Family Dysfunction

How do you respond to family dysfunction now?  Meaning, from your family of origin.  But you could talk about current family dysfunction as well.

1 thought on “Family Dysfunction

  1. Jigsaw Analogy--someone

    OY. my family of origin is, shall we say, less than fully functional. i’m insulated from a lot of it, because i chose to live 3000 miles away from them.

    i guess the main way i cope with it is that i make sure to have people in my life who can help me to do reality checks, and with whom i can process through my feelings. it’s hard, because it often feels like the right thing to do would be to get enmeshed in family stuff. so i feel guilty for setting boundaries, or not just getting entangled. but at the same time, i only have so much energy, and i don’t want to waste it where it will do no good.

    actually, a hard thing for me to understand is that there are members of my family who, individually, are less dysfunctional. i left home pretty much for good when i was 18, which means that my younger siblings were pretty young when i left, and i never spent much time around them since. but in the past year or so, i’ve talked a little more openly with them about some of the dysfunctional stuff (not the abuse, but other stuff), and they are actually saner than expected. it’s hard to wrap my brain around the idea that maybe there are people in my family it would be safe to trust. not that i’ve trusted them with anything, but i’m working on accepting that it might be a possibility.

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