I felt intergenerational trauma, and treated it with EMDR

For most of my life, I believed that I was successful, and that I was white. My parents fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon by fishing boat. Imagine leaving by the darkness of night in a river fishing boat and sailing out into the open sea.

Take a look at this picture below for reference (it an example, not the actual image). Look into their eyes. They’re young. My mom was 21 and my dad 26.

My mom was pregnant with me during this trip so I have no memory of it. They were stranded at sea for seven days, attacked by sea pirates, and left for dead. They eventually made it to a refugee camp in Ga Lang, Indonesia.

By PH2 Phil Eggman — http://www.defenseimagery.mil/imagery.html#a=search&s=vietnamese&n=90&guid=a45d0e57024cd2956364804b61f4e30a02c8042e, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7766642

I’ve heard this story a 1,000 times growing up but I never understood the magnitude of it.

Here’s a map of that journey. The modern day flight is two stops with a total flight time of 20 hours. They did it on a fishing boat.

They made this trip in a river fishing boat. It wasn’t designed for deep sea sailings. I can’t imagine the world you living in becoming so bad that the better option is to sail out to the sea.