No family is perfect. A critical component to our emotional health, personal growth, and spiritual maturity is identifying the unhealthy habits of our families of origin. To grow past dysfunctional family patterns, we must take an honest assessment of our childhood years and even our present-day family dynamics. This assessment is the difference between being stuck in dysfunctional patterns and breaking free to develop healthy patterns. 

When we don’t identify the toxic behaviors our family calls normal, we are doomed to repeat those same behaviors at the expense of those we love. Furthermore, the anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, and anger we live with daily continues to feed on the ongoing dysfunction. 

Change starts with honesty and growth is the key to freedom. 

Dysfunctional Family Traits

Were any of these behaviors considered normal in your family? 

Forgiving and/or forgetting without changed behavior.

Forgiving and forgetting without changed behavior is what toxic behavioral patterns are made from. These patterns and the destruction that they cause will continue until someone says no more. As Christians we are commanded to forgive those who hurt us. God requires this of us not to make our lives hard, but to make our lives better. 

Forgiveness sets us free. It doesn’t let the other person off the hook. Galatians 6:7 says, Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds!

And while it would be great if we could just forget the painful things that have happened to us, memory serves a purpose. We remember so that we learn the lessons that will help us to grow spiritually and personally. Memory is what keeps us from falling into the same pits repeatedly.

What is typical of dysfunctional families is the expectation of forgiving and forgetting without any acknowledgement or commitment to changing hurtful patterns of behavior. Without this acknowledgement and a plan of action to change, the apology is meaningless, and trust continues to erode. Put bluntly, an apology without changed behavior is nothing more than manipulation. Consistent, changed behavior is what rebuilds trust and connection. Without it, the relationship is toxic and destructive. 

Moving on like nothing happened.

When a painful or traumatic event has happened, dysfunctional families tend to act like nothing happened. The night before may have consisted of screaming, name calling, or physical abuse, but the unspoken expectation is that everyone gets up the next morning and acts like nothing happened. Kids get ready for school. Mom and dad get ready for work. Breakfast is eaten. And everyone ignores the elephant in the room from the night before. Over the course of hours, days, or weeks, the dysfunctional “normal” is restored until the next incident. 

Moving on like nothing happened is emotional neglect and crazy-making at its finest. It leaves the wounded parties wondering what just happened and questioning what they experienced and themselves. And because no one talks about it, it gets stuffed where it creates mental, emotional, and physical havoc. Anxiety, depression, people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, perfectionism, codependency, repressed anger, etc. all have roots in this type of dysfunction.   

Refusing to talk about what happened.

Many dysfunctional families avoid talking about painful events to circumvent accountability or admit the need for help. Pride and selfishness are at the heart of this refusal. Stonewalling those who are trying to have a conversation about what happened and how it hurt/affected them ensures the dysfunction will continue. Importantly, those that stonewall, are attempting to avoid potential conflict and acknowledge their part in the conflict. 

Handling conflict by stonewalling is emotional immaturity and it keeps people trapped in abusive or dysfunctional cycles. More importantly, nothing good is gained by refusing to talk about what happened and when this is modeled to children, it becomes their “normal.” As they move into adulthood, this habit hurts them and those around them as they handle conflict like their family did when they were young. 

Invalidating emotions and experiences of others.

Invalidating someone’s emotions or their experience is when one person attempts to dismiss or minimize another person’s emotions. Telling someone “it wasn’t that bad” or “quit your crying” or “I don’t know what you are so upset about” or “that wasn’t a big deal” – these are examples of telling someone that their emotions are somehow wrong. It’s gaslighting. 

Dysfunctional families use this tactic to avoid accountability and squash a conversation that they don’t want to have. After a while, self-doubt sets in causing the hurt person to question everything they think and feel because they are often told they are wrong. These people become numb emotionally, anxious over-thinkers, or validation seekers because they’ve been groomed to not trust themselves. 

Covering up problems for one another.

Within every dysfunctional family, is an enabler – someone who makes excuses for another person’s poor behavior and will typically over-function in that person’s life to keep the peace or hold the family together. The enabler has good intentions and often thinks they are helping the addict, abuser, or person causing the chaos, but what they are really doing is ensuring the dysfunction continues to the detriment of the family. 

Enablers are often people-pleasers and conflict avoiders who struggle with understanding personal and other responsibility. As a result, they spend copious amounts of energy trying to help others in the hope that the chaos and dysfunction will stop. The problem with covering up problems is that all this does is “kick the same old can down the curb” over and over again in life. Destructive patterns keep going and nothing changes when the enabling continues. 

Denying that problems exist.

Most destructive families struggle with admitting there are problems. If you’ve watched the movie Fight Clubwith Brad Pitt, you know the first rule of Fight Club is don’t talk about Fight Club. This is the same mantra for dysfunctional families. The person or persons who are creating the chaos deny the chaos exists and expect you to act like the chaos doesn’t exist. Not bringing it up is the unspoken expectation. 

For those around them, this is often maddening because a problem undefined is a problem unsolved. Acting like a problem isn’t there is denying the reality of those living in that problem every day. This breeds resentment and is a habit that gets passed down from generation to generation until someone says enough and speaks the uncomfortable truth. 

Keeping secrets that should be shared.

Dysfunctional families often have a treasure trove of secrets. Secrets like denying problems exist, enabling bad behavior, refusing to talk about incidents, and moving on like nothing happened.What happens at home, stays at home is the unspoken rule. The person or persons creating the chaos in families often act one way in public and another way in private. The people around them are expected to keep this secret from extended family, friends, or coworkers. 

Abuse, addiction, untreated mental health problems, infidelity, etc. are secrets to not be shared. The image of the family is to be maintained. The chaos creators are often very concerned with how people outside the family see them. The saying – you are only as sick as your secrets holds true. Consequently, keeping secrets bottled up is at the heart of addiction, anxiety, depression, and other disorders – not to mention what keeps generational dysfunction moving from one generation to the next. 

Faking fine.

Faking fine is a faulty coping mechanism used by those who tend to stuff their emotions and feelings and have had their thoughts or feelings dismissed or marginalized. At the heart of faking fine is fear. Fear of feeling feelings, being judged, being seen as “less than”, as well as, fear of conflict, “rocking the boat”, or emotional discomfort. 

Dysfunctional families tend to “fake fine” to avoid anger or conflict. People-pleasers and codependents often fake fine for these reasons as a means of trying to shield themselves (and their children if applicable) from emotional pain or further wounding. 

Repressing emotions.

Because dysfunctional families don’t talk about the elephant in the room, family members are often left with no other choice but to stuff their emotions. The problem with emotions is that they don’t just go away on their own. They pile up in the corner like rotting trash stinking up the entire room waiting to be taken out. In this case, the room is our mind and heart. Stuffed emotions eventually come out through physical sickness, mental health problems, and/or through anger taken out on undeserving people. Sarcasm and passive-aggressive behaviors are examples of stuffed emotions gone rogue. 

Being around unsafe people.

While not an exhaustive list, unsafe people are those who:

• won’t take responsibility for their actions/words
• chronically break promises
• use shared thoughts and feelings against others
• expect others to tip-toe around their issues
• are emotionally unstable
• use fear or guilt to control or manipulate
• are untrustworthy or unreliable
• demand trust/respect from others without earning it
• chronically violate boundaries
• don’t want to work on their issues

Dysfunctional families consist of unsafe people and when unsafe people are the “norm” – those who have grown up in a dysfunctional family or been marinated in one for years will subconsciously seek out unsafe people to do life with because that is their normal. Worse yet, is when people never figure out that they are unsafe, and they wound others. Healing the parts of ourselves that are drawn to unsafe people changes our lives and brings safe people into our world. 

Aggression to get what you want.

An element of control is at the heart of dysfunctional families. Aggression in the form of anger, shame, or guilt is used to get what is wanted. And “what is wanted” varies.

Some examples are:

• total obedience
• not being questioned
• ignoring harmful patterns of behavior
• avoiding physical/mental health issues
• frequent reassurance of love or allegiance
• unrealistic amounts of time
• frequent validation 

Using guilt or shame to get what a person wants often comes in the form of statements like “after all I’ve done for you”, “if you loved me, you’d…”, “good sons/daughters call their mothers”, etc. Statements that create a sense of obligation are used to control the actions of another person. And when family members comply when these statements are used, the dysfunction continues, resentment builds, and love erodes. Boundaries are what stops this destructive pattern, alleviates resentment, and allows love to begin growing again (if possible). 

What now to break free from the dysfunctional family traits?

Finding your way out of these destructive patterns may be difficult and you may encounter resistance from your family. Not everyone wants to grow, and some people are content in their dysfunction convinced it’s working for them. Once you’ve identified patterns that are hurting you and that you don’t want to continue, you need to start making different choices and setting boundaries. 

Those might look like this:

• Confronting conflict rather than ignoring or avoiding it 
• Talking with a trusted friend, life coach, or therapist instead of stuffing emotions
• Making the difficult decision on how much access unhealthy people get to you
• Limiting topics of discussion to preserve your emotional health 
• Walking away from manipulation
• Confronting bad behavior rather than enabling it
• Breaking the habit of taking responsibility for other people’s emotions
• Learning to be okay with people being unhappy with your decisions
• Not engaging in drama or conflict that isn’t your business
• Using your voice and standing up for yourself
• Not managing other people’s emotions through people-pleasing
• Recognizing that the only control you have is over yourself

If you are ready to confront the pain of your past and the dysfunction of your family, Unravel can help. 

I’ve found that most people are convinced that the events in their past are done and over with and they’ve moved on. Essentially, they washed their hands of the people and the experiences that didn’t feel good. For others, they wouldn’t call the dysfunction of their childhood “trauma” so there is an assumption that they are fine. Additionally, I’ve met people who described their childhood as “not that bad” only to find out that their adult struggles were tied directly to unhealed wounds from their younger years.

The reality is this: we subconsciously try to heal our wounds by repeating patterns that bring up the same pain. Sounds like a counterintuitive, sadistic, internal homing beacon, right? So, how do you recalibrate this homing beacon to attract healthy love, joy and peace instead of pain, difficulty and heartache? The answer lies in discovering your faulty patterns and replacing them with new, healthy patterns. Faulty patterns are tricky though because they tend to fly under the radar causing us to function on autopilot until we run out of fuel and land or crash and burn.

First you need to understand trauma & its covert role in your life.

Trauma is typically associated with the idea of violence or negative, life-altering events. While these types of events are traumatic, they aren’t the only events that cause trauma in our lives. By definition trauma is a person’s emotional response to a distressing experience.

So, what is a distressing experience? This is where the definition of trauma becomes personal and unique to every individual on the planet. What is distressing (painful, scary, or upsetting) to one person may not be distressing at all to another. Alternatively, two people could experience the same distressing event and feel differently about the effect. For example, if the two people were asked to rate the trauma associated with an experience on a scale of 1-10 (low to high), one person might rate the event at a 4, while the other person said it was an 8. Same painful or fearful experience – but different emotional responses.

Varying degrees of trauma responses in families is typical. The emotional abuse suffered by siblings is felt, experienced, internalized, and processed differently by each sibling. The imprint these traumatic events made is as unique as their finger prints. As humans we are not the same. In the same way that you have a unique finger print and retina, you also have a unique emotional response.

Comparing your trauma to someone else’s trauma is like comparing apples to oranges. It doesn’t work. On top of that, it is unnecessary. A person can drown in six feet or six inches of water. The human blueprint designed by God did not include any acceptable amount of trauma that would not cause damage to the mind, heart, and soul.

Time heals trauma is a myth.

It’s also important to understand that traumatic events don’t just go away and time does not heal all wounds. The pain of the past is with you every day effecting the decisions you make, your emotional responses, and how you see the world and everyone in it. Studies have shown that autoimmune diseases, heart disease, chronic headaches and pain, insomnia, and other physical ailments are related to undealt with pain in our lives. Anxiety and depression are also linked to trauma that is hidden away.

Childhood pain wreaks havoc by trying to correct itself in our adult years through relationships and other experiences. For example, if you struggle with people-pleasing, perfectionism, fixing others, approval-seeking, or peace-keeping, you have unhealed wounds. A lack of boundaries is another indicator of unhealed wounds. An attraction to the same type of man or woman that isn’t good for you is also an indicator of pain that has been locked away rather than dealt with. We attract dysfunction into our lives based on the dysfunction within us.

“In my years of experience working with hurting people, I’ve seen individuals unsure of why they needed help with their past or how it would help with their life now, moving forward and trusting God’s prompting. The decision to move forward became clear when the pain of their past surfaced and illuminated the mess it was making in the present.”

– Unravel, page iv

Unhealed wounds and unmet needs are trauma mess-makers.

Unhealed wounds are traumas from abuse, neglect, abandonment, etc. Unmet needs come from a lack of love, security, safety, significance, attention, etc. These wounds and neglected needs are little gremlins that pack a powerful punch. They run rampant and unchecked in our minds and hearts making messes and causing regrets. The Gremlins in my life were getting fed after midnight on a daily basis. For years, I fed them with perfectionism, people-pleasing, and approval-seeking…to name a few. When I stopped feeding them by acknowledging the pain in my life and my unmet needs, my gremlins packed up and left. Vulnerability and honesty are the keys to dealing with the pain and unmet needs we are struggling with.

Pretending like we are “over it” (whatever “it” is) causes us to walk around faking fine. Worse yet, pretending like we weren’t hurt at all is what leads to us inflicting the same pain on those around us. Cycles of emotional wounding, physical or sexual abuse, toxic shame, and chronic fear and anxiety get handed down from one generation to the next.

You can take the pain of your past, grieve it, process it, learn from it, and flip the script for your children and all those around you. What we don’t deal with from our past, we leave to our children as an inheritance. Making the decision that generational habits and trauma stops with you is powerful. The ability to change your life and the lives that come after you is profound.

Unravel was written for this reason: to change lives.

Getting honest about what hurt you and allowing God to heal those places of your heart, mind, and soul is critical. Often, we try to fix ourselves. We read books, talk to counselors, or try to power through something that promises hope but the mess is still there. You and I can’t fix ourselves. Only the One who created you, can fix you. Inviting Jesus into your pain is the healing balm you’ve searched for in all the wrong places.

Unpacking the pain of the past is only the first part of Unravel. Life doesn’t change until we learn new strategies in dealing with conflict, pain, disappointment, anger, fear, shame, and guilt. It doesn’t do any good to clean out the pain of the past, but continue living in the same ways that led to a dysfunctional life. You have to live differently to live differently.

Unravel will open your eyes to your dysfunction and give you new strategies for living your life with joy, hope, and gratitude. You will walk lighter through this world. Peace will replace pain. Confidence in knowing that you are armed with the right strategies for any battle will replace anxiety. The purpose you find in the difficult moments of your life will bring fulfillment.

Abundant Life

Jesus said in John 10:10 “… I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  Jesus came to give you and me a life full of hope, promise, peace, joy, and freedom. He went to the cross with everything that weighs us down and left it in hell where it belongs. You don’t have to carry it anymore. He loves you and wants you to live your best life.

Are you ready to Unravel?

If you would like to learn more about Unravel, click here: Unravel