Tanya Beattie

How childhood impacts a person, especially since for the most part, we are discouraged from believing just how important our experiences from birth to adulthood are in defining who we become. We are taught that our parents did the best they could and that is all that mattered. What if there is more to the story? That our parents may have done the best they could, but they are human, imperfect, and frequently their best simply didn't meet all of the needs of their children, causing harm or childhood trauma.

How difficult it can be to understand how experiences from childhood impact as throughout adulthood. For me, I was convinced I was fine and whatever happened back then was a long time ago and didn't matter. I definitely couldn't imagine it was possible for life to feel easy, enjoyable, safe.

What it is like when these experiences start showing up. I started to struggle with feeling anxious, afraid, depressed when I was around 35. I didn't know it at the time but I was about to start on a path that led me to my own therapy work where I learned over the next 10 or so years that I could actually start to believe that life wasn't supposed to feel so hard and scary, that I could feel safe and enjoy my life. I decided then that I wanted to help other people who were living in the same way I was, and I knew there were a lot of us, so I went back to school to study to become a therapist. 

The things that can cause trauma in our childhoods. There are the more obvious and easy to understand traumas, and then there are the traumas that occur when our emotional needs are not met - these are not well understood and frequently dismissed - but they are just as impactful as the more obvious ones and this deserves attention and healing just as much.

Is shaped by my family's history. My father's side immigrated to Canada from The Netherlands in 1948 when he was six years old, born during Germany’s occupation of his country. As a result, I am a first-generation Canadian on my father's side.

On my mother's side, her family lived in poverty, and her father fought in World War II. PTSD, alcohol abuse, and poverty created a traumatizing childhood for my mother and her siblings.

Intergenerational trauma is a significant part of my family's history—it is woven into my genetics, my biology, and has influenced the way I have survived.

Kind

Compassionate

Non-judgemental

Safe

Open

Genuinely cares

Knowledgable

Understanding

Patient

Comforting

Encouraging

Reassuring