Quotes about dysfunctional-families

What are humans meant to do why are we here? Are we a mutation on the earth destroying its host? Are we a cancer destined to kill what supports us? I think not. So exploring this question is a powerful exercise in meaning what is the meaning of human existence?

Our parents were our first gods. If parents are loving, nurturing, and kind, this becomes the child’s definition of the creator. If parents were controlling, angry, and manipulative, then this becomes their definition.

My only regret is that no one told me at the beginning of my journey what I'm telling you now: there will be an end to your pain. And once you've released all those pent-up emotions, you will experience a lightness and buoyancy you haven't felt since you were a very young child. The past will no longer feel like a lode of radioactive ore contaminating the present, and you will be able to respond appropriately to present-day events. You will feel angry when someone infringes on your territory, bu

Sexual abuse is also a secret crime, one that usually has no witness. Shame and secrecy keep a child from talking to siblings about the abuse, even if all the children in a family are being sexually assaulted. In contrast, if a child is physically or emotionally abused, the abuse is likely to occur in front of the other children in the family, at least some of the time. The physical and emotional abuse becomes part of the family's explicit history. Sexual abuse does not.

I was wrong last night. Kyler isn’t just trouble. He’s an apocalypse-level disaster waiting to happen. I need to find some fallout shelter to hide in. And quick.

He knows I’ve seen something in him. Something I recognize, only because it exists in me too.

What is that?” Addison inspects the food with a look of sheer revulsion on her face. You’d swear I just handed her a plate full of arsenic. “The Works Burger with fries and extra onions and cheese, exactly as you ordered.” I keep my voice level.She sends me a scathing look. “Do I look like I’d ever consume that amount of saturated fat?

You think you have a handle on God, the Universe, and the Great White Light until you go home for Thanksgiving. In an hour, you realize how far you've got to go and who is the real turkey.

All people cross the line from childhood to adulthood with a secondhand opinion of who they are. Without any questioning, we take as truth whatever our parents and other influentials have said about us during our childhood, whether these messages are communicated verbally, physically, or silently.

Wounded parents often unintentionally inflict pain and suffering on their children and these childhood wounds causes a laundry list of maladaptive behaviors commonly called codependency. These habits restrict people to love-limiting relationships causing much unhappiness and distress.

It is very difficult to develop a proper sense of self-esteem in a dysfunctional family. Having very little self-worth, looking at one’s own character defects becomes so overwhelming there is no room for inward focus. People so afflicted think: “I need to keep you from knowing me. I have already rejected me, but if you knew how flawed I am, you would also reject me…and since this is all I have, I could not stand any more rejection. I am not worthy of someone understanding me so you will not get

My mother's mouth drops. 'Emmy...don't say those things Emmy. Remember, we don't talk about those things.''Yes Mom. I remember. That's why I'm here, looking like this.'An orderly knocks on the door and announces that visiting time is over.My mother and I look at each other awkwardly, and hug.'I love you,' she says.'I love you too, Mom.''You aren't telling them too much are you?' she asks, afraid.I sign. 'No Mommy, I'm not.'She's visibly relieved. She leaves the room.The orderley comes back and e

Perhaps nothing so accurately characterizes dysfunctional families as denial.

She was so upset about a blog that maybe a total of six people read yet had no compassion for her granddaughters who had suffered the physical and emotional pains of sexual abuse and whose lives were changed forever. The two cannot even be compared, yet when someone is in denial about what happened, they cannot perceive what is true. It seemed too hard for her to let her mind go there and believe her grandson could do such terrible things.

There is an intergenerational reoccurrence rate of 30% in incest.

If you should choose to look at those files, you will have to live with the consequences of your choices while, at the same time, being mindful that these choices will not only effect you, but will also infect, sorry, I intended to say effect, our entire family.

Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and Rocío were like arroz and mangú: they didn’t really mix well.

You were tossed away like a pair of beautiful, brand new shoes that did not quite fit.

Children have empty erasable white boards upon which big people write indelibly imprinted messages into their tender subconscious minds.

This imbalance causes resentments within the over-responsible and dependency with the irresponsible person and this dynamic becomes the destructive life-pattern not conducive to happy families.

Often, her mate is the child of a narcissist, already indoctrinated to regard exploitation and disregard as love. Others lured by the narcissistic aura are those in whom healthy childhood exhibitionism has been repressed. . . . If the parent puts the child to shame for showing off, the need for attention gets repressed into the unconscious. Repression means that the need is not satisfied and continues to press for expression in the adult without her being aware of it. The repressed adult may sel

Consider letting go of the barriers between yourself and others, let go of the definition our culture has inflicted upon us and allow the best part of ourselves to connect with the wondrous parts of others. Allow yourself to connect in a deeper and more profound way.

If I, as a child, claim that something awful has happened—that someone has done something terrible to me—and everyone around me acts as if nothing is the matter, then either I must be crazy, or all of them are. And when you’re a kid and your life depends on all these people, there is no choice: of course, I must be crazy.

When faced with choosing between attributing their pain to “being crazy” and having had abusive parents, clients will choose “crazy” most of the time. Dora, a 38-year-old, was profoundly abused by multiple family perpetrators and has grappled with cutting and eating disordered behaviors for most of her life. She poignantly echoed this dilemma in her the

Since children from dysfunctional families are so good at judging others, they also judge themselves finding themselves unacceptable when compared to others, always assuming they are second best, not enough. This is a painful realization so often they hide behind righteous arrogance.

Codependency is a learned set of behaviors, thought processes, and habits. When combined together, they fit a very loose definition. All people exhibit these traits to some degree, but some of us allow them to dictate our relationships with others and ourselves.

Being judgmental is a form of attack keeping others off balance.

Boundary violations are deeply experienced.

With improved coping skills forged through my midlife crisis, I now listen first and do not control, and I allow these now adult children to come to their own conclusions about what they want for their lives.

Wracking sobs rip from the innermost chamber of my heart, and I give into them, allowing them to fully take over. Pain lances me on all sides, and I bury my head in my knees, giving in to the heartache.I cry for my parents.For my lost life.For the threat that Addison poses, scaring me in ways it shouldn’t.For a boy I can’t have and shouldn’t want.For the never-ending gut-wrenching hollow ache in my chest and the soul-crushing loneliness I feel.

Perhaps nothing so accurately characterizes dysfunctional families as denial. The denial forces members to keep believing the myths and vital lies in spite of the facts, or to keep expecting that the same behaviors will have different outcomes.Dad's not an alcoholic because he never drinks in the morning, in spite of the fact that he's drunk every night.

It is hundreds of tiny threads of memories, which sew people together through the years. Despite, their mental separation they stay woven into that tapestry out of habit, emotion, obsession or fear.

Implicit [in the psychiatric literature] is a set of normative assumptions regarding the father's prerogatives and the mother's obligations within the family, The father, like the children, is presumed to be entitled to the mother's love, nurturance, and care. In fact, his dependent needs actually supersede those of the children, for if a mother falls to provide the accustomed intentions, it is taken for granted that some other female must be found to take her place. The oldest daughter is a fre

There's something to that in both directions," said Ekaterin mildly. "Nothing is more guaranteed to make one start acting like a child than to be treated like one. It's so infuriating. It took me the longest time to figure out how to stop falling into that trap.""Yes, exactly," said Kareen eagerly. "You understand! So—how did you make them stop?""You can't make them—whoever your particular them is—do anything, really," said Ekaterin slowly. "Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a

To cope, he and his siblings – older and younger sisters, a younger brother - created a game called Henry Kissinger. Palahniuk remembers that as their parents fought, lots would be drawn to see who would play Kissinger. 'This was the early to mid-70s, when Kissinger was a hero, forging peace in the Middle East,' he explains. 'Whoever became Henry Kissinger would have to go and redirect our parents’ attention or anger to a different crisis.' The child who drew the short straw would severely hurt

I’ve written more about my parents than any writer in the history of the world, and I still return to their mysterious effigies as I try to figure out what it all means—some kind of annunciation or maybe even a summing-up They still exert immense control over me even though they’ve been dead for so long. But I can conjure up their images without exerting a thimbleful of effort.

Bleeding ulcers run in my family, we give them to each other.

There is a world of difference between the experienceof 'care' – the wiping of a bottom, the bathing of a body: basicbiological obligations – and the intimacy that makes us wantto live.

I used to joke that we had prepared ourselves for a time like this by living with Mother. The problem with such a state of affairs was not that you did not get to do what you wanted---sometimes you did---but the effort to appease or resist the reigning deities left you so exhausted that it prevented you from ever really having fun. To this day having fun, just plain enjoying myself, comes at the cost of a conviction that I have committed an undetected crime.

And could you, from a place of love, actually stand up and, use force, to give someone back, the suffering, they were trying to put on you? Would I do it? Maybe it would even be, an act of fierce compassion, as Enso Roshi sometimes talked about, to not take it any more. To not cow down, anymore. To let my father know, the tyrant, the aggressor, that if he hits me, I’m going to hit back, and hard.

Thomas had a younger sister, Ester, who was a facsimile of the womanizer brother, who had behaviors that mirrored her brother’s treatment of women, for she treated men the same way, for the same reasons. The younger sister had raised her sons with a hurtful echo in their minds that said ‘men are no good’, and because they heard it so much from their mother’s mouth, I feared that they would one day believe it to be true.

No, I wanted to say, he didn't cut off her hands because he didn't have to, he had cut them off long before, with years of keeping all authority in his own palms, all the rules and all the power and all the answers emanating from him and no one else. And if you don't understand that, if you've never been in such a family, then you can't know the way the mind shackles itself and amputates its own limbs so adeptly that you never think to miss them, never think that you had anything so obscene as c

The strange part about a person’s lack of trust is that it often comes from not trusting themselves.

Honoring your word is the fiber from which trust is built.

A woman in Charlotte approached me and said that she’s tired of the dysfunction in my novels. I told her I was sorry, but that is how the world has presented itself to me throughout my life.

I explain to my patients that abused children often find it hard to disentangle themselves from their dysfunctional families, whereas children grow away from good, loving parents with far less conflict. After all, isn't that the task of a good parent, to enable the child to leave home?

Society gives the image of sexual violators as weird, ugly, anti-social, alcoholics. Society gives the impression that violators kidnap children are out of their homes and take them to some wooded area and abandon them after the violation. Society gives the impression that everyone hates people who violate children. If all of these myths were true, healing would not be as challenging as it is. Half of our healing is about the actual abuse. The other half is about how survivors fit into society i

Many of the habits of dysfunctional families use are not from the lack of love but are the result of fear. Knowing the love-limiting habits and behaviors of dysfunctional families is a wonderful beginning to lower the fear, allowing us to be real, allowing us all to learn how to love better.

The key problem I encounter working with wounded, depressed, and unhappy people is a lack of connection…starting from a disconnection from themselves and then with others. This is why love often becomes so distorted and destructive. When people experience a disconnection from themselves, they feel it but do not realize the problem.

You did not invent these family habits. Your family is like mine, for thousands and thousands of years our families have embraced a dysfunctional lifestyle, passing these habits as gospel on to subsequent generations. This was not done out of malice, spite, or hate, but what they knew best. As ineffective as these habits are, you never stopped to consider another way of loving.

No one escapes some degree of chaos for it is so ever prevalent; it is the human experience. This realization does not mean we can’t improve. It does mean we can accept our state of chaos, lighten up on ourselves, have fun, and work on improving…we are a work in progress. Enjoy the journey.

Awkward silences rule the world. People are so terrified of awkward silences that they will literally go to war rather than face an awkward silence.

ligion is the opiate of the masses." "I did masses of opiates religiously.

You can deny him, he thought, watching his father across the table. You can hate him, love him, pity him, never speak to or look at him in the eye again, never deign even to be in his crabbed and bitter presence, but you're still stuck with the son of a bitch. One way or another he'll always be your daddy, not even all-powerful death was going to change that.

It’s the great surprise of my life that I ended up loving [my father] so much.

Amanda, you finally decided to answer the phone,” her mom exclaimed after picking up at the first ring. “Where’ve you been, what’ve you been up to?”“Mom, do you remember when I was a kid, I had a friend, he was a Personification of the Sydney Tar Ponds, sort of my imaginary friend?” Mandy asked.“No, what in the name of god are you on about?” her mom sighed in exasperation.“Remember? Only I could see him, but he was real and he was my best friend when I was eighteen?” Mandy insisted.“No, I don't

Making amends is not only saying the words but also being willing to listen to how your behavior caused another’s pain, and then the really hard part…changing behavior.

There are orphanages," he exclaimed to himself, "for children who have lost their parents--oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them?

When you journey inwardly exploring yourself, a sense of personal trust begins.

Families living in dysfunction seldom have healthy boundaries. Dysfunctional families have trouble knowing where they stop and others begin.

Under this aura of perfection he knows how flawed he really is but his intact denial system keeps this awareness suppressed in the far recesses of his mind.

Teenagers can spot hypocrisy a mile away and here I was telling them how to cope when they witnessed the shambles of my own life and how I was living.

If no one has boundaries…how can there be any transgression?

Shame is a powerful feeling. There is a tremendous difference between making a mistake and believing you are a mistake...If I don’t see myself as being a mistake then it is I who must take responsibility and I am not ready to accept that.

Mature adults gravitate toward new values and understandings, not just rehashing and blind acceptance of past patterns and previous learning. This is an ongoing process and maturity demands lifelong learners.

The greater the pain associated with love, the more likely a person is to be attracted to others who will inflict this pain…for isn’t this what love is? Hurt people tend to hurt other people.

If you are looking for love under rocks or bringing home water moccasins, you might be confusing love and pain.

As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended.

Sitting on the hot seat of change requires much courage, patience, and persistence.

If we want to improve, first we have to recognize our own maladaptive coping skills, called codependency, then change.

I immersed myself in my relationship with my husband, in little ways at first. Dutch would come home from his morning workout and I’d bring him coffee as he stepped out of the shower. He’d slip into a crisp white shirt and dark slacks and run a little goop through his hair, and I’d eye him in the mirror with desire and a sultry smile that he couldn’t miss. He’d head to work and I’d put a love note in his bag—just a line about how proud I was of him. How beautiful he was. How happy I was as his w

It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack's mother, and Aliena's brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that her father had died in a dungeon, and she was legally married to Jack's stepbrother, and Ellen was an outlaw, and—She shook her head. It was no use pretending this was a normal family.

We are in the era of dysfunctional relationships.

A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.

After my parents were dead, I found in a box and in two chests of drawers nothing but hundreds of bright red Alpine caps, I said, nothing but bright red Alpine stockings. Every one of them knitted by my mother. My parents could have gone into the High Alps with these bright red caps and bright red stockings for thousands of years. I burnt every one of those bright red caps and bright red stockings, I said. I put on one of my mother's hundreds of bright red Alpine caps and in this costume burnt a

One needn't stop dysfunction just evince and reflect.