Loneliness when you come from dysfunctional family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse and I also come from extreme dysfunction. I focus on appreciating how fortunate I am to have a healthy marriage and good kids. I have friends and appreciate them.

What do you mean by support system if you say your friends are not what you consider a support system?

Friends are a support until they're not. Until their own family takes priority. Until they're too busy, etc. etc.

Also, many people who don't come from dysfunction, or who are not intimately familiar with your individual family dysfunction, simply don't understand those experiences of the people who do.

+1
This is so true. People who have had no discomfort in their life are in la-la land, and not able to be good friends, because they tend to think that they have it harder than anyone else (and also have zero idea how good they have it!) - consequently, are not able to be there for other people, or even lend an understanding ear. They tend to have a repulsive "what do you have to complain about" attitude.

I would not go this far, but I do think people tend to assume that most other people's families are similar to their own. I think this leads to a lot of inability to understand or validate what others are going through.

What I think people often don't understand is that you have basically no control over other members of your family. You can control yourself and work on yourself. You can't make anyone else in your family be a certain way or respond to you in a certain way or have certain communications skills or want to have a certain relationship. For instance, my dad simply does not want a relationship with me. It doesn't matter how much I might work on that relationship -- he has zero interest in working on it, so it will never be anything meaningful or rewarding for me. It will always just be a source of abandonment.

I can go to therapy and work on how I respond to that abandonment, I can be kind to myself, find other forms of support, etc. But I can't erase that. I'll always be a person whose father abandoned her. It informs almost everything about me for better or worse. This is so different than people who have dysfunctional family relationships but everyone is trying. No one is perfect and if people make an effort, sometimes you can overcome these problems. But when your family members have not interest, awareness, or capacity for getting better, there is truly nothing you can do except deal with the fall out in your own life and try to put it behind you.

I agree with all of the above, especially the bolded. I have well-meaning friends who assume that because my family is local, they must be as supportive and helpful as their own local families, even after I’ve repeatedly told them otherwise. Eventually, I give up and don’t bother telling them much of anything emotionally meaningful, because I know they won’t get it.

And you’re so, so right about not having control over your family members - and, really, no control over anyone but yourself. Even that has limits, frankly. IME, a lot of people can’t tolerate the reality of that lack of control, so it becomes easier to push away those of us with serious family problems (abandonment, estrangement, etc.) and pretend that our problems are either of our own making or simply don’t exist.

NP. I'm sorry your family dynamics are like this. I'm sorry for all of us.

I understand about editing what you say to others about your family. Because no matter how long they have known my story or even seen it with their own eyes they still seemed shocked. And then I feel that shame all over again about my family of origin. I've healed a lot, but it still stings in that deep way.

[Anonymous]

OP, I think it is important to grieve the loss and to try to bloom where you are planted.

My family was and is a horror show, but people really don't want to hear about it, think about it or block it out.

Friends can be found family earlier in adulthood I've found but then their own families, health issues, etc. understandably take precedence.

If you want to give yourself and your DC(s) something different, try to focus on creating memories and becoming part of a community, even if not religious yourselves. I too kept focusing on what I did not have and could not control and that was repeating the pattern of isolation for me and my own family. I've learned in midlife too, that even if blessed with close family, they are eventually lost to death or estrangement over time.

It helped me to get my needs met a little bit by a lot of people.

The holidays are tough, wishing you peace.
I