Family Ties
No family is perfect by any means, but there are those who perpetuate dysfunction and others who seek to correct it. You don’t get to choose the family you are born or raised in, but you have the intuition to recognize poor behavior. It’s being brave enough to act out to change your involvement in that environment that becomes the challenge.
The problem I want to address is that people grow up thinking that such behavior is acceptable and normal. Within dysfunction, there is often apathy, abuse, humiliation and neglect involved to some degree leading to adverse effects on a child’s development. Dysfunction isn’t limited exclusively to abusive behavior. Guilt is the glue that holds a dysfunctional family together.
If you find yourself constantly trying to say yes to people and do anything in your power to please them, it may be a sign you learned to avoid conflict by moving forward despite your personal opinion on the matter. If you are nice for the sake of being nice, and sacrifice personal needs to make others happy or perhaps seek affection despite seeking real connection, it may be a sign you were afraid of being abandoned. If you crave perfection in everything you do, it may be because you are afraid of failure and disappointment. If you feel guilty for other people’s feelings, situations or behaviors, none of which are under your control, then it may be a sign you were burdened to manage someone else’s feelings.
The over-arching idea here is that, during your developing years when your mind is a sponge and you’re solely reliant on your family to live, things that have been inflicted onto you, imposted onto you, or demonstrated to you in a poor manner, without knowing otherwise, are assumed to be normal behavior.
If you do not know how to communicate emotions in a healthy way with friends and family, and you tend to shut down in stressful situations, then chances are, communication and emotional expression weren’t encourage or were non-existent. If no matter what you do or achieve, you are your harshest critic, and you always criticize yourself first, you are never able to enjoy yourself. If you feel unfulfilled and empty despite your achievements, you may have felt isolation or had a lack of emotional support as a child
No matter how good your life is, you can always pinpoint something that is wrong under close examination, but I don’t want to simply stir things up and then leave you a wet blanket of emotions if a lot of this sounds familiar. What I’m here to say is that you can cut those ties that hold you back. Weather or not you’re still living under your parents roof, you shouldn’t feel like you have to tolerate them. If you’re motivations come from a loving place and you want to address the dysfunction head-on like I had done, you have to remain calm, patient, empathetic and resilient.
I’m a firm believe that if you don’t like something, change it. This is especially true with those who I love and choose to care about in my life. I’ve developed a low tolerance for disorder and seek to address it directly. Coming from a place of empathy, if I see someone not holding themselves to a higher standard like I try to do for myself, I don’t shy away and maintain confidence because no one should feel insecure trying to help another behave better.
To this day, my mom still says I think like a women because she feels that I think too much and that I’m vocal about my feelings. Ironically, up until about 18, I struggled to express any emotions. I had a lot of confusing thoughts and feelings of emptiness, but I didn’t talk to my parents about it because there wasn’t that level of openness established. I vividly recall sitting out front of our house at the time crying to myself. My parents had been timidly worried off and on whether or not I was anorexic, depressed, suicidal, or gay throughout high school, none of which were true other than the depression caused by the lack of connection.
They both came outside and sat on either side of me worried that something heavy was on my mind. I couldn’t formulate all the feelings that had been causing me misery for so long. So I just said the simplest thing I could think of. “You don't say I love you enough!” Both my parents heart’s sank for a moment, but I would honestly say that was the start of a new relationship with them. My mom deeply loved me, but didn’t want to coddle me and my dad said his dad never said ‘I love you,’ so he was conditioned to do the same.
I want you to know, your family is doing the best they can with the experiences they’ve had. No one is a mind-reader and you can’t expect people to behave any way but the way they were treated. If you’re vocal about your needs, all you can ask is that they at least understand where you’re coming from and hopefully in turn support you whatever issue you feel.
-Busy Brain