Rewrite your Script …
Rewriting the Script: Mental Health, Generational Trauma, and Finding Your Voice
Mental health is more than just the absence of a diagnosis — it’s the ability to cope with life’s ups and downs, connect meaningfully with others, and feel safe within yourself. It’s how we think, feel, and act in response to stress, relationships, transitions, and even our own self-worth. And for many of us — especially adult children of Baby Boomers — it’s something we’re only now learning how to prioritize.
Growing up, mental health wasn’t part of the conversation. Many of us were raised by parents who came from the Baby Boomer generation — a group shaped by post-war ideals, economic uncertainty, and a strong emphasis on survival, achievement, and “toughing it out.” Emotional intelligence wasn’t modeled because emotional availability was rarely accessible. Vulnerability, softness, and open communication often took a back seat to stoicism and productivity.
As Gen Xers, elder Millennials, and even some Gen Zers, many of us were raised in homes where emotions were minimized, dismissed, or punished. We may have been told to stop crying, to “be strong,” or to just get over it. As a result, we grew up internalizing a script that said our emotions were too much, our needs were inconvenient, and our voices didn’t matter.
And now, as adults — often navigating aging parents, menopause, divorce, grief, career pivots, and identity shifts — we’re realizing that the old script no longer fits.
The Impact of Generational Trauma
Generational trauma doesn’t always show up as one dramatic event. Often, it’s in the subtle silencing of needs, the constant pressure to perform, or the chronic disconnection that we learned to call “normal.” When our caregivers didn’t have the tools to process or express their own emotional pain, they couldn’t help us do it either. And so, we inherited not just their expectations, but their unresolved wounds.
This is the root of so many struggles with confidence, boundaries, anxiety, and feeling “never enough.” It’s not that we’re broken — it’s that we’ve been operating from an inherited emotional playbook that was never written with our well-being in mind.
Rediscovering Your Voice
One of the most powerful parts of healing is recognizing that the voice we internalized growing up — the one that was critical, dismissive, or silent — isn’t the voice we have to live by.
Mental health work is, in part, voice work.
It’s about rediscovering your voice after years of quieting it down. It’s about questioning the beliefs you were taught about what it means to be “strong,” “successful,” or “lovable.” It’s about rewriting the script and choosing to be more emotionally attuned, more self-compassionate, and more intentional — even when your upbringing didn’t teach you how.
As a therapist, my passion is helping women and adult children of Baby Boomers break free from the cycles of silence, shame, and survival. I work with those navigating the "in-between" of life — the transitions that don’t always come with a clear roadmap: grief, divorce, menopause, the empty nest, caregiving for aging parents, or simply asking, “Who am I now?”
Reclaiming Mental Health as a Birthright
Mental health is not a luxury — it’s a birthright.
And this May, during Mental Health Awareness Month, I invite you to pause and ask yourself:
What voice have I been living by?
What beliefs about emotions and mental health did I inherit?
And what new story am I ready to write for myself?
Healing doesn’t mean blaming the generation before us — it means giving ourselves permission to do things differently. To choose awareness over autopilot. Connection over silence. And wholeness over performance.
It’s never too late to reclaim your story — and your voice.