Generational Silence, Our Shared Pain, My Mother Birthed My Voice to Reclaim Us

Welcome to the intro of I’m Talkin to You, I’m Talkin to Me Too! Join me as I find my voice—the voice that was stolen, but somehow along the way, I gave away too—saying all the things I should’ve said while walking through my experiences of generational trauma. My grandmother kept quiet, and my mother carried those untold stories. My mother kept quiet, and I carried hers. Now, I’m speaking so my daughter won’t have to carry mine. From my grandmother’s struggles to my mother’s pain, I unravel how trauma shaped me and how I learned to become who others needed just to stay connected. Through therapy and reflection, I’m doing the work to know my true self—for my daughter and me—breaking cycles and refusing to let trauma define the next generation.

The untold stories our mothers carried burned within them, their pain, sadness, and disappointment erupting as fear and frustration. That weight wasn’t my mother’s to hold, but she couldn’t release it, and so it was passed to me. I refuse it—it’s not mine, and it holds no power over me. Through reflection, I’m reclaiming the strength in my story, speaking its truth so my daughter inherits the power of my voice, not the silence of my trauma.

Hey, it’s Danielle To You from I’m Talkin to You, I’m Talkin to Me Too! I’m so excited to hear from y’all with our new fan mail! No names needed, just your truth. My stories are heavy with pain but bright with possibility. What episode moved you or changed your view? Tell me how it felt

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
So Sola doesn't have to.
I've really been trying tofigure out what I wanted to talk
about and when I wanted to talkabout it.
And my mother's trauma raisedme.
I never got to meet my mother.
I was always met with her traumaand her trauma responses.

(00:23):
And I'm almost positive thatthat's because my grandma's
trauma raised my mother.
My grandmother had my mom at 15or 16, and she had a baby
already before that, my uncle.
At the age of 12, mygrandmother's mother passed

(00:44):
away, and she was removed fromher siblings, and their family
chose to, their family, myfamily, chose to split up the
kids because nobody could takein four kids.
So...
Everything that she knew wastaken away from her.
And within four years, she was amother of two.
One of those kids just sohappened to be my mother.

(01:08):
And my mother was raised by a16-year-old woman, 16-year-old
girl who had two kids andwithout a mother.
And she didn't know what to do.
And a lot of things happened tomy mother.
And my grandmother made a lot ofmistakes.
And By the time my mom was 19,she had three kids on the west

(01:33):
side of Chicago without a joband without a high school
education.
And by the time she was 20, shehad four.
And my mother's trauma raisedme.
It's hard for me to talk to mymother because I'm talking to
her trauma.

(01:54):
She don't hear me.
She can't hear me.
She can't even acknowledgecertain things because she did
not experience them.
Her trauma did.
And she doesn't know that.
My mom always asks, like, whydon't you talk to me?

(02:14):
What's going on?
And for a long time, I had topretend like her trauma did not
raise me.
I had to pretend in order to bearound her to let her tell
whatever story in her head shecould tell.
Because you can't talk to herabout what really happened
because she won't hear you.

(02:34):
So I figured out at a very youngage how to become whoever
somebody else needed me to be sothat they could be around.
And I learned it from my mother.
My mother's trauma.
And Every time I go to therapyand every time I'm reflecting on
things, it's all so my daughterdon't have to.

(02:56):
Because I want to raise mydaughter, not my trauma.
I want to raise my daughter, notmy past.
I want to raise my daughter withme, who I truly am.
And the only way I can do thatis if I know who I am.
So I'm getting to know myself.
And...

(03:16):
I'm using every opportunity inmy life and I'm working with a
therapist to go through all ofthem.
And I think everybody has to dothe work so the next person
don't have to.
And that could be a son too,because I got sons.
But there's such a strong andseparate connection for all my
kids, but my daughterspecifically because my

(03:40):
grandmother was assaulted.
My mother was assaulted and sowas I.
And ain't nobody gonna touchSola.
Like, it's just not gonnahappen.
And I realized that, like, whenpeople talk about generational
curses, it's just generationaltrauma raising each other and

(04:01):
all of these patterns going intohow you raise your children and
you will most likely end up inthe same situation.
There's a lot of times I was inrelationships and abusive ones
specifically that there was...
some sort of familiarity.
Like I knew it.
I didn't know how because Iwasn't able to face it because I

(04:23):
was still letting my traumalead.
But it just, it was something Iknew.
And I remember one particulartime, and I'll talk about it on
another episode, but I remembersomething happened to me.
And while it was happening tome, I remember thinking in my
head, like, this has happenedbefore.

(04:46):
And it wasn't until I had to sitback and process and be like, my
mom did that to me.
My mom's trauma did that to me.
She either thought she was goingto beat the fear of God in me
when she did believe in God, shewas going to lock me away
literally and figuratively, orshe was going to disappear.

(05:06):
So being put on a shelf as awoman, dating, seems familiar to
me.
Because my mom would alwaysleave and come back and show up
like everything was okay.
So when a man did that to me, itfelt like love.
It felt like home.
Regardless if your home is onfire, it's home.

(05:30):
So do the work is what I'mtelling myself so my daughter
don't have to.
I want her to have her own pageto scribble in, to write in, to
draw in, to cry in.
her own whatever she walks intobut i can't let the words from

(05:51):
my pages like bleed onto hersbecause she don't deserve it and
that's what we're gonna gothrough all of my shit because
there's some sort of shame andguilt and embarrassment and
that's how i walk around in theworld it's a lot of times where
i'm like I'm watching people'sstory and I might think to

(06:12):
myself, you can waterboard thatinformation out of me.
But that's how I walk around.
I walk around like people knowexactly what happened to me,
when it happened to me.
I walk around with my shame, myembarrassment, my guilt, my
hurt, my sorrow, my anger.
You already know it.
The way you know me, you knowit.
And that's how I approachsituations.

(06:35):
So it doesn't really make adifference whether I say it on
here or not because I'membodying it every day.
And that's what this is about.
Because, yeah, like for sure,I'm definitely talking to you.
But I'm talking to me too.