Genogram and Ecomap Reflection Paper

The story of my family laid out on paper with either scribbly lines or straight lines, symbols that represent death or sickness is beautiful and sad at the same time. Family is a complicated thing. It shapes us in so many ways, the patterns I was able to see on my genogram were interesting. The women on my mother’s side of the family have dealt with depression for generations. I only heard stories but my mother’s grandmother on her mother’s side was a cold and numb woman, especially cold mother, no affection was giving towards my grandmother which laid the foundation for how my grandmother would raise my mother and her two sisters, which eventually trickle down to me and how I handled the responsibility of motherhood. The women on my mother’s side have difficulties expressing emotions and showing love by affection, it was more important to take care of the home, to clean and to cook then to worry about your children’s emotional well-being. I look back and I wonder what happened to my great grandmother, was she raised that way or was the impact of being young girl during WW1 losing her father and then had to live through WW2 raising two daughters while her husband went off to war and became a prisoner of war? Did WW2 affect my grandmother who still to this day tells me stories about the sirens and how scared she was when she had to hide and find shelter in church basements? Rebuilding Germany after the war was hard on both my father’s