, natural calamities, and caste- and gender-based atrocities.

Silence, bred of shame and fear, is often the most common language — and perpetuator — of trauma. “The generation that directly experiences trauma represses and passes it on through silence, fragmented stories, metaphors and unspoken rules,” says Dr. Mitra. “Most survivors are unwilling or unable to talk about their experiences during their lifetimes. Later generations sense something significant happened yet learn not to discuss it openly.”

Social conditions resulting from poverty, inequality, discrimination, violence and lack of support can exacerbate trauma. Children may feel excessively unsafe or responsible as they battle obstinate emotions and questions of self-worth. These symptoms often develop early on and worsen with time, especially when their historical roots go unnoticed.

Tracing the ‘affect chain’

Epigenetic changes aren’t fixed or irreversible, but can be partially addressed with psychotherapy, lifestyle changes, exercise, meditation and adequate sleep. Addressing trauma spawned by unspoken histories and unresolved experiences of war, persecution, ethnic discrimination, sexual repression, domestic violence or infidelity often involves tracing the “affect chain” or themes such as fatigue, anxiety, despair, anger, addiction and perfectionism that run across entire lives.

The harder part remains identifying whether trauma is personal or inherited. “It often shows up in ways that seem disconnected from identifiable personal traumatic events,” says Dr. Margoob. “Its effects are therefore misattributed to individual pathology.”

“Trauma is seldom framed in psychiatric language in India,” points out Dr. Margoob. “Emotional suffering is often normalised, spiritualised or outright dismissed. When trauma, transmitted implicitly and structurally, is lived as normal, it calls for culturally sensitive healing methods that combine psychotherapy and traditional rituals to help people reconcile with their emotions and pasts.”

“India,” adds Dr. Margoob, “has the capacity but not the structured space to deal with this issue. Limited mental health services and a sense of shame around seeking help are major constraints. Even the best clinical services cannot treat wounds that society refuses to acknowledge. True healing requires family, community and systemic changes.” According to him, public discourse, school-based emotional literacy, community interventions and policies sensitive to collective memory can help mitigate private pain through collective understanding.

Unaddressed transgenerational trauma can deepen social, communal and political schisms, adding weight to caste, gender and class hierarchies. “Trauma can be deeply political and affect power structures. That is why silence persists,” says Dr. Mitra. “Traumatised individuals cannot open up until they feel secure.” He says India needs structured healing processes and institutions similar to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

According to the World Health Organization, around 70% of people worldwide experience at least one potentially traumatic event in their lifetime. This makes transgenerational effects of trauma a pressing public health concern. Improved understanding of how collective traumas are transmitted across generations can help drive effective interventions and policy responses. Muffled screams may take generations to find their way into case files, but breaking the cycle begins with simply hearing them. Now.

*Names changed

(Harsh Kabra is an independent journalist and commentator. harshkabra@gmail.com)

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