A baby boy is born to a young mother and a father, and his father sees that “his hands are almost as big as his head!” He thinks to himself, “yeah, he’s got my genetics.”
The mother and father have come from homes that do not talk about weakness, only success and accomplishment. He loses his cool one day and begins to hit his wife while she takes the punches with one arm and shields the infant boy with the other from the violence. The baby’s mind is soaking in all this unconsciously, and he learns implicitly that the world isn’t safe...little does he know the father also beat her when she was pregnant with him as well. Each event releases excess cortisol within that infant, hindering healthy brain development and setting the stage for perceiving the world as a dangerous place. ...but we all know in this small town that this baby will be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
The baby boy grows into a young adolescent, looking for what the world has to offer. He copies his father playing drums, and hears stories of his father’s legendary athletic prowess, along with his other uncles and family members. Could he also possess such capabilities? The boy dresses up in a play cape and calls himself “super dad,” imagining that one day he will be as strong and powerful as his dad. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
One day this young boy walks into the kitchen to see his father beating his mother so badly that he thinks she might be dead. The next youngest sibling is frozen in dissociation, watching with a blank look on his face, and his younger toddler sister runs and hides in a cupboard. His image of his father as a superhero protector becomes distorted...both wanting to be like him in strength, but never wanting to be so harmful to women. Then his nervous system goes into a freeze state, sending his attention into a safe place in his imagination, allowing him to escape from being present to the danger that exists from the caretakers that are meant to keep him safe. Without this critical safety, his mind and body split to survive the war zone of a childhood he now knows as “normal.” He does not know he is traumatized...why would he? This is all he knows. This scene of witnessing his mother’s beating haunts him throughout life, and shapes his brain, nervous system, and personality, yet he will be more than okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
The young boy watches PeeWee’s Playhouse and copies the voice, delighted at the silly, lighthearted character he can emulate. His father walks in, “why do you watch this faggot?!” The boy doesn’t know what a faggot is, but he knows that his father clearly thinks this way of being is shameful...remembering the beating his father gave his mother, the boy decides to be silly anyway, risking his father’s wrath. Unconsciously, a deeply embedded shame of being his authentic self emerges in conflict with his need for attachment, as his father is still an untouchable role model at this age. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he’s got such great genetics!”
The young boy wants to help his father fix a car in the garage, and his father asks him to get a specific tool from the house. He goes in, cannot find the tool because he does not know what it is. The boy comes back to ask what the tools is so he can find it. His father replies, “What the fuck is wrong with you?! How do you not know what this basic tool is?!” He describes it again and the boy runs off to find it. But the boy does not know what to look for, terrified into numbness and cognitive shutdown from being reprimanded by a father who was capable of hurting his mother so badly, slipping into a panicked anxiety. What would his father do to him?! To his younger brother and sister?! The boy then splits into an imaginary world in his mind, leaving his body standing frozen, dissociated. This becomes a regular behavior that becomes associated with his personality. “Oh, that’s just how he is! He’s a bit of a space cadet, but he’s a good boy!” After all, “he has such great genetics!”
The boy tries to play many different sports, hoping to eventually find his way and live up to these amazing genetics everyone in his life continues to talk about. His father coaches him, offering tips that may unlock his potential, which his father does for many other players in many sports as a coach. In soccer the boy chronically pulls his hip flexors trying to kick the ball hard enough to no avail, not realizing that his body is in a trauma-induced state of perpetual muscular tension; he spaces out in the middle of games, after the fact laughing it off to his teammates as a temporary mishap every time. In baseball he cannot seem to catch the ball, as being dissociated makes for poor hand-eye coordination, often resulting in taking baseballs to the nose while missing the mitt. In school he tries to run as fast as he can, frustrated that he is one of the slowest kids, no matter how hard he tries and practices. This will develop into continued coordination challenges, chronic muscular tension, dysfunction, and pain over his lifetime from a being in a perpetual state of survival in his nervous system. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
The boy rides with his family in the car, and he has learned to predict his father’s rage, having become hyper vigilant from a perpetual state of fight, flight, or freeze. Seeing his fathers agitation, he recognizes his younger brother’s behavior is about to result in getting hit. The boy outdoes his younger brother, knowing his father will hit the one who currently annoys him most. His father turns around while driving and punches the boy’s thigh. His leg feels momentary sharp pain, then numbness and tears. But his brother is safe, and he now knows how to at least guide and redirect his father’s wrath. He learns to skillfully navigate rage in others by avoiding feeling himself, keeping his attention on subtle body language that gives this boy the capacity to anticipate, predict, and control people’s behaviors, otherwise known as the survival “fawning response.” But he will be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
One day this boy is watching tv at his grandmothers, and passes out on her bed. When he awakes he is uncontrollably shaking and feels completely disoriented, not able to perceive much but shaking and terror. He is having a grand mal seizure, and this will then shape a large portion of his adolescence with fear and shame at the resulting bed wetting at home and overnight at friends houses for sleepovers. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
In school he needs extra help in math, as he just cannot seem to focus long enough to retain the numbers in his head. He continues to dissociate, especially when asked to perform anything, making face-to-face interactions especially difficult as he reads the disappointment and frustration on his teachers’ faces. He’s asked a simple part of the problem in front of his peers, and he gets stuck, unable to comprehend the most basic of steps as the teacher attempts to break it down into smaller pieces. Only aware of the body language cues of the teacher, the boy breaks down into tears, not realizing his brain and body and are in a traumatized state that makes cognition especially difficult to access. This is because his nervous system has learned to predict social cues to stay safe rather than focus on anything else...what else can someone in a survival state do? This is adaptive in actual survival situations, but in everyday life this makes him functionally impaired in his cognition. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
The young boy is now 11 years old, and his father leaves the state, the father explaining to the boy later that he left in order not to shoot his mom’s boyfriend (after their separation), waiting in a car with a loaded gun. Without role models, the boy scrambles for an identity and finds that being a rock n’ roll drummer allows him some sense of worth. Yet he also copes with the trauma his body carries with smoking, drinking alcohol, and drugs, still unaware that his body and nervous system are in a perpetual survival state. He goes into a deep depression, only escaping it through drugs or music. He now is the oldest of 6 siblings, to the overwhelm of his mother. She works through school to become a nurse, cleaning houses to pay minimum payments on utilities, keeping them from being shut off. Child protective services makes several visits, yet somehow all the siblings seem to know just what to say to keep from being removed from the home. The boy learns to pack a backpack daily and ride his skateboard to friends and extended family’s houses to find food, since so little is available at home. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
By age 13 this boy’s body at first gains excess fat and he becomes overweight from a combination of a survival state and unhealthy coping habits, and then his body gives out at age 14 with a ruptured appendix, resulting in a 3-week hospital stay, pneumonia, and emaciation down to under 90 pounds of total body weight. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
At 15 years old the boy decides to move across the country to live with his father, so he might reconnect to the good parts of his father. Every day he wakes up at 5am to exercise, take a cold shower, and eat healthy food. At school he is bullied, and he survives by again going inward, taking every gym class available, including weight training. He joins the wrestling team, acclimating to the military-like culture of discipline, wastebaskets set up for the wrestlers to predictably vomit into them from overexertion each practice. He is able to make junior varsity and he learns to continue to keep his head down and work hard, realizing that his limitations can be overcome only with hard work, disciplined consistency, and passionate focus on self-improvement. He transforms his body from emaciation to muscular, continuing this new lifestyle through high school, forming a body that appears to be his genetic birthright...at least, that’s what everyone in his small town of upbringing expects from him...so it’s not surprising that he eventually filled out, even though they did not witness what it took him to get there. But he’ll be a “natural athlete.” After all, “he has such great genetics!”
Having moved back across the country to his home town, this young man begins to feel confidence, bolstered by a body that appears to be growing into the dream he has had from childhood to excel in athletics. His father moves back as well, living in the basement within the family house. One morning the young man microwaves a plastic container in his father’s basement space with an “extra zero” on the timer and forgets about it (being perpetually spaced out), creating smoke throughout the basement. His father commands him to clean it up, and to take the day off school scrubbing the walls. The young man protests, explaining exams are today, and he could do it after school. As the father drives the young man with all his siblings to school, he grows more and more angry, insisting the young man comes back to clean up. Finally the father stops the car in traffic, gets out of the car and pulls the young man out of the car, punching his legs and arms. His younger siblings watch in horror, many of them crying for their father to stop. The young man realizes that despite his efforts to becomes big and strong, he is still not safe from his father. Dread and dissociation set in as he drifts into an ongoing state of despair and sense of helplessness. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
The young man attempts to play football, the large helmet rattling around on his head, oversized pads, and huge cleats making him look like a hobbit in comparison to the other players, still being significantly shorter than his peers. The coaches watch him with great anticipation, expecting the oldest son of his athletic father to be a rising star. Unfortunately, this young man’s traumatized state does not allow him to be capable of sufficient focus, strategy, or agility to excel. After two years of football, it is clear he is not going to measure up to his father or uncles. But he’ll be alright. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
Although this young man has mobilized his body to move and strengthen beyond his initial limitations, he still holds a mental state of freeze that clouds his focus, keeping him from being capable of learning anything that is not extremely exciting or familiar enough to build on a foundation of pre-learned skills. So school continues to be difficult, and he uses his ability to “fawn” to his teachers, relying on their flexibility and patience, elicited through showing his top effort, even when it is not enough to comprehend the material. He thinks he is stupid, and incapable of focusing his attention, despite his sincerest efforts and regular panic attacks during final exam periods each semester. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
Now a young man in college, he falls in love with a classmate, seeing a common spiritual path and mutual comfort in exploring the human experience. Unbeknownst to them both, they are unconsciously recognizing mutual trauma, and embark into a marriage proposal, acceptance, having a child earlier than expected, a shotgun wedding, and a passing comment from his mother right before announcing their marriage and coming baby, “Why do you always pick the broken ones?” It’s a statement he’ll never forget, but the commitment is already set in motion, and the time for wise parental guidance or sufficient mentorship has long since passed. They are both far too naive/innocent to be parents, but the time for childhood things has passed. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
Having become a very young father, building a career takes a backseat to raising children. As it turns out, he’s pretty good at it, using his playful silliness to entertain and play with them as they grow and develop. He seems to have limitless energy, mobilized by a nervous system in perpetual fight or flight mode, intermixed with freeze/dissociation when eventually conscious of the extreme exertion and then suddenly overwhelmed to exhaustion. He uses regular naps to accommodate this repeating patterns, yet never actually feeling rested. This is a result of a childhood filled with violence, neglect, uncertainty, and fear. Yet, he still does not know this is anything other than his natural temperament. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
This young man is determined to find success in some area of his life, choosing to dedicate himself to getting in the best possible shape, wrestling, coaching, weightlifting, drumming in various bands, and using a mindset of “overcoming all adversity” to mobilize his body out of a perpetual freeze state. This takes an enormous amount of every each day. He does not know that this is partially an expression of trauma to continue finding adversity and to work through it to prove his worth. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
Two years later he discovers his wife is not mentally well, has demonstrated not being trustworthy, and he realizes he has missed much of her intentions and behavior due to his idealism and blind faith in her as a partner in life. He does not believe in divorce, and takes 5 more years to ask for one. All the while his innocence and trust for relationships and love are now gone, and he spends the next five years in deep introspection, focusing on weight training, T’ai Chi, and skateboarding. He gets up every day at 5am to workout before work, skateboards on his breaks while filming himself from a tripod (hoping to get sponsored as a skateboarder), and applying the discipline his life experience has taught him. He finally achieves sponsorship as a skateborder, despite working, being in school, and being a father (many times skateboarding when the kids are asleep in their car seats to practice and film his skateboarding tricks). Many people begin to see him as a role model for health and fitness, forgetting (or not noticing) what it took him to achieve these things despite a traumatized nervous system. But he had the advantage of being in a strong family. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
A second marriage approaches in his life as he meets a woman who appears to offer the acceptance, commonalities, and qualities he seeks. At the first visit to her home she gets into a fist fight with her 13-year-old son. The young man’s body immediately goes into a triggered state witnessing this, as this scene brings up an implicit memories of his abusive childhood. His stomach immediately goes into a freeze state, beginning an ongoing digestive problem that gets triggered in relationships because of this repeating association of intimate relationships with danger and survival. Instead of seeing this as a sign to part ways, his first thought is “I can help them.” But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
By age 30 this young man thinks he might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and so he sees a psychiatrist. His suspicions are confirmed and he is put on a stimulant medication that awakens him to what it’s like to think clearly for the first time in his life. Little does he know that those symptoms come from the trauma his body still holds in his nervous system. Determined to find a natural way to achieve this clarity of mind, he explores holistic healing modalities, going on and off the medication with various supports and methods. Along the way he realizes that his pursuit of moving his body with playful exploration has led the way to feeling the best of any experience in his life so far. He explores the science of trauma, integrative psychology, NLP, Hypnosis, and every spiritual and personal growth practice one could possibly learn. When he discovers that his children are no longer safe in the home with his second wife’s oldest son, he immediately brings them out of that environment, alerts the authorities, and starts to rebuild his life…again. But he’ll be okay. After all, “He has such great genetics!“
After leaving his second wife, she decides to go into business with the owner of the skateboarding team this man is on, effectively destroying his most valued community by speaking poorly about him to his friends and fellow skateboarders. He no longer feels welcome in a community where he had previously found solace from the torture of his trauma symptoms through community acceptance. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
Finally securing an apartment to live in after living with family and rebuilding his business to make ends meet, the man suddenly experiences an unknown lung issue that specialist after specialist cannot distinguish, and he realizes that his body is expressing intense grief at all the loss in his life. Only years later does he discover that this condition is directly connected to adrenal fatigue from a nervous system acclimating to a lifetime of stress and trauma. This condition debilitates him to the degree that he is bedridden for a month. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
Through support of friends and family this man recovers from his lung malady to the degree that he can now work again. He strives to workout despite a lack of oxygen, chronic muscular tension and injuries, digestive issues, severe anxiety and depression. He distracts himself himself with skateboarding, strength training, work, and social activities. Having passed the age he always hoped he would meet certain strength goals set in early high school, he begins working at it again, while also getting into a loving relationship. Out of the blue he then has a skateboarding accident that requires a complete ankle reconstruction. Debilitated and incapable of much movement, he then gains weight at an uncontrollable rate, pushing back his fitness hopes yet again. But he’ll be okay. After all, “he has such great genetics!”
One day, years later and still struggling with his ankle and overall fitness, and after a particularly difficult year, he commits to a fitness regimen again. Week after week, month after month, he continues to show up to the gym, driven by determination, pride, and fighting an uphill battle as his autoimmune issues become worse, this time resulting in a skin condition that again, the doctors cannot identify. Not to be stopped by obstacles, he pushes on, failure after failure, and finally he achieves his lifelong goal of a certain bench press weight. It’s been 26 years now in pursuing this goal, and it has certainly been a long journey to get here. He decides to post about it on social media, finally allowing himself to take pride in his achievements after years of therapy and overcoming obstacles. Congratulations roll in from his friends, one after the other, and he soaks it all in, grateful for the outpouring of support. Then a few different comments roll in such as, “yeah, but you have superior genetics, so it’s not as big a deal as if I had accomplished it.” Or, “your uncles are WAY stronger than what you’ve accomplished!” Hey, one might not see his whole journey and understand that he worked so hard for it, especially knowing about his family’s history of superior athletic performance. So maybe all that hard work and overcoming obstacles over a lifetime doesn’t really mean that much. After all, “he has such great genetics!”