dysfunctional-families

Families living in dysfunction seldom have healthy boundaries. Dysfunctional families have trouble knowing where they stop and others begin.

The greater the pain associated with love, the more likely a person is to be attracted to others who will inflict this pain_for isn__ this what love is? Hurt people tend to hurt other people.

Shame is a powerful feeling. There is a tremendous difference between making a mistake and believing you are a mistake...If I don__ see myself as being a mistake then it is I who must take responsibility and I am not ready to accept that.

If no one has boundaries_how can there be any transgression?

When you journey inwardly exploring yourself, a sense of personal trust begins.

Mature adults gravitate toward new values and understandings, not just rehashing and blind acceptance of past patterns and previous learning. This is an ongoing process and maturity demands lifelong learners.

Teenagers can spot hypocrisy a mile away and here I was telling them how to cope when they witnessed the shambles of my own life and how I was living.

Sitting on the hot seat of change requires much courage, patience, and persistence.

If you are looking for love under rocks or bringing home water moccasins, you might be confusing love and pain.

Under this aura of perfection he knows how flawed he really is but his intact denial system keeps this awareness suppressed in the far recesses of his mind.

As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended.

It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack's mother, and Aliena's brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that her father had died in a dungeon, and she was legally married to Jack's stepbrother, and Ellen was an outlaw, and__he shook her head. It was no use pretending this was a normal family.

I immersed myself in my relationship with my husband, in little ways at first. Dutch would come home from his morning workout and I__ bring him coffee as he stepped out of the shower. He__ slip into a crisp white shirt and dark slacks and run a little goop through his hair, and I__ eye him in the mirror with desire and a sultry smile that he couldn__ miss. He__ head to work and I__ put a love note in his bag__ust a line about how proud I was of him. How beautiful he was. How happy I was as his wife.He__ come home and cook dinner and instead of camping out in front of the TV while he fussed in the kitchen, I__ keep him company at the kitchen table and we__ talk about our days, about our future, about whatever came to mind. After dinner, he__ clear the table and I__ do the dishes, making sure to compliment him on the meal. On those weekends when he__ head outside to mow the lawn, I__ bring him an ice-cold beer. And, in those times when Dutch was in the mood and maybe I wasn__, well, I got in the mood and we had fun.As the weeks passed and I kept discovering little ways to open myself up to him, the most amazing thing happened. I found myself falling madly, deeply, passionately, head-over-heels in love with my husband. I__ loved him as much as I thought I could love anybody before I__ married him, but in treating him like my own personal Superman, I discovered how much of a superhero he actually was. How giving he was. How generous. How kind, caring, and considerate. How passionate. How loving. How genuinely good. And whatever wounds had never fully healed from my childhood finally, at long last, formed scar tissue. It was like being able to take a full breath of air for the first time in my life. It was transformative. And it likely would save our marriage, because, at some point, all that withholding would__e turned a loving man bitter. On some level I think I__ known that and yet I__ needed my sister to point it out to me and help me change.Sometimes it__ good to have people in your life that know you better than you know yourself.

Amanda, you finally decided to answer the phone,_ her mom exclaimed after picking up at the first ring. __here__e you been, what__e you been up to?___om, do you remember when I was a kid, I had a friend, he was a Personification of the Sydney Tar Ponds, sort of my imaginary friend?_ Mandy asked.__o, what in the name of god are you on about?_ her mom sighed in exasperation.__emember? Only I could see him, but he was real and he was my best friend when I was eighteen?_ Mandy insisted.__o, I don't remember Alecto Sydney Steele at all,_ said her mom all too quickly.

It__ the great surprise of my life that I ended up loving [my father] so much.

You can deny him, he thought, watching his father across the table. You can hate him, love him, pity him, never speak to or look at him in the eye again, never deign even to be in his crabbed and bitter presence, but you're still stuck with the son of a bitch. One way or another he'll always be your daddy, not even all-powerful death was going to change that.

There are orphanages," he exclaimed to himself, "for children who have lost their parents--oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them?

Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said "I am sorry for what you went through" or "I am here for you." Instead they said hurtful things: "Oh he was young." "That is what kids do." "It is not like he was some older man you didn't know." Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.