Discussion Carrying our ancestors' trauma

[suffering]

Do you think our ancestors can can pass their trauma to us through DNA? Like an evolutionary mechanism for survival, so we can "know" instinctively what to avoid and how to react?
After my failed suicide attempt, I had a weird episode of intense obsession regarding the idea of being jailed and tortured. I usually considered myself a person of clear thinking and decent integrity. But at that time I begun being obsessed about acting like a coward while being tortured as a prisoner. Why was I thinking about this? Was it just that I saw the world as a jail and I started to exaggerate thoughts in my head because I was so exhausted?
Maybe I am looking for answers in the wrong places, but what if actually one of my ancestors was jailed and I'm carrying his trauma? The obsession with jail was just too strong and unnatural. Part of me even wanted to be jailed just so I could see how bravely I would react, like that character in 1984 who at least wanted to keep hating "them", to keep his inner thoughts in a framework of integrity. I wanted to be put in such a situation to see how I would react, fearing that I would actually succumb to cowardice.
Sometimes when I mind my daily business and fall pray to the illusion of hope or excitement, I joke with myself by quoting 1984 "He loved the Big Brother.." (the Big Brother in my case being life itself, with all its bullshit and illusions, which I wish I could escape, but I lack the courage).
Does anyone relate?

 

[JustAboutDone]

I'm sure we must pass things on through our DNA - phobias and suchlike. I think that's why people and small children have rabid dislikes of things they have never experienced. We pass on so much information through our genes. why not emotional memories?

 

[Redt2go]

Do you think our ancestors can can pass their trauma to us through DNA? Like an evolutionary mechanism for survival, so we can "know" instinctively what to avoid and how to react?
After my failed suicide attempt, I had a weird episode of intense obsession regarding the idea of being jailed and tortured. I usually considered myself a person of clear thinking and decent integrity. But at that time I begun being obsessed about acting like a coward while being tortured as a prisoner. Why was I thinking about this? Was it just that I saw the world as a jail and I started to exaggerate thoughts in my head because I was so exhausted?
Maybe I am looking for answers in the wrong places, but what if actually one of my ancestors was jailed and I'm carrying his trauma? The obsession with jail was just too strong and unnatural. Part of me even wanted to be jailed just so I could see how bravely I would react, like that character in 1984 who at least wanted to keep hating "them", to keep his inner thoughts in a framework of integrity. I wanted to be put in such a situation to see how I would react, fearing that I would actually succumb to cowardice.
Sometimes when I mind my daily business and fall pray to the illusion of hope or excitement, I joke with myself by quoting 1984 "He loved the Big Brother.." (the Big Brother in my case being life itself, with all its bullshit and illusions, which I wish I could escape, but I lack the courage).
Does anyone relate?

If it's passed in genes they would need to procreate after the trauma occurred (jailing instance) or someone who experienced it prior to procreation

 

[Grey-zone]

Epigenetics is a hot topic right now. I'm a little dubious about some of the claims made about it, e.g., "intergenerational trauma of slavery", etc... Reasoned skepticism is the first thing thrown out by us humans when a new concept comes along, but who knows, 20-30 years from now it could all be true? So I try to suspend disbelief and belief, a general approach to life which hasn't helped in moving forward.
If you think about it, human existence as a whole has been fucking traumatic: inter-tribal fighting, periodic massacres, starvation, etc... The current preoccupation with trauma as somehow being abnormal seems to me like a milquetoast psychological approach to the majority of humanity's existence on this planet, which was often nasty, brutish, and short, subject to misunderstood natural influences that terrified us at every step. So of course, these chronic environmental stressors are embedded in our DNA, and no one is an exception.