In this live self‑help session, Fun Coach Tamika explores the concept of family trauma, arguing that unacknowledged dysfunction limits personal freedom and confidence. She frames the discussion around a central question—"Am I free?"—and links freedom to the ability to trust and confide in oneself, which she says is often blocked by family‑related trauma. Tamika defines family trauma as a pervasive life story that many refuse to recognize, describing its destructive impact on relationships and emotional well‑being. She then outlines five concrete signs that may indicate family trauma: (1) intense emotions such as depression, anxiety, fear, guilt, anger, and helplessness; (2) avoidance behaviors, including withdrawing from conversations, not responding to messages, and a push‑pull dynamic in relationships; (3) trust issues, which she claims can be resolved by first learning to trust oneself; (4) appetite disturbances, ranging from emotional overeating to restrictive eating; and (5) sleep problems, either insomnia or oversleeping, often triggered when trauma work surfaces strong feelings. Throughout, Tamika shares personal anecdotes—her own asthma attacks, voice loss, patterns of chasing‑avoidance, reliance on junk food, and chronic sleep disruption—to illustrate each sign. She emphasizes that experiencing these symptoms suggests underlying family trauma and recommends seeking professional help, noting that she is not a therapist but plans to bring qualified professionals onto future shows. The session concludes with a call to action for viewers to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation.
Chapters
Hello, and thank you so much for joining me again on my live. This is PTSD, and I am Fun Coach Tamika. So today we're actually going to talk about family trauma. So let's get into it. Um, I heard a saying the other day that goes, you're not free. Until you know who you are. And I like that because confidence is what true freedom looks like. I heard the root word of confidence is to confide in who God says you are. And I believe most people are not free because they don't trust themselves. Like they can't confide in themselves. And it's all because of what we're going to talk about tonight, which is family trauma. So this is the question of the day. Ask yourself this question: am I free, and how do I know it? Right? So in my book Parenting the Confident Child, I spoke about family dysfunction. And how it's a byproduct of trauma, right? So there are several signs that I'm going to share with you tonight that you may be experiencing family trauma. And I say that family trauma is like a life story because most people refuse to acknowledge it. And you cannot heal what you review— what you refuse to reveal, right? And so family dysfunction comes in like a bull in a china shop, destroying everything in its path until there's nothing left except pain. So as you know, Thanksgiving was this week, and I must admit it's my favorite holiday. However, it does reveal some pain, right? So it's kind of like bittersweet for me because family trauma produces pain. And I was recently speaking with a sibling, and there was a constant back and forth. And I understand that wherever there's conflict, instead of there being a safe space of love and care, right, in family trauma and dysfunction, There is constant deflecting and defending. So you can't get anything done if one or both parties are in defense mode and deflecting. And I decided personally a long time ago that I would never enter the court of defense because nothing but pain lives there. I won't even have a conversation with someone unless they're willing also not to step into the court of defense, because you can't get anything done that way, right? So I was looking up some things and I wanted to know, like, what, what are some signs of family trauma? So here are 5 signs that I want to share with you tonight of family trauma. So the first one is strong feelings— depression, anxiety, fear, sadness, guilt, anger, helplessness, hopelessness. Vulnerability, all of those things that are very, very strong, strong feelings. That's one of the top signs of family trauma. And I remember 2, 2 months ago, I myself was experiencing back-to-back asthma attacks. I literally could not lay down because I couldn't breathe. And due to the flare-up, I lost my voice for an entire month. So, um, God showed me that I was wrestling with some strong feelings that I had as a result of my family trauma that I had been holding on to. Okay, so this is a huge reason why I want to really express that strong feelings— strong feelings is, is like the number one sign of family trauma. Okay, now let's look at the, the second one is avoidance. So avoidance can look a whole bunch of different ways. It can be— it can look like you withdrawing from a conversation, you shutting down, you're not talking, you, you Avoiding people getting close to you, you avoiding getting close to people. It could mean something as simple as not answering your phone, not answering your text messages, not responding. That's avoidance, and that's a another huge sign of family trauma. So for me, I know that when I see the signs that someone is. Avoidant. There's this kind of like push-pull type of dynamic. One person is chasing, the other is avoiding. So when I see that someone is avoiding and has that avoidant type of energy, I immediately back off because I know how it is to be in the chase-avoid drama. Most of my relationships and friendships were that way. They were either chasing me, I was chasing them. They were avoiding me, I was avoiding them, right? So that's not healthy, and and I don't want to be involved in those types of dynamics or relationships. So I don't get involved in anymore. The next one is problems with trust, or a lot of people like to say trust issues, and I myself used to struggle. With trusting people until I learned to trust myself. Once I learned how to trust myself, I don't— I no longer have problems trusting people. No longer. It's amazing how it happened. I don't have a problem trusting people because people who are not trustworthy show themselves as not being trustworthy. So therefore, I don't have a problem with it. I just understand that certain people I cannot bring closer to me who are not trustworthy. That's it. That's all. So then you don't struggle with that, um, and say, oh, you got trust issues. I no longer have trust issues because I learned to trust myself. And then there's the next one is like appetite. Now this could go either way. Right. You can have some people who lean heavily on food for comfort. That's something that I used to do a lot, leaning heavily on food for comfort. I always consider myself the junk food junkie. Um, and so anytime I had strong feelings coming up or things that I just wanted to numb, because I didn't drink or anything like that, I leaned heavily on snacks and you know, comfort foods and stuff like that. And it can also go the other way where you see food as this big problem and now you don't, you know, don't indulge, you don't eat, you just totally are— have like this very unhealthy relationship with food. So, um, family trauma shows up in appetite. And then finally And sleep. So this is another one that can go either way. You either sleep too much or you don't sleep enough. And so can I just go on record to say I have not slept well in years? And I know that it's mostly due because once I started trauma therapy, I started to face a lot of things. And those feelings were strong and intense. So therefore, I started feeling everything. I went from numbing myself, not feeling anything, to feeling everything. And I don't know, I don't know if it's, it's better to feel everything versus not feeling at all. And so, like, sleep was an issue for me. And Um, it's a sign that I've had family trauma and that a lot of things come back up. I think about things, I have flashbacks, etc., etc. So if you are experiencing any of these symptoms, it is a huge sign that you have family trauma, okay? And you might want to see a professional that can help you get through it, because like I always mention, I am not a therapist. I am not a professional, although I will be bringing professionals on my show from time to time. The reason why I call this talk therapy is because we talk through things. Yes, the feelings are the emotional processing and a good sign. I love that. Thanks so much for sharing that information because yes, but sometimes those feelings Sometimes those feelings— Miss Minzy, I tell you, Miss Minzy is actually going to be coming on as one of my professionals. I'm super excited about that. But, um, again, like, if you are experiencing any of these symptoms that I mentioned today, it's a huge sign that you do have family trauma and you might want to see a professional to help you get through it because that is the way that you're going to get through it. So again, I want to thank you for joining me today, and if you've enjoyed this video, like, subscribe, and share it with someone you know. Thanks so much for watching, and I hope to see you again on the next video.
