When the news broke that 215 babies were buried on the ancestral lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, on the grounds of a former residential school, a lot of disturbing memories came up for my family. My auntie called me to debrief, sharing her own stories of how these torturous schools and their lasting trauma have become embedded in our own bloodline.
Without a doubt, every Indigenous family on Turtle Island (North America) has had a family member or ancestor attend these schools. Think about that. 
With the schools comes the trauma, the abuse, the intergenerational impacts, and the grief. 
Residential schools changed our family in a devastating way. As I listened to my auntie speak, I remembered my late mother?s pain, and how often that colonially-caused pain got in the way?and interfered with?my own childhood. It was because of those schools: Family members who were taken to residential schools then brought those toxic behaviours, learned from priests and nuns, into our own family. The cycle continued.
Triggered by this news, childhood memories came back to me. I remembered being six years old, and listening to my mom?s gruesome stories. She would sob, in agony, telling me what had happened to her as a child, due to the intergenerational impacts of those so-called schools.
That was my first time?but definitely not my last time?experiencing vicarious trauma.

I was frequently a witness to my mother?s turmoil, and even became a target for the...