Did you grow up in a dysfunctional family?

[Orwell20]

If so, how would you describe it? In what way was it dysfunctional? Remember, a family can be dysfunctional without being abusive. Plenty of happy, loving families are deeply dysfunctional.

[Dougella]

^ That's so sad for you and your siblings


Yes I did grow up in a disfunctional family, by the time I was 5 my parent's marriage was falling apart and they couldn't stand being in the same room as one another for a lot of years. My parents both had their own issues from their families and then there were money problems and my mum's succession of boyfriends. They were loving and affectionate parents though.

[Vienna]

I'm still living in one.
Dad still has a military attitude and also still treats me like I'm 5 years old.
My brother here....well I could write a whole thread on him
My mum poor woman, suffers worry and anxiety due to my dad and brother not getting on

I should really run for the hills

[hollowone]

My parents are super-over-protective and mollycoddle & always have. That's been a factor for having social anxiety.

My mother has always been ultra hyper-protective; didn't let me out of my gates until I was 12, didn't let me walk home from school until I was 16. Can you believe that? My mother could be described as a 'smother' mother; doing everything for me.

My parents have always been in their own bubble and 'out of touch' with what's normal. They've never gone out and mixed with other people/ What's more, I even suspect the relationship between me and my mother is 'co-dependent' because she's got & has historically had nothing better to do or no other sense of purpose but to molly-coddle me & do everything for me. Now every parent loves their kids and wants the best for them. But when it goes to the point that they're not getting the opportunity to learn life skills, that's when it goes too far.

What's dangerous about over-protective parents is that on the surface it can appear loving (which it is) but the downsides & how living with them could ****-up your ability to stand on your own two feet can be INCREDIBLY HARD to describe.

There's the fear that if I say this they may think they've done a bad job at raising me.

[Dougella]

^ It's interesting that backgrounds that seem completely opposite can result in people developing SA. My parents could be described as pretty hands off during my teenage years, I could easily have not come home at night and no-one would have noticed or had any idea where I was until well into the next day (I didn't do that because SA was set in by then and I wasn't going out!).

[Sisyphus]

Yes.

I had a generous mix of what has been mentioned and more besides.

The laundry list from Wikipedia fits me on most points:-

Wikipedia wrote
The Laundry List is a list of 14 traits of an adult child of an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family credited to Tony A., 1978

We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
We became addicted to excitement.
We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."
We have "stuffed" our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
Alcoholism is a family disease, and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

No one in the family was alcoholic though. Workaholism was the avoidance method of choice.

I am not sure what the list means by "our sick abandonment needs"

[Dougella]

^ Wow, that list hits a bit close to home.

[Sisyphus]

^Doesn't it just. Bullseye with me.

[Mr. Nobody]

Holy shit, . Dat list,.. mind blown

[GoldFish]

Jeebus, that lis! ^^

[Sisyphus]

Hi Urszula,

Sorry, I think I may not have made myself clear.

My brain read the ‘sick’ as a pejorative and since then I have not been able to see what the word is trying to convey.

Does it mean ‘unhelpful’, ‘unwell’, or maybe ‘disgusting’?

What is it doing there at all?

It is just a bit of brain-grit.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by hollowone

My parents are super-over-protective and mollycoddle & always have. That's been a factor for having social anxiety.

My mother has always been ultra hyper-protective; didn't let me out of my gates until I was 12, didn't let me walk home from school until I was 16. Can you believe that? My mother could be described as a 'smother' mother; doing everything for me.

My parents have always been in their own bubble and 'out of touch' with what's normal. They've never gone out and mixed with other people/ What's more, I even suspect the relationship between me and my mother is 'co-dependent' because she's got & has historically had nothing better to do or no other sense of purpose but to molly-coddle me & do everything for me. Now every parent loves their kids and wants the best for them. But when it goes to the point that they're not getting the opportunity to learn life skills, that's when it goes too far.

What's dangerous about over-protective parents is that on the surface it can appear loving (which it is) but the downsides & how living with them could ****-up your ability to stand on your own two feet can be INCREDIBLY HARD to describe.

I can really relate to this hollowone. I feel a bit guilty describing my family as dysfunctional, partly because I know others have it much worse, and partly because I loved them so much.

Still, it's true that dysfunction comes in many forms. I once read that the healthiest family is one in which the members love one another but also pursue independent lives. They have their own friends and hobbies and it is understood that should anyone die, the others would be just fine. My family wasn't like that. There was a lot of clinging and co-dependency. There was also quite a lot of emotional manipulation. Another common trait is children taking responsibility for their parents. I certainly did this. I felt sorry for my father, and also grandfather, and sort of took on responsibility for their happiness. I also do the same with my mother today. I don't just feel duty-bound to keep her safe, I feel duty-bound to make her happy.

Basically, my father had grown up an unwanted and unloved child. He then got a family of his own and no one was going to take it away. He was intense, needy, angry, melancholic and negative. He was also clingy ***8211; and paranoid. Everyone 'out there' was a threat. My sister is a bit like this. She's 35 and married, but she still depends on my mother in so many ways. Emotionally she just can't stand on her own feet. And I think, subconsciously, that's how my father wanted it. He didn't want us to be strong or independent because then the family unit would break up. The message I got as a child was "the world out there is horrible. People are evil and nasty and repulsive, etc." My aunt once said "if your father could have, he would have built a wall around you all." And she said it as if it was a good thing!!!! My mother was also suffocatingly protective when I was a kid. The result was an immature, unworldly child who wasn't properly socialized. Chuck in a few bad genes (introversion, sensitivity, etc) and you've got the neurotic, shame-filled mess typing these words.

[Genetically_Inferior]

Yep, I can definitely relate to that as well. My mom has always been over-protective to me, she always did everything for me. Of course, it's because she loves me but now I realize that it did a lot of harm to me. I was like a mom's pet. Besides that my mom developed insomnia before I was born so it clearly had a negative effect on my mental well-being. She is also super sensitive and she passed that on to me as well. I am highly sensitive as well. What is more, my dad always wanted to be like my best friend when I was a small child. Instead of encouraging me to go outside and play with my mates, he instead would do that himself. He would take me to the park or playing ground to play football which I really enjoyed but now I realize that it hindered the development of my social skills because instead of me approaching the kids, my dad did all the talking for me. Again, he did that because he loves me but that's over-protection.

However, what I have realized now is that all this so called "love" was not a deep intrinsic love (not sure if that makes sense but you get what I mean). They never really asked me how I feel etc., they just wanted to do stuff with me so that I would be busy. It might be because we all grew up in a very poor family in terms of financial resources and my parents were in constant misery every single day just looking how to survive.

What I also noticed is that before adolescence years I was more outgoing and spent a lot more time outside playing sports etc. However, my "mates" or just school acquaintances started partying and drinking at the age of 15-16 and I began to isolate myself because I did not want to follow my "mates" path.

Loads of different factors contributed to my SA.

[Mr. Spaceman]

My parents were both very anxious people, scared of responsibility, scared of life. My mum hated my dad (how they got married in the first place I'll never know), who is probably OCD, certainly scared of any little bit of dirt or mess and he would never help my mum with any jobs around the house at all, and would shout at her if she ever asked. There was constant stress, arguing and fighting over any little thing, and this would be taken out on me and my sister too. It was my mum who looked after us and through her we came to hate our dad, who we never actually called dad, we referred to him as "Ponce". They divorced when I was 12 and haven't spoken since. All in all not the greatest of role models.

[Messer]

I did, this hits home hard to me, from the point of view of a child and as a parent.

My parents looked after me physically, but I didn't and still don't feel loved and supported by them. I lived in a cold, disapproving house.

I hope I'm not the kind of parent being described here. I love my kids so much, we have a warm and very loving relationship. I'm worried now that I'm possibly over protective and do too much for them. They are early teens and really they are my whole life. The thought that they might feel responsible for my happiness etc worries me so much. I really don't want my messed personality to affect them.

I'm going to have to think about this.

[Marco]

My parents were loving and had the best of intentions for me and my two siblings, I***8217;ve no doubt about that, but they didn***8217;t get it entirely right (not helped by their religiosity), and neither would I most probably if were a parent.

[Dougella]

Originally Posted by Messer

I did, this hits home hard to me, from the point of view of a child and as a parent.

My parents looked after me physically, but I didn't and still don't feel loved and supported by them. I lived in a cold, disapproving house.

I hope I'm not the kind of parent being described here. I love my kids so much, we have a warm and very loving relationship. I'm worried now that I'm possibly over protective and do too much for them. They are early teens and really they are my whole life. The thought that they might feel responsible for my happiness etc worries me so much. I really don't want my messed personality to affect them.

I'm going to have to think about this.

The fact that you're concerned about how your relationship is with your children shows that you're not going to be bringing them up in a disfunctional way. All parents have to kind of re-evaluate their approach when they reach certain ages, don't they?

[Messer]

^ Thanks for that

[hollowone]

@ messer and doughella

It's great to see acknowledgement of the error of your parent's way. & not wanting to repeat it.

I certainly don't want to smother my offspring and wrap them in cotton wool and render them incapable of coping with life like my parents have done with me.

[hollowone]

Another important point; avoid the 'victim mentality' but acknowledge you've had factors stacked against you
One potential caveat of looking at things like this is we could end up focusing the blame for where we are on our parents or upbringing. It's important to remember that our parents love us very much. If we focus too much on factors that are not in our control, we risk losing sight of what we can control.

I say this because I recognize that the way I've been brought up hasn't been helpful, but that doesn't need to mean it's a life sentence to getting better. There are things I CAN influence despite the circumstances, I' rather focus on these.

It's good to acknowledge that we may have had disadvantages that have held us back that some people may not have had. That's a good thing to focus on. As long as it doesn't go too far & you see yourself as helpless.