How to Heal When You Come From a Dysfunctional Family
Growing up in a dysfunctional household can have a negative impact on your ability to thrive in your adult life. For one, having a dysfunctional childhood can create problems in adulthood. In addition, you may also find it challenging to create and maintain relationships with associates or friends.
A nonprofit organization notes that all families experience some level of dysfunction. However, households that often experience addiction, abuse, perfectionism, fear, communication, boundary, and intimacy problems are more likely to create emotionally dysfunctional adults. This post will discuss how you can find inner peace and healing if you’ve come from a dysfunctional family.
Create a New Support Network
The thing about having dysfunctional families is that it automatically removes your kin from the pool of people that you trust. Because of this, someone who grew up in a chaotic, traumatizing, dysfunctional household will have to build a reliable support network from their closest friends. While finding people with whom you connect emotionally may take a long time, having a good support network can help you cope more effectively with adult life. Be careful not to trauma-bond with friends who have experienced similar dysfunctions, as this encourages maladaptive behaviors and prevents you from finding actual growth.
Encourage Family Members to Seek Help
Dysfunctional families are much more nuanced than many perceive them to be. For some, true healing starts once you break free from your toxic family members. On the other hand, some people cannot let go of their dysfunctional families and would prefer to keep in contact despite the abuse and neglect.
If your healing journey involves seeing your dysfunctional family members get better, do try to encourage them to seek help from various professionals. If they have a history of abuse and crime, and want to move on from their past selves, point them to mental health professionals who are trained to work with trauma and understand the needs of people who experience social and psychological struggles. Those who have studied psychology will have developed a comprehensive approach to mental and behavioral care for families, individuals, and communities. These professionals work in accessible settings, such as community health centers, and handle both victims and offenders. You can also try to persuade your dysfunctional family members to find a therapist whom they can trust.
Know that it is normal to want to build your familial relationships, but you must do this from a safe distance and stop when family members refuse to accept their toxic behaviors.
Seek Help Yourself
As a child, you could not control your environment. Coping was a way to endure family dysfunction. Your coping helped you survive, but some of your coping mechanisms, brought into adulthood, can cause problems in your adult life. And as an adult, you have the choice to find healing. You have the opportunity to look at your old habits and coping mechanisms that are not working for you. You can find others to support you and help you create new patterns, ways of thinking, and healthy coping mechanisms. You can do this through self-help books, healing communities, spiritual and religious organizations, and professional therapists.
Accept That Your Family May Not Support Your Healing
Many households are entrenched in generations of disorder. You must often observe unspoken rules to survive in a family’s gadgets and be accepted. In families wherein there’s abuse, to talk about it usually means to be ostracized from one’s own family. In households wherein there may be substance abuse, when someone decides to become sober, they typically experience withdrawal. Or they may even be criticized, pronouncing that the sober individual thinks they’re “better than us.”
Understanding that you could lose your relationship with your family is key. Knowing this is normal and being prepared to rely on your “chosen family” will help you continue your healing journey when it gets hard and you question whether you’re doing the right thing.
Ready to Heal from a Dysfunctional Household?
As children, we don’t get to choose which family we are born into—or the kind of childhood we experience. But as adults, we have the power to choose differently. You can heal, grow, and form meaningful relationships that are not shaped by your past. A dysfunctional household doesn’t have to define your future. While it may always be part of your story, you can choose how it ends.
Are you struggling to move forward from a dysfunctional household? Lia Huynh, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, has helped many individuals heal from deep-rooted childhood wounds.
