When family secrets hurt generations after

Family secrets, whether we are their guardians or prisoners, can have a very heavy impact on our daily lives.

Ill-being, addictions, unexplained pain or even overweight are sometimes the consequence of these unspoken, of these silences whose origin is sometimes unknown.

"The family secret is produced by shame and guilt. It is meant to protect the descendants, but sometimes it produces the opposite effect, that is to say it has toxic consequences on our personality and our to be ", explains psychologist Yvonne Poncet-Bonissol.

Guest of

, the health program of Europe 1, this clinician, author of

 éditions Larousse, explains how a trauma suffered by a family and carefully smothered can be brought about to reflect decades later on subsequent generations.

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Three generations to build a secret

"A family secret is an unspoken truth because something has not been able to show itself, to represent itself", explains Yvonne Poncet-Bonissol.

It takes three generations for a family secret to develop.

"The first generation is the one who lives the trauma, who refuses to talk about it and who absolutely seeks to hide it in order to maintain a beautiful family facade, and the myth of the ideal family", explains our specialist.

“The second generation vaguely knows that something happened, without really knowing what it is. They don't have the words to talk about it. They are full of imagination about it, but can still pass. and it is in the third generation that the secret becomes toxic ", continues Yvonne Poncet-Bonissol.

"At this stage, the secret can no longer be thought of since we do not know its existence, and yet it has consequences: anxiety, weight gain, physical illnesses, depression ... Also, very often, when a child consults, we tend to first go and see the grandparents, "she says. 

Different types of secrets

Our psychologist identifies five types of secrets that can poison a family history, classified according to what an individual is most inclined to want to hide from his descendants:

- The first type of secrets generally concerns divorces, infidelity or abandonment of a child.

It is intimately linked to identity, to the history of our origins.

- The second is incest and domestic violence.

- The third type of secrets touches "the social myth", according to the formula of Yvonne Poncet-Bonissol.

It generally concerns a change in standing, bankruptcy or debts.

- The fourth type of secret is the deviant behavior of a parent and its consequences, for example a crime which would have resulted in a stay in prison.

- Finally, "the fifth type of secret is that of normality, and which affects unhealthy behavior", adds Yvonne Poncet-Bonissol.

That is, alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, even suicide.

The secret acts like "an underground stream"

"Not everyone has the same apprehension of secrecy. You have to be sensitive, be a sponge," says Yvonne Poncet-Bonissol.

Thus, the vague intuition of a hole, an anomaly or a biased chapter within the family romance can take on considerable proportions in some, generate forms of unease, dark thoughts, recurring nightmares, when others won't even notice.

"Children, who are very sensitive, are often on the lookout for what is missing. They have an intuition of that", points out our psychologist.

From there, "the family secret functions like an underground stream that can suddenly emerge."

In particular on the occasion of a significant event, which leads to a major life change, such as a birth for example.

Yvonne Poncet-Bonissol cites the example of a mother who had come to believe that her child had been exchanged at birth, before finally discovering that her own biological father was not who she thought.

In this case, the intuition of the family secret ended up triggering a defensive mechanism that psychology calls "projection": the subject attributes to a third party a trauma that concerns him, but that he is not yet emotionally capable of. manage.