Your Family History

We do not live in a vacuum, and what happened to those before us affects us in more ways than we know. Understanding the context of our family, allows us to be realistic about our own experience.

Please see these questions as a guide only.

·     Who died young?

·      Who left?

·      Who was abandoned, isolated or excluded from the family?

·      Who was adopted or who gave a child up for adoption?

·      Who died in childbirth?

·      Who had a stillborn, miscarriage or abortion?

·      Who took their own life?

·      Who committed a crime or experienced a significant trauma?

·      Who suffered in war?

·      Who died in or participated in a genocide or the Holocaust?

·      Who felt responsible for someone’s death or misfortune?

·      Who profited from another’s loss?

·      Who was jailed or institutionalized?

·      Who had a physical, emotional or mental disability?

·      Did your mother or you experience a week or more away from mother at an early age?

·      Did your parents go on a vacation when you were young?

·      Were you sent away to visit relatives or grandparents?

·      Were you or your mother ever hospitalized and forced to be apart from one another?

·      Did something traumatic happen while your mother was pregnant with you?

·      Did you have a difficult birth?

·      Were you born premature?

·      Were you adopted or separated from your mother shortly after birth?

·      Did you experience a trauma or a separation from your mother during the first three years of your life?

·      Did your mother experience a trauma or emotional turmoil during your first three years of life?

Adopted from the late Anatush Foo

Banner Photo: Tyler Nix