I will add you two to my "Strong Women I Am Privileged to Know!" Like it or not, we are all products of both our genetic map and our environment (both social and physical), and keep reading to see if I qualify as having intergenerational trauma.

My past is not perfect either. Mom married dad at 16 (He was 23), and I was born about 1 1/2 years later. Dad was a bad alcoholic, so mom was constantly under stress. Her second child was a full-term stillborn, and then my brother came 4 years later. Dad was a gasline welder; he made good money, but had to move all over the U.S. to get it, and - of course - work was seasonal. I was in several schools in one grade level. (Talk about stressful! Just making friends, then having to move. We lived in an 8' X 42' trailer, which was pulled behind us more than it was parked and considered to be "home."

I have thought about my genetic mapping and wish the science of genetics had been up to snuff in dad's era. He had a number of small TIA's and a light stroke, and he died at 67 from accidental smoke inhalation from trying to stoke the fireplace during the blizzard of 1993.

He had a neurological problem that will forever remain undiagnosed. Everybody thought it was from his drinking for so many years, but it may have been Parkinson's. He remained sharp as a tack until the very end.

Fiona - the article you shared is so very interesting, especially the part about the cortisol theory. Quoting: " If a PTSD sufferer’s cortisol level is low and genes make cortisol,. . . ? It is something called “methylation” Genes are geometry and make cortisol by transcribing RNA that is a perfect mirror image of the chemical. But it turns out that when the transcription process unzips to recruit the elements of cortisol, it can also recruit methyl compounds that are geometric matches to the allele for making cortisol. The methyl compounds lock on and prevent the manufacture of cortisol. This methylation process endures and becomes a part of a PTSD sufferer’s body chemistry, at least until some successful intervention reverses it."

Since I had no intervention and most likely was stressed enough to have a "PTSD body chemistry (post traumatic stress disorder), then I now know why I have strong tendencies to become easily depresssed and/or anxious.

Good heavens! I didn't mean to write all of that! Maybe some professional out there can psychoanalyze my "environmental mess!"
Peg