As a public health practioner and someone who has dedicated my life to working with high risk populations, I can’t help but to think about the ‘Social Determinants of Family’. I came up with this concept during some of my work on the Social Determinants of Health. This is the condition in which someone is born into, grow, work, live, and age; as well as, the systems that inform our living environments like economic policies and systems (keeping the poor, poor and the rich, rich) social norms (racism, homophobia) and political systems (laws that criminalize same sex marriage or the criminalization of substance use). In the public health system we look at these factors and how they impact our health or the health of certain individuals, communities and populations. But we don’t always look at the inter-dynamics of family and how that impacts someone’s life.
When I began thinking about the ‘Social Determinants of Family’ I immediately thought about the impact of generational trauma or the trauma that is carried from one generation to another. This trauma can be enacted in the types of relationships that we have, how we communicate with each other, the types of abuse that we participate in, how we feel about ourselves and what we are willing to tolerate. At the other end of the spectrum, we reenact abandonment, silence, lack of commitment, and distrust. The unfortunate part of all of these behaviors is that we teach our kids and our communities that this is normal and how to participate in the same way again and again.
Our first teacher in life is the womb and the energy that is bottled in the incubator of life. Depending on the pregnancy, whether the child is wanted or expected and the stressors in the physical environment can inform the development of the unborn child. From that time in our lives, we begin to experience the ‘Social Determinants of Family’ by how we are received into the world, the continued stressors in the environment (poverty, racism, lack of access to services), what is happening with the people who are raising you (the type of relationship, the disappointments or abandonment, mental health challenges), how they communicate (verbally and/or non-verbally) with each other, substance use or abuse, and the emotional, spiritual, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse that can impact our lives.
Our external environments are like the color that is filled into the blanks of our family. It shapes the amount resources that we have access too or even the transportation to access it. It is the segregation of races, classes, and services within our communities that only some people have access too while others struggle to survive without them. Or the jobs that don’t provide a livable wage, medical insurance, or paid time off to care for your family. And the fast food chains, the liquor stores, and lack of healthy foods that perpetuate other health factors.
However, our families are the lines that define us and create who we are. Our parents give us their DNA but they also give us their experiences, their disappointments, and their coping mechanisms. Because we often haven’t been taught healthy coping mechanisms we turn to unhealthy activities like substance use, broken relationships, and poor communication. And if we are taught any other ways to act or communicate then we believe that is the only way to get our needs met. Our families help to define us as well because they illustrate the expected dynamics among each other and help to shape how we will follow in their footsteps.
Another learned behavior in our families is the violence and the unhealthy relationships we participate in. We don’t come out of the womb knowing how to participate in such activities. We must be shown molestation, incest, disrespect, violence, manipulation, isolation, and any of the other unhealthy characteristics that our family demonstrates and what we are exposed to in our lifetime. We learn this from early childhood and it continues on throughout our lives as we are molded by our experiences and those individuals that surround us. The more that we are exposed to healthy or unhealthy relationships and experiences, the more we are socialized to mimic such relationships later in our lives and generationally.
We don’t always recognize these patterns or how we participate in our own family determinants, but we do have control to change it. We can begin to identify our patterns, ask for help, begin to change our unhealthy behaviors, and do the self work to change the story of our families. This is no easy task to work on or complete. I would have to say from personal experience, it has taken me my entire adult life to begin to recognize my family patterns (on both sides), multiple attempts of being discouraged with the mental health system when I have sought help, and the daily struggle to work on changing my story so that I can being to change the ‘Social Determinants of My Family’. #squishytalk
SquishyLady
Original Post: Jan 17, 2016 @ 13:01