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Key points
- We need to feel safe before we can open to vulnerable dialogue.
- Putting words to traumatic experiences can help the healing process.
- Listening to the body is important. Take time to talk and take breaks in conversation.
I’m excited to welcome Becky Ellis, author of Little Avalanches, for a conversation about the therapeutic benefits of working through trauma with her father and the emotional healing she makes possible through compassionate, open-hearted dialogue. As the daughter of a highly decorated World War II combat sergeant, Becky is a veteran of a war fought at home.
Lynne: In your beautiful memoir, you write about tragic moments of childhood trauma caused by your father. You also describe how a year-long conversation between the two of you brings healing to your painful history. Many children would have estranged themselves from such a man. How did you stay open?
Becky: I understand the impulse to slam the door. At times, I wanted to be so far away from my father that I dreamed of living on a different planet. I grew up in California in the 1970s. While other kids were roller-skating and listening to disco, I was learning to shoot a gun and keeping quiet while my family hid from phantom Nazis. These were things my father insisted on. He wanted his children to be prepared. Prepared for what? I did not know.
Like most children, I wanted my father’s love despite his behavior. More than anything, I wanted to understand him. He was a war veteran and though he wouldn’t talk about what he’d been through, I felt the pain inside of him; it had a grip on him I could not comprehend. That longing to understand kept me open.
Lynne: When a parent experiences something they can’t articulate, yet it affects their behavior, the child experiences secondary trauma. Once the parent acts out, the child experiences their own trauma. It sounds like this is what happened to you.
Becky: I have three daughters of my own, and I want to acknowledge that it is impossible to get parenting right under the best of circumstances. Still, it is even more challenging when a parent has experienced trauma, which so many of us have, including my father.
He fought on the frontlines of World War II for 172 days and was a rifleman in an infantry unit that experienced [many casualties]. He brought a huge amount of trauma home, but could not put words to it. Instead, he acted it out by putting our family into dangerous situations over and over. This created trauma for all of us.
Lynne: When your father finally talked about his experience, did it help you with your own?
Becky: I was in my late 40s before I felt safe enough to ask my father a quiet question about the war. He was eighty-nine then and finally ready to talk. At first, I gobbled up his stories with a ferocious hunger, trying not to let the horror of battle affect me. I wanted more, and this was hard on both of us. Nightmares flooded him with a vengeance, and childhood memories of my own rose to the surface. Sometimes, I felt myself tighten into a fist. Other times, I could relax into a story. I listened to my body and took breaks in our conversation, which stretched out over a year.
Eventually, I made connections between his experience and my childhood. While my father’s trauma did not excuse his behavior, once I knew where the behavior came from, I realized it wasn’t about me. His actions were about his experience. I finally saw my father separate from my own desires or needs. This was a turning point in our healing.
Lynne: How did this experience with your father change you?
Becky: As a child and young woman, I felt so many emotions around my father, except compassion. But once I understood him, I was flooded with it. This opened my heart. Not just for him, but for humanity. I have a new lens on life now. I see that the actions of others have very little to do with me. If someone cuts me off in traffic or makes a charged statement, for example, I see that their actions have to do with their experience, not mine, and I don’t take them personally. This has freed me to have more honest, open relationships.
Lynne: Do you think compassionate dialogue changed him?
Becky: Great question. While I can't answer for him, I can tell you that I felt something shift in him.
My father never felt understood, not by me, not by his wives, not by other veterans, not by anyone. He never ever talked about his service and barely acknowledged it. But mid-way through our year-long conversation, he began to wear a veteran’s hat. I’m not sure if he began to feel seen or if his mortality finally dawned on him, but it was as if something cracked open in him, and he began reckoning with his own trauma in a more outward way.
Lynne: What advice do you have for others who have experienced family trauma?
Becky: I waited almost 50 years for my father to share his story with me, and it was worth the time and the struggle. Through quiet conversation, a more intimate relationship than I ever imagined emerged between us. All of us need to find safe spaces for vulnerable and compassionate dialogue, and we need to keep trying to understand one another’s experiences. Ask quiet questions. Be patient, curious, and engaged. Listen to your body, take time, take breaks, and please consider professional advice if you have concerns.
