dysfunctional

Okay, well, on Borelletrox V, the males are kept completely isolated from all images of the female until Binding Day and the females are, erm, let's just say they__e' got a lot of--

Why__ you want to kill yourself? Didn__ you feel anything, or didn__ it hurt you?_ Mandy questioned, looking puzzled. __es, I suppose it did, _ it was strange, it was sharp, that__ all I can think of to describe it_ and cold, but not cold like ice, more like_ I don__ know, like something much worse, something horrible_ and it seemed like the ground was falling upwards, becoming the sky_ for a moment it made me consider that it was just a dream, that I was on some sort of drug, and then I remember being overjoyed to see the sky was still above me, then just really sad, really tired_ and then I don__ remember much else about it,_ Alecto told her, glaring straight ahead at the sky with narrowed eyes. __ don__ mind, I__ not supposed to mind, anyway. Mearth already told me that eventually I would want to be dead, that it was inevitable_ still, I sometimes wish that I could have done something good for other people in my life, it might have made up for all the bad stuff I__e done.

Sex mirrored our drinking; both defined our relationship: selfish, detached, indulgent and satisfying.

No mean person is mean all the time. The whole point of being mean is to fluctuate so that you can hold out the hope for someone. So someone will hold out the hope that they're gonna catch you on the sunny side or that you're gonna be nice this time. The tyranny is inconsistency. Somebody thats consistently mean is something that is pretty easy to sort out. The reality is that the meanest people can be wonderful sometimes. That's the whole point of meanness because otherwise it's too obvious. It's the niceness that gets you trapped in the dysfunction. That is the problem and so the fact that you have this belief that there is hope in the relationship is foundational to the dysfunction.

The strange part about a person__ lack of trust is that it often comes from not trusting themselves.

When you wear a mask, you are not real.

Honoring your word is the fiber from which trust is built.

Black and white thinking limits understanding and feedback, two necessary ingredients for successful resolution in creative conflict and successful understanding.

You did not invent these family habits. Your family is like mine, for thousands and thousands of years our families have embraced a dysfunctional lifestyle, passing these habits as gospel on to subsequent generations. This was not done out of malice, spite, or hate, but what they knew best. As ineffective as these habits are, you never stopped to consider another way of loving.

The key problem I encounter working with wounded, depressed, and unhappy people is a lack of connection_starting from a disconnection from themselves and then with others. This is why love often becomes so distorted and destructive. When people experience a disconnection from themselves, they feel it but do not realize the problem.

Many people look at their past and bemoan their mistakes. Those errors in judgment, behavior, hurting others, and the wrong decisions may be what consumes them now. It does not have to be that way, for recovering from a traumatic situation is all a matter of how we think about what happened. It is not so much about what happened to us as what we make of the circumstance.

No one escapes some degree of chaos for it is so ever prevalent; it is the human experience. This realization does not mean we can__ improve. It does mean we can accept our state of chaos, lighten up on ourselves, have fun, and work on improving_we are a work in progress. Enjoy the journey.

...the state of perfection is an elusive goal; demanding something so obscure as almost unattainable and can become a compulsive, crazy making squirrel-on-a-wheel way of living.

Many of the habits of dysfunctional families use are not from the lack of love but are the result of fear. Knowing the love-limiting habits and behaviors of dysfunctional families is a wonderful beginning to lower the fear, allowing us to be real, allowing us all to learn how to love better.

Live and learn not to take things so personal.

A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people.

Putting labels on others creates a black hole of disregard where judgment thrives and schisms deepen.

If we want to improve, first we have to recognize our own maladaptive coping skills, called codependency, then change.