Trauma

Passed down trauma 

Reading Maus was tough. It's interesting how much one story can influence different people around the storyteller. Artie was one of those people who got influenced by this story. During the comic book, Artie has suffered from generational trauma. Generational trauma is how one event changed a relative's behavior that influences other relatives.  While surviving the holocaust you can see many disturbing images, your friends starving to death, and the constant foreshadowing of the furnace reminding you that no matter what work you do you will end up being ash. All these memories can really mess you up as you can see in Vladek. Vladek is one of the survivalists of this awful event but it took its toll on his mental and physical health.  Vladek would constantly count his portions of pills taking this from always being hungry and never having enough food. He would make Artie eat everything off his plate cause well food was always limited during the time vladek was in the holocaust.  Vladek would save everything from a hospital bracelet to a wire from a trashcan because during the holocaust money was important but after removing all that money people would be left with stuff like silver wear, rugs, cloth, food, etc etc. That "stuff" can be a trade for more important things for vladek like food, and more materials for more food.  This whole thing is constantly on the back of Vladeks' mind he doesn't really think of how he acts around people. 

What I am getting on is that the guilt of surviving makes you second guess if you really deserve what you have right now while all your friends well are dead. So Artie being Vladek's son now experiencing this passed-down trauma and imagining the nazis getting to his school and taking him and his friends to the camp, that gas goes down his pipes while showering. Artie and Vladek are in a very bad relationship cause of his dad's habits and Artie constantly asks for the stories killing mentally his dad and himself. Stories can pass down nightmares that can cause trauma. The trauma can be smaller than the original but is from the same origin. This is very important to understand in order to have a good relationship between family members and not let trauma decide your decisions unless it's uncontrollable.

I will write more in the next blog I had a lot of things to do today.