I wonder if there are people here, who´s parent/parents have been a victim of war. Statistically, it would be very strange if no-one here would have either a mother or a father, or both, who has at least experienced warfare.

How do you feel about this, then?
Is there something like a 2nd-generation war-trauma? Or are some people just imagining that they have a syndrome that doesn´t realy exist, so that they have an easy excuse for their own personal shortcomings? (some psychologists believe this to be the case)
It seems that psychologists are divided about this subject. Some are actually treating 2nd-generation victims while others mock and ridicule the very idea.

My personal story: my mother was raised in a japanese concentrationcamp (chideng)during WW2 and she experienced the horrors of the indonesian civil war (bersiap) that followed, witnessing for instance how another child who was a friend of her, was litterally being chopped into pieces.

I personally don´t feel like a victim. But i do have the very strong feeling that somehow, all of this has had some kind of impact on me.
For instance: as a child i was afraid of japanese people and i sincerely believed that japan was a dark and sinister power, waiting for the right moment to take over the world. I also believed that all japanese people where more or less the same, like 'clones'. I believed that they where all brainwashed by the emperor. Molded into perfect soldiers, killing machines, assasins. It took some time for me to find out that this view was quite an exageration. I don´t know how old i was when i realised that japanese people aren´t scary. Or at least, that not all japanese people are scary, and that those who are, are scary because of their own unique personal character instead of their 'japanishness'.
Another thing: there are these annual war commemorations. I don´t know why, but i never ever believed that all the people joinging these commemorations, are even remotely sincere. It always seemed like a play to me, a theatrical performance of people pretending to care, just to look civilised on the outside: whenever i told somebody that my mother had been in a japanse concentrationcamp, i was ALWAYS told (by teachers for instance) that she should concider herself lucky that it hadn´t been a german concentrationcamp. When i then asked:'Oh, so you know about the japanese camps?' then people always had to admit that actually they didn´t. Whenever i told anyone some of my mothers story´s about the bersiap period, people always assumed that i was just making things up :'knifes aren´t thát sharp, there couldn´t have been thát much blood, people couldn´t have been thát cruel, they wouldn´t do those kind of things to little childeren, etc.' (i still get mad thinking about these things) So maybe, as a child, i was (unintentionally) fed with a lot of paranoia and cynicism.

But maybe i´m just clinging on to an excuse for being cynical and ill-tempered, wich i definately am at times.

Does anybody recognise any of this?

I think that it is clear that if someone's parent was deeply affected by something, it will be reflected in their child. Nothing passed on genetically, but learned behavior. Children are extremely sensitive to their parent's energies. For example, if your mother got tense when talking about or in the presence of Japanese people, you would have felt that as a child, and it would play a role in your development.

Any trauma or dysfunction can be passed down for generations.

Oh I definatly think that imprints or even "karma"(w/e you take that to mean) from past events are carried over genetically. I believe that we are the reincarnations of our ancestors, literally. I feel this to be true to the point where much of the younger generations of europeans in the west still carry the burden of our ancestors for what was done to the native americans etc. People get angry when I say this but I believe this to be reality. I think we are responsible for healing our past, both our personal and genetic past..so I dont see why deep war trauma in a parent could not carry over to their offspring on a much deeper level than we would expect.

It goes both ways, because I feel that on some level I ow a debt to the native american peoples for what my ancestors did to them. I can go back just 2 generations and see this. My greatgrandfather was a high up RCMP chief durring a time of horrible treatment of these people up north, and I dont think he did a damn thing about it. I carry that around, I really think I do and it is up to me to turn that karma around before I pass that on to some kids.

This also is true for my and what was done to my ancestors throughout europe by the Roman Catholic church. Is it really a conincidence that the Roman church did this to the european tribal peoples, only for those european peoples to then later on go do the same thing to other tribal peoples?

I think that we never healed our past traumas and no we still act out those dramas today.

Healing in my experience goes way beyond the personal mind and extends back through the genetic lineage.

What I am saying basically, is that yes I think there is something like a morphogenetic field that we are all linked up to that we draw upon. The information within that field is based upon the cumulative information of our ancestors..we can rewrite those codes but often we just relive them.

Yeah, i also think that somehow we are meant to 'break the karmic cycle'. At a certain point i made my mother eat sushi to make her see that not everything that comes from japan is bad . I think it helped. Eventually she even bought a panasonic VCR.

Do you think that your choice to study anthropology was co-determined by your family´s past jamie?

I think we are all affected by our parents, grandparents, caregivers upbringing, lifestyles, thought processes... we simply are affected. As children we are only getting the first level perspective on how life is and how it affects us.

But as adults it is up to us to look at things with a rational eye, as you have poly, and discern fact from fiction, or as some put it, the facts from the story we have created (or been told), and then look clearly at our responses to those stories, and how they have affected our lives.

Personally, whether is it depression era fear of not having enough ("save it for later in case you can't get it again" ), or the horrors of war, domestic violence, social inequities, yes, I think we are all affected and it is not an unusual thing. It is what you do with that info that makes the difference- like jamie said "rewriting the codes, or just reliving them."

sorry about bumping an old thread, but this recent discovery seems very relevant in regards to this subject:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510