Yesterday Never Sleeps: How Integrating Life's Current and Past Connections Improves Our Well-Being

By Jacqueline Heller

Befriending our inner mind with curiosity opens the way to secure attachments, empathy, and intimacy.

Because relationships dominate our inner world, knowing what we feel, and what we think about how we feel, cultivates self-awareness and acceptance. We learn to respect that others have their minds; we stop blaming and seeking scapegoats. Self-reflection, a learnable skill, links raw emotion—the kind we feel in our hearts and guts—to past events and behavior patterns. Knowing the story behind our painful feelings soothes and regulates our emotions so we can think before we act. Creating and updating a lifelong self-narrative—including the good, the bad, and the ugly—are the cornerstones for gaining wisdom and loving-kindness, qualities that interrupt cycles of trauma. The brain creates new neural connections during these processes, improving emotional health and cognition.

Jacqueline Heller, MS, MD, is board certified in psychiatry and neurology and is a psychoanalyst. In Yesterday Never Sleeps, she draws upon decades of clinical experience to weave together a powerful narrative that contains neuroscience, memoir of her life as a child of Holocaust survivors, and patient histories involving a range of psychological ills and trauma. Dr. Heller offers a uniquely holistic approach, demonstrating how the therapeutic process and self-analysis help us make sense of our history and forge a better future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886450576

Book preview

Praise for Yesterday Never Sleeps

"A compelling, profound, and deeply personal exploration of our past’s unending impact on our present, Yesterday Never Sleeps provides invaluable insights and answers for the victims of PTSD and other childhood traumas. Therapists, physicians, educators, and religious leaders will benefit immensely from this book, as will parents and other caring family members. Dr. Jacqueline Heller has written a compassionate primer on better understanding and more effectively addressing the long-term effects of trauma."

—Michael B. Oren, PhD, former Israeli ambassador to the US,

New York Times bestselling author of Ally and Six Days of War

Dr. Heller has achieved something extraordinary: a scientifically grounded, immensely readable summary of the workings of memory. Through vivid case studies, practical exercises, and a disarmingly candid excursion into her history as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Dr. Heller demystifies and renders manageable the mechanisms of the emotional self. What emerges is an exciting, dynamic portrait of what we humans can become—a portrait that rises above both dry, clinical observation and romanticized notions of trauma. Here, in crisp, vivid language is the kind of insight usually attained only by years of contemplative practice and therapy. A revelation and highly recommended.

—Joshua M. Greene, 2022 Laurel Vlock fellow, Fortunoff

Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University;

New York Times bestselling author of Unstoppable

Dr. Jacqueline Heller is a compassionate, erudite, and experienced psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. In this elegant volume, she offers rich and nuanced clinical encounters, playfully innovative treatments, and contemporary psychodynamic theory conveyed in plain English accompanied by do-it-yourself exercises. Through these windows, Dr. Heller highlights ways to identify and address one’s emotional triggers, gain increased self-awareness and self-control, and foster mature relationships. This valuable book should appeal to wide audiences of seekers, sufferers, and those who care for them.

—Joel Yager, MD, professor emeritus, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine; professor emeritus, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA; professor emeritus, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of New Mexico School of Medicine

Dr. Jackie Heller’s book provides a remarkably accessible summary of the core principles of psychoanalytic/psychodynamic therapy and demonstrates convincingly why these principles are crucial for profound personal growth. She then uses these principles to provide an incredibly deep and revealing look at her personal history and that of her family, showing over and over how the effects of psychological trauma play out both within individuals and across generations. Dr. Heller’s personal and family history of Holocaust survivors is astonishing, absorbing, moving, uplifting, and heartbreaking all at once. This book provides a great education and fascinating reading, a rare combination! I highly recommend it.

—Michael J. Gitlin, MD, distinguished professor of clinical psychiatry, director of the Division of Adult Psychiatry and the Mood Disorders Clinic, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA

"Virgil was Dante’s guide through the rungs of Hell, passing under a gate on which was inscribed, ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.’ As a Jewish woman like Heller, that inferno inhabits my personal history as well. It is, as Jackie Heller so beautifully tells us, ‘a fact of life and requires inner resources and self-awareness to break the cycles that echo across generations and dynasties.’ Heller takes us back into her own family’s history with the Holocaust and—like a modern-day Virgil—brings us to her story’s denouement: ‘My mom, the model survivor par excellence, terrified of death no longer, sanguinely informed me she was soon leaving this world.’ Heller does not simply tell us how to navigate the seemingly unnavigable, she does not simply show us how to recognize and manage our own demons, Heller travels the path with us. Yesterday Never Sleeps offers hope to those for whom hope seems only a passing shade on their journey through the underworld. What an extraordinary gift Jackie Heller has given us!"

—Elyn R. Saks, JD, PsyD, Orrin B. Evans distinguished professor of law; professor of psychology, psychiatry, and the behavioral sciences, USC Gould School of Law; director of the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics; adjunct professor of psychiatry, UC San Diego School of Medicine; faculty at the New Center for Psychoanalysis; author of The Center Cannot Hold

"In many ways, Yesterday Never Sleeps answers what life is like for children of Holocaust survivors such as Fanya Heller and myself, as I am both a survivor and a child of survivors. Heller did not live her parents’ persecution but witnessed and lived with the aftermath of the ruined and dehumanized lives of people filled with shock and terror and groping to create a new life that feels human. Heller is her mother’s daughter; I had the good fortune to know and befriend Fanya Heller for many years. Heller explains that self-awareness is a requisite to control our emotions and connections to others and illustrates how knowing our deepest selves is an essential antidote to hatred. Heller takes us on a poignant journey into her life as a daughter of Holocaust survivors."

—Abraham Foxman, Holocaust survivor, former

national director of the Anti-Defamation League

Why are we who we are? How can we understand ourselves better? What can we do to stop negative patterns from eating away at the fabric of our lives? How can we deal with stress and trauma, including intergenerational trauma? In her fascinating and immensely readable book, Dr. Jackie Heller addresses these questions and more, drawing upon her professional experience as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and her own experiences as a child of two Holocaust survivors who overcame tremendous odds to build a satisfying and successful life and family together. This book is powerful, well-written, and just WOW! This is a book you can’t put down, with essential insights and suggestions about improving our lives on every page.

—Judy Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, director of the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research, Abraham and Edita Spiegel Family Professor in Holocaust Research, and Rabbi Pynchas Brener Professor in Research on the Holocaust of European Jewry, Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University

"Dr. Heller examines the profound impact traumatic experiences have on survivors and their children. Offering compelling advice and providing keen insight, Yesterday Never Sleeps encourages the reader to venture into territory that often remains tightly guarded by parents and grandparents and that insists on revealing the truth of past traumas. Why? Heller explains, ‘. . . we become more empathetic and compassionate when we look inward and examine ourselves.’ The connection between communities and individuals resulting from self-inquiry leads to mutual understanding. Yesterday Never Sleeps shows the value of unlocking and sharing personal histories, persuasively arguing that such revelations are the best path forward."

—Claudia Gould, director, Helen Goldsmith Menschel,

the Jewish Museum

"Yesterday Never Sleeps by Dr. Jacqueline Heller examines how events from our past affect how we relate to others and the importance of creating a strong life narrative. Both scientific and personal, this book invites readers to reflect on their experiences using specific frameworks for support. The examples Dr. Heller provides from her own family history are compelling and highlight the value of self-reflection for all survivors of trauma, direct or inherited. Through this and her many other good works, Dr. Jacqueline Heller honors her mother’s legacy of educating the public about the Holocaust."

—Jack Kliger, president and CEO, and Elizabeth Edelstein,

vice president of education, Museum of Jewish Heritage—

A Living Memorial to the Holocaust

Transgenerational trauma is a well-known concept that has received considerable interest, particularly in connection to Holocaust survivors and its impact on the second generation. Dr. Heller’s fascinating book explores this phenomenon in a psychiatrically rigorous and yet passionate and extraordinarily practical way. She provides her readers with the means to uncover their inner minds and a personal example of such a self-discovery process. Challenging but rewarding, this process is crucial in overcoming childhood traumas. Its healing power can be seen in the book through many examples and case studies, which resemble a journey out of the darkness. In this journey, children of Holocaust survivors continue to bear witness, in all different ways, to the murder of millions. They fight for their dignity and memory, and by recovering from inherited trauma, they pay the most beautiful tribute to those who perished. This is what Dr. Heller magnificently succeeds in demonstrating through her exceptional book.

—Father Patrick Desbois, president of Yahad-In Unum

"Yesterday Never Sleeps is an outstanding book written by an exceptional psychoanalyst, one with a human and personal face and a refreshing voice. She is a special person and comes from a unique background that she details in her book. It provides profound wisdom and deep insight into how the mind works and how people relate to each other from pluralistic perspectives, including the centrality of what we have learned from attachment theory. The reader will learn much about how they became who they are. It is a book for young and old.

—Arnold Richards, MD, psychoanalyst, editor of the

International Journal of Controversial Discussions

This book is intended as a reference volume only. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author are not engaged in rendering any professional services. The information given here is designed to help you make informed decisions. If you suspect that you have a problem that might require professional treatment or advice, you should seek competent help.

The names and identifying characteristics of persons referenced in this book, as well as identifying events and places, have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals and their families.

Published by Greenleaf Book Group Press

Austin, Texas

www.gbgpress.com

Copyright © 2023 Rosebud MD LLC

All rights reserved.

Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

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Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group and Sheila Parr

Cover images used under license from ©Shutterstock.com/TairA and ChekmanDaria

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Print ISBN: 979-8-88645-056-9

eBook ISBN: 979-8-88645-057-6

To offset the number of trees consumed in the printing of our books, Greenleaf donates a portion of the proceeds from each printing to the Arbor Day Foundation. Greenleaf Book Group has replaced over 50,000 trees since 2007.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

23 24 25 26 27 28 29   10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

This book is dedicated to my children, Sarah and Joseph, and to my late parents, to whom none can compare.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: Building Blocks to Self-Awareness

Chapter 1: Embedded Emotions and Automatic Mental Constructs

Chapter 2: Dana’s Invisible Trigger

Chapter 3: Self-Reflection: How Do I Feel? What Do I Think?

PART TWO: The Relational Impact of the Unconscious Mind

Chapter 4: A Crash Course in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Chapter 5: Mother Nature and Attachment Chemistry

Chapter 6: Getting Defensive: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Chapter 7: Asocial Media: The Dangers of Disconnection

PART THREE: Psychological Ills and the Healing Relationship

Chapter 8: Finding Rosebud

Chapter 9: Unpack Your Baggage Here

Chapter 10: Cumulative Injuries and Unseen Wounds

EXERCISES

PART FOUR: The Trouble with Stress

Chapter 11: Toxic Stress Is Sickening

Chapter 12: Contagious Emotions Gone Viral

Chapter 13: Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma

PART FIVE: The Doctor Discloses

Introduction: Awakening the Hidden Self

Chapter 14: Family History

Chapter 15: Assimilated Namesakes

Chapter 16: Seeds of Trauma 1964–65

Chapter 17: Silent History, Mental Diary

Chapter 18: Surviving the Survivors

Chapter 19: Mirroring and Resonance

Chapter 20: Yesterday Put to Rest

PART SIX: More Reflective Musings

Chapter 21: Déjà Vu: Enmeshed and Entangled

Chapter 22: Damage Control: The Transmuted Tale

Chapter 23: The Unsung Hero

Chapter 24: The Phoenix

POSTSCRIPT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Introduction

In the opening scene of the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane is an old man lying in bed holding a snow globe, and we watch it slip from his hand and fall to the floor as Kane whispers the word Rosebud and dies. Throughout the movie, a journalist doing a story on Kane desperately searches for the meaning of Kane’s last word. The audience, however, knows that it was the name of a sled from his childhood. More than that, we know it represented a brief time of innocence, parental love, and joy abruptly stolen from him, which he failed to recapture for the rest of his life. This loss profoundly impacted the man Kane became, a significant cause of his relationship failures.

We cannot know another person if we do not know ourselves, which is essential for relationships—for connection, compassion, empathy, and growth. We need to figure out what makes us tick and what ticks us off, no matter the environment. I wrote this book in part to explain the importance of becoming self-aware. The process of introspection helps control triggered emotions and encourages more flexible and adaptive responses.

This book includes a personal narrative that I began when I was dealing with immense grief over the death of my mother. During this time of mourning, I found catharsis, solace, and some personal epiphanies in writing and telling stories about my family life.

The book also relates stories about people I have known and treated clinically in various settings over thirty years. I explain basic psychoanalytic theoretical principles to illustrate key concepts that are supremely important for understanding how to form secure, healthy relationships. Attachment-theory research confirms that secure attachments are highly predictive of people who enjoy successful relationships, independence, a sense of purpose and direction, and overall well-being.

We all have our triggers, our Rosebuds; they are people, places, objects, ideas, memories, and dream fragments representing our undiscovered parts, the hidden hurts, and repressed longings often expressed in dysfunctional ways. They are the unconscious memories, often the most painful and the most deeply hidden; they are a stimulus that provokes an emotion and feeling—many times a day. And these triggers can harm us and our relationships when we’re unable to control our emotions but unwittingly allow those emotions to override our rational mind. Intense emotions like anxiety, especially in the young and developing brain, can disrupt thinking. We have to be able to pay attention to learn the simplest of things. But if we’re too anxious, we can’t concentrate. We can’t think straight. We need to find a way to regulate our emotions.

This is where self-awareness can help; it allows us to calm down enough so we can think mindfully. To gain self-awareness, we must become psychological sleuths and learn how to identify our emotions and patterns of dysfunctional responses before we act upon them. If we know ourselves well, we can regulate our emotions; this can set us on a path of self-discovery and help to loosen the grip of dysfunctional patterns of behavior.

Indeed, becoming a self-reflective, psychologically savvy person will enrich your life. You might argue that turning inward is a selfish and arrogant thing to do. But in fact, it’s the opposite. Relationships dominate our inner world, and we become more empathetic and compassionate when we look inward and examine ourselves. As a result, we recognize otherness— we acknowledge that other people are not extensions of ourselves—and we develop tolerance and respect for people with different points of view, experiences, and wisdom. We will be much less likely to blame those closest to us for our baggage. We become more comfortable with uncertainty. We become more loving and the best version of ourselves.

Your history will repeat itself if you ignore taking these inward steps to deal with it. Or, as Mark Twain put it, The past does not repeat itself, but it will rhyme.

Formative events in childhood don’t have to be horrific for them to wreak havoc on our adult relationships. This book is about becoming aware of how buried or neglected events from our past can ruin our relationships. Embedded interpersonal dysfunction stems from family trauma, especially parental PTSD, myths, secrets, and suppressed experiences that distort one’s self-perception. Self-awareness helps us create a personal narrative history. A strong life narrative serves as a cornerstone for a contented life, helping us be our best selves by developing secure attachments, rootedness, autonomy, and resilience.

As much as we need to raise well-loved children who mature into adulthood with these qualities, we must start with ourselves. Given how we live in our fast-paced world—so cut off from each other, especially in the digital era where we fail to even make eye contact with others—we need to be more psychologically astute. More than ever, we require keen self-awareness. If we lack this ability, we are likely to struggle—as individuals, as parents, in relationships, in groups, on the job, and in our health. Under pressure, we fall into counterproductive patterns that sabotage our lives.

This book explores the well-substantiated proposition in attachment theory, which posits that people who benefitted as children from a secure, loving bond with their primary caregivers have better odds of building successful relationships later in life. Unfortunately, not everyone has had the benefit of such a healthy upbringing. It is crucial to reflect on and flesh out your self-narrative for self-understanding and discovery. A lifelong story about yourself is grounding and serves as a fundamental basis to refresh, renew, and be your better self—the outcome of the therapeutic process. In the best of circumstances, we can help prevent victimized kids from growing into hateful, murderous adults, and we can help people speak out against the victimization of their fellow human beings. The responsibility to diminish inherited trauma and contribute to eliminating scapegoating rests with each of us.

Relationships provide a window for self-understanding and acceptance. Unfortunately, Charles Foster Kane lacked self-awareness and paid a terrible price—he may have been wealthy, but he was emotionally impoverished and unable to sustain meaningful relationships. Abandoned and betrayed as a child (tricked by his parents, who gave him up for adoption), the fictional Kane lost everything at the outset and had no possibility of recovery. But if Kane had insight into his misery, he would not have had to dig through a dusty attic to find his childhood sled. Instead, he could have discovered his Rosebud by being aware of and thoughtful about responding emotionally to the significant people in his life.

It may seem obvious, but for so many people, the obvious is invisible because, like Kane, people don’t have the know-how to understand why it’s important to become self-reflective. Kane failed to recapture Rosebud because he remained stuck in a reactive, triggered existence rather than a self-reflective, examined, introspective life.

Our Journey out of Darkness

There are three primary, interrelated processes we will be using in our journey out of psychic darkness.

MINDFUL SELF-REFLECTION

The first process, fundamental to all, is mindful self-reflection. Such reflection is a two-part process of focused self-exploration; it involves going inward and upward, beginning with identifying our physical sensations and labeling our emotions, our feelings. Then we think about what they mean. I call it intro-spectate, combining introspective (looking inward) with spectate (looking on, as a spectator).

Mentalizing is self-reflection that leads to awareness of thoughts, feelings, and attitudes when interacting with others. Reflecting on someone else’s perspective allows us to rethink our assessment of their behavior and may alter our reaction to it.

Unfortunately, most of us shy away from this internal spelunking. The first shot in the Citizen Kane movie is a sign on the gate of Kane’s mansion that reads No Trespassing. Our psychological stuff can feel off-limits, but soon you will understand how and why we need to cross this boundary. Once you start paying attention to your emotional reactions and patterns, you ask yourself many relevant why questions; these are the least threatening because they are rational and cut off from emotion. Our defense mechanisms keep emotions from emerging into consciousness and make the focus an intellectual rather than an introspective one. They are very sensible questions:

Why am I always at loggerheads with my boss?

Why do I view myself as a kind, thoughtful person yet act in ways that can be mean-spirited and reactive?

Why do I feel dissatisfied, restless, and unhappy even though I’ve achieved many life goals?

The answer to all these questions is: You don’t know yourself as well as you should—or as well as you think.

On the other hand, an introspectively seasoned person is in touch with the true inner sage, and will first ask what questions, denoting curiosity about describing an internal process. For example:

What am I feeling in my body?

What is the story I am telling in my mind’s eye?

What just happened between us that I suddenly feel crestfallen?

STORYTELLING

The second process we’ll explore, storytelling, is creating a straightforward, personal narrative. Contrary to what we might think, people tend to sanitize their stories; for example, they’ll often say I grew up normal with good parents when the reality is darker and more complex.

Neuroscience confirms that having a real, multidimensional, replicable lifelong narrative—a story—promotes healing and solidifies identity. Introspection utilizes active brain regions responsible for defining yourself and having a clear physical and psychological self-perception. Developing a personal record entails going back to early childhood and, if possible, previous generations to explore what may have happened, then describing it in detail.

Like myself, many of us have parents who survived horrible situations— wars, extreme poverty, and exile. Given the reality that the effects of trauma are heritable, we should attend to secrets and lies, betrayals and misunderstandings—any incident that creates feelings of shame, anger, embarrassment, and other disturbing emotions.

By recalling and articulating the circumstances that created these painful feelings, we demystify what took place in the past. It can no longer control us. Simultaneously, our autonomic nervous system is regulated; we have healthy blood pressure and low levels of stress hormones, and we are calm and even-keeled.

WRITING

The third process is expressive, creative, and reflective writing. Journaling and letter writing are more structured yet relaxed ways to address and disempower present-day pain and past hurts. The act of writing demands that we think about how we feel and what we wish to convey. Writing requires choosing words carefully. Science confirms that writing solidifies memory encoding, which is the most reliable and consistent way of remembering our stories without modification and can keep our narrative going.

Knowing our emotions is crucial, since our feelings may be rooted in past events that have no context today yet can control our attitudes and behaviors. Thus, learning to spot emotional shifts in the present can draw us to the origins of behavioral repetitions.

To better understand these three processes, I’m also going to share my experiences growing up with Holocaust survivor parents.

Children of survivors are called second-generation children of survivors or 2gs. Being a 2g had everything to do with why I became a science researcher, medical doctor, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. When you read my story, you will understand the underpinnings of the kind of trauma that seeps through each of us nonverbally. I’ve applied mindfulness to my own life. Being aware of and learning from my emotional responses and seeing how they connect to events from my past is mostly an automatic function these days. Throughout the book, I’ll demonstrate what I think, feel, and do in response to patients and situations.

Our behavior as adults depends on multiple coincident influences that impact us throughout our lives. Our upbringing by our parents, our genetics, belief systems, family, secrets, environment, cultural values, and personal history—these all have affected our development and the formation of our personality.

Professionals refer to this integrated, holistic approach to patient care as bio-psycho-social. A first step to getting out of the dark is to label and become consciously aware of our own, often unconscious, negative emotions, beliefs, and distorted thoughts, and in this way, we can integrate painful emotions with historical facts and personal narratives.

Personal insight makes us wiser.

About This Book

As a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, child of Holocaust survivors, and a former associate clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, I have professional, personal, and academic expertise. I have a rich trove of stories to tell—in the pages ahead, stories of my patients and my own life—and a sleuthing process that I will share. Be aware that the format for the book’s first four sections focuses on critical psychological concepts, with small parts of my narrative included. In contrast, parts