The Suitcase: Generational Trauma and Codependency

Baggage. We all have it. But I hadn’t really stopped to think about what that looks like until recently when I started being confronted in real life with the manifestations of generational trauma. Back in 2021, when I shared with my dad that my second marriage was ending, he suggested that I listen to the song “Suitcase”. I never listened to the song, but I got the gist of what he was suggesting. We all carry a suitcase full of baggage. My dad isn’t one to go deep into any kind of conversation so it ended there.

I’d always thought about the idea of baggage using the metaphor that we get an empty suitcase when we’re born and as we go through life, it fills with our experiences and struggles–our baggage. From that metaphoric perspective, we could say that the goal in relationships is to find someone that will help you unpack your baggage, or at the very least not fill it with more struggle.

After my dad’s wife’s death on Thanksgiving, I wondered what that might look like for my own suitcase full of abandonment issues and codependent tendencies. I’ve done a lot of work to unpack that–or at least repack it neater so that I can manage it appropriately when the suitcase gets tossed around in baggage claim. I haven’t had any kind of meaningful relationship with my dad for the majority of my life and I hadn’t seen him in 23 years. I’d always attributed it to his wife and her issues that kept him from us and wondered what our relationship might look like without her–even this late in our lives. What would a “relationship” with him even look like at this point?

My sister and I ended up flying to South Dakota to be with him when he needed surgery to remove a “little spot on his ear” (spoiler alert, they took ¾ of his ear and a 1.5-hour surgery took more than 5). We figured it would be a good opportunity to see the reality of his situation and help guide some decisions about moving closer to us where we could help if necessary. I still can’t say if what we found or experienced was what I expected, but I honestly didn’t know what to expect. It was better in some ways when it came to the conditions of his home, and his mental faculties, but it became quite apparent that he had spent the majority of his life taking care of her and attempting to make her happy. And she was a very unhappy person. By his telling, she found fault in everything, she distrusted everything and everyone and in the end, was suffering from dementia and had become paranoid and mildly delusional. He described working around her and managing her “quirks”.

By the end of the week we were there, it had become clear that there would be no long talks about lives missed, or relationships rebuilding. My dad isn’t capable of living in that world. He is the product of the generational trauma that has been passed down since the beginning of human existence. My family history is heavy on alcoholism and codependency. My dad isn’t an alcoholic, and I don’t know if there exists another example of codependency that fits the model any better than my dad. The dictionary defines codependency as “excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, typically one who requires support on account of an illness or addiction.” Textbook case, my dad.

And here’s where that suitcase comes back into the story. I started thinking about baggage differently. I believe that when my dad told me about the song, his perspective was one that we needed to find someone who could help us carry our suitcase, rather than helping us unpack it. He spent the majority of his adult life carrying her suitcase full of baggage, along with his own. He shared with us after her death that he hadn’t taken an actual shower in three years, because he couldn’t leave her alone that long in the living room. His hair was down to his shoulders because he hadn’t had a haircut in as long. That “little spot” on his ear? The bottom of his ear lobe FELL OFF  in the PA’s hand at his first visit. It had been there for a very long time. He also has a significant hernia that will require surgery soon to repair.

Here’s what I realized about those suitcases we carry our baggage around in: They have a secret compartment. It’s where all the generational trauma gets shoved, and it’s there from the beginning. We don’t get empty suitcases when we’re born–we get suitcases with secrets and unhealthy coping mechanisms. By the time we’re old enough to look inside the suitcase, it’s usually so covered with our own experiential baggage that we never even realize it’s there.

Healing my own traumas has been a journey of understanding and difficult choices. My second marriage couldn’t survive once I faced my own codependent tendencies and understood that I couldn’t keep carrying his suitcase for him–or make him unpack his own baggage. Understanding the generational trauma piece and how much I was living the pattern of my ancestors by abandoning myself for the sake of others in my life was a game changer for me. No longer would I accept relationships in my life that required me to carry their suitcases for them. I’ll be supportive while you unpack your own, and I’ll cheer you on when it gets heavy and you have to set it down for a minute, but I’ll be damned if I ever pick up another person’s suitcase to carry again. excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, typically one who requires support on account of an illness or addiction.

If you’ve started a healing journey and you’ve begun to unpack that suitcase, don’t give up before you get to that secret compartment. Or better yet, throw all that other stuff aside for a minute and look for that compartment. Unpacking what’s in there will likely help you understand the rest of the stuff you have crammed in there–making it way easier to organize or discard the stuff you don’t need anymore.

I don’t know what the future holds for my dad or our relationship. I’ve accepted that it will never be the father/daughter thing that I see and am often envious of in movies. I’m thankful to have had an understanding of generational trauma and to have done enough of my own unpacking to not be devastated by his lack of ability to connect on a deeper level than talking baseball or telling us about the different dogs he’s had in his life and how special they were to him. I’m certain that if I hadn’t done some of my own unpacking, I would have left there a much angrier person than I was. My dad is who he is. He’s 75 years old and has spent his entire life abandoning himself to serve another (his wife). He sacrificed his health, relationships with his kids,  and opportunities to make friends outside of his relationship with her. I would imagine he’s feeling a little lost at this point, but it’s hard to tell. He’s doing the things he needs to do to take care of the things he’s neglected–his ear, the hernia, he got a haircut. Maybe he’ll even move down here at some point to be closer to my sister and I, where we could help him out if needed. But also, maybe not. I’m thankful to have done enough of my own unpacking that I am okay with it either way. It’s not my suitcase to carry.