Growing Up In A Dysfunctional Family – Making Up For Missing Parenting In Adulthood

There are no hard and fast rules about what a dysfunctional family looks like because there are so many different characteristics that could contribute to a maladaptive home. If you felt isolated and you were unable to express your feelings, then you may have grown up in a dysfunctional family. If feelings of depression and shame were common and you feared authority while seeking approval from others, there is a good chance you grew up in a dysfunctional family. If you have high levels of anxiety, feel frightened of criticism, constantly take the blame when you're not at fault, feel guilty, and have low self-esteem, these are all classic signs of being raised in a dysfunctional home.

There is a range of different reasons why you may have grown up in a home like this, but whatever the reason, it impacted your life then and it probably still impacts your life now.

When you grow up in a loving family, you learn how to set boundaries and communicate. A supportive environment provides you with the space you need to experiment and explore your emotions and strike out and make mistakes. That isn't the case for children who grow up in dysfunctional families. Many times, they merely survive. And they often blame themselves for the problems in their family because they don't know how to process the big emotions.

Within a dysfunctional home, there are unspoken rules everyone abides by to keep themselves safe, whether it's keeping secrets, hiding vulnerability, covering up emotions, or learning how to placate people to survive. They are unspoken because they are simply learned by children in this position as a means of survival. They learn how to get by every day without attracting too much negative attention.

Whatever the unspoken rules were in your childhood, they don't simply disappear because you are an adult. You might not realize it, but there's a good chance you still follow some of those rules. You internalize them, and you may even expect others to follow when you get married and have children. You don't understand your anger, you go out of your way to people please, and you may be afraid of being abandoned or attracting the wrong people. How do you overcome that?

You have to come to terms with your denial and you need to treat your childhood as the cause of PTSD. It isn't uncommon for people with dysfunctional upbringings to suffer from PTSD, but even if you don't, it may be causing similar symptoms. Studies have shown that children raised in dysfunctional families experience the same after-effects, coping with guilt, isolation, and nightmares (https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Meta-analysis-of-risk-factors-for-posttraumatic-in-Brewin-Andrews/0376fedb10b4fbf1f786f2eca716556e6d8151ff?p2df).

Address Denial

Denial is perhaps the biggest obstacle standing between you and recovery. When you were a child, you had to live in denial because it was a safe way to protect yourself. You couldn't accept the obvious because it was too much for your brain to process. So, you gave in to the family system's demands. You disassociated and now it's time to look at the reality.

First of all, don't blame yourself for not dealing with your denial sooner. It's a process, and your denial kept you safe for a long time, but now it's time to peel it back and deal with what it has been hiding.

Denial is powerful and you can begin your healing journey by acknowledging the unspoken rules you were living with as a child and how those kept you safe then, but are harming and hampering your growth now.

Cope with PTSD

You can recover from being raised in a dysfunctional family. You may have suffered in silence, but you don't have to now. You don't need to feel crazy or feel alone, you can get to grips with your past trauma to prevent it from leaking into your life today. The support of others is important, but there's a good chance you will need professional support, especially if you suspect you have PTSD.

Whatever path you choose, the best place to start is with those unspoken rules you live by. Start a conversation with someone you trust who you know had a happy upbringing. If you both feel comfortable with this, it can highlight a lot of those unspoken rules that you may be entirely unaware of.