15 Things They Wont Tell You About Being Raised In A Dysfunctional Family

I grew up in a broken home where the only time I saw my adoptive parents kiss was one single Christmas night. And it looked very unnatural. They were fighting all the time. They divorced when I was in 4th grade. My adoptive brother and I were eventually placed in the system under social assistance. I don’t know my biological parents. I never saw their face, I have no clue where they are and I don’t even know if they are still alive.

In less than a month, I will turn 26. I never thought I would make it that far to be honest.

Although I have no food in my fridge and I’m anxious about becoming homeless because I still struggle paying rent and meeting ends every month, I can proudly say I finally graduated with a bachelor degree.

For some people it ain’t a big deal, especially at my age, but to me it means accomplishments even if I’m deep in debt and my degree is nearly useless, I still made it and prove a point to myself. That I could do it too.

And it gave amazing results. I will soon start a Masters in Computer Science and become an engineer. Computers have always been part of my life and I think they somehow saved me. I remember when my adoptive mother bought us a desktop computer, the connection was instant. I quickly became a self-taught tech savvy like it was a second nature. I escaped in a world of computer arts and technology. But it is until very late I understood my passion for Arts and Technology could meet in the computer engineering world.

Funny how it may sound, I consider myself to be a late bloomer. It took me longer to discover and understand myself. You may feel the same way, due to your childhood and teenage-hood experiences.

If you somehow relate to my story, here are 15 Things They Wont Tell You About Being Raised In A Dysfunctional Family.

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1. Your family will never really change

Whether you were raised by an alcoholic parent, a pedophile, an emotional-abusive sibling or any other psychopathic type of parent, first, my love goes to you.

Second, as pathetic  as it may sounds, they will never acknowledge the wrongs they did to you. If they do, well, you are one of the lucky ones. However, most of the time, a psychopath always blame his own issues on their victims. They are masters at reverse psychology and shaming others. It is never truly their fault according to them. Someone or something  made them do it. They always find a million excuses to excuse their actions due to their extreme weakness buried under a hundred pound worth of bad ego.

There is no arguing or changing a psychopath. Move on and stay away. And if you have to talk to them, be brief or show them you became a ferocious lion with dangerous claws.

Psychopaths are threatened and intimidated by fierce and fearless people.

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2. Building self-confidence will take longer

Even if they keep telling you how bad they love you, their actions show you otherwise. It is a form of  conditioning called “behavioral”. A father that raises his hand on his son but then tell him he loves him conditions his son  to associate love with violence. The son might then later on use violence and aggression to make his point heard.

A family is supposed to make you feel loved and cared for. However if they constantly put you down and make you feel worthless, it is likely that you will grow up with no self-esteem at all or with an overly high self-esteem which could turn you into the same psychopath that raised you.

It is okay. Breathe. The first step is to recognize and acknowledge your weakness and/or wickedness. The second is to find healthy and creative ways to liberate yourself from it.

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3. You may develop attachment and detachment issues

Being raised by careless people can either make you become emotionally dependent on others or extremely detached and incapable of creating strong interpersonal bonds.

Neither one is good news.

Emotional dependency is when someone allows others (like a significant other) to affect their feelings and emotions, and depends on them for happiness. This is giving complete control to others over your own emotions. This sort of vulnerable behavior can lead you to become a victim of another psychopath who will take advantage of your emotional and psychological dependency, setting you back in a low self-esteem state.

Emotional detachment, can mean two different things. In the first meaning, it refers to an “inability to connect” with others emotionally, as well as a means of dealing with anxiety by preventing certain situations that trigger it.

In the second sense, it is a decision to avoid engaging emotional connections, rather than an inability to do so, typically for personal, social, or other reasons. In this sense it can allow people to maintain boundaries, psychic integrity and avoid undesired impact by or upon others, related to emotional demands.

If you recognize yourself in either one of the situations mentioned above and feel overwhelmed,  practice meditation and positive thinking to help boost your confidence. Take baby steps towards healing, trusting yourself and others as well.

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4. You are more likely to develop addiction problems

Although it may be false in your case, statistics show that people with dysfunctional families are more likely to make use of illicit substances and/or become addicts. However, there are few factors that are accountable for addiction. Personality being one of them. Different kind of people react differently to situations, drugs and alcohol. Some people are more inclined to become addicted because they have an addictive personality. If you are dealing with addiction and it appears as an obstacle in your life, it is possible to better your situation by finding the triggers of your consumption.

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5. Nobody really understand your pain

No matter how understanding are the people you surround yourself with, they can never really walk in your shoes and feel your pain, unless they were raised in the same kind of unhealthy environment. Sometimes we wish that the people we deeply love, be our friends or significant other, knew exactly how it felt and still feels like. Without realizing it, we are asking of them to go through the same kind of trauma we went through which we should of never experienced in the first place. Some people are spiritually and psychologically deeper than others.

That’s okay.

Surround yourself with people who you consider to be spiritually and psychologically enlighten enough. Surround yourself with  a sentiment of belonging, warmth and open-mindedness.

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6. You build an incredible strong character

It is a case-to-case basis. Nevertheless, history has shown countless of times that the greatest people often find themselves overcoming the hardest ships. That can be you.

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7. Your soul grows older than your actual age

Sometimes it will suck deeply. Most of the time your old soul and wisdom will serve you if you accept and embrace them as a spiritual gift.

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8. You inspire people while being secretly  inspired by them

People will admire your capacity of resilience. But you will also find yourself being inspired by their capacity of effortlessly doing things that require you a great amount of energy.

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9. You will find a better family

It can take you several years to find your true family. But through hard self-development and work, you will find genuine, honest and intelligent people to call home.

 

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10. Struggle makes you accomplish great things

People can lie about having hidden scars, but true scars can hardly be hidden on people. If you have hard time trusting the world, one thing you can always trust is struggle in the world. It might be ugly and crude to look at, but it will honestly show you the way to success.

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11. You never truly forget and heal

You will never forget the trauma they caused to you. If you wish them no forgiveness it’s okay too. They  are probably worthless of your forgiveness anyways. Unlike popular saying, I would never tell an individual that was sexually molested by their parent or who lived any other major psychological traumatic event to forgive, because I understand how you feel. The only person worth of forgiveness is your younger self.

Either way, it is important to move on and be able to progress with the notion of pain being a constant presence in your life. It will surface every now and then but, you can learn to manage how it affects you by using healthy self-taught techniques like meditation or express it through creative activities you like.

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12. You get deep down moments

I do not believe in medication to heal trauma let alone social mental illnesses. I see emotional and psychological pain as opened physical wounds that need proper bandage and care to heal. There is no such thing as mental illness. Mental distress is a thing. Everything in distressed can be saved. Especially if you are your own savior. Unlike what our society likes to make us believe, there is nothing wrong with being deeply down or depressed. It is a normal human emotional reaction to pain. With practice, you can use and recognize your down moments as a sign to take a break and refocus your energies.

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13. You require more alone time to recharge

Taking off-time from social interactions is a good way to raise your vibrational frequencies.

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14. You become a warrior at life

The more struggles and obstacles you overcome, the better you become at it.

 

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15. You have tremendous love to give