Adult children: the secrets of dysfunctional families

With my identity? Does that make sense? It doesn't have to make
sense, but

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it's exactly what happens. And it's very sad that it does. There is no
room for mistakes.
Rigid Rules, Lifestyle And/Or Belief Systems
There is only one right way to be. There is only one right way to do
it. I must be in control at all times or my life will topple. An awful
lot of compulsive behavior and obsessive thinking comes under
this heading. It is one thing to have clear beliefs and values. It is
another to be a slave to those beliefs, and to force those beliefs onto
someone else.
Family rituals are important. Compulsive family rituals are
destructive. Is American government the only one that works? Is it
the only one that allows individual dignity? Is your church or
religion the only one that can meet a person's need for spirituality?
Are your political beliefs the only ones that are right? Must all
children go directly to college after high school in order to make a
success of their lives? Must boys not cry? Must girls become
mothers to be fulfilled?
It doesn't matter that we're all tired and crabby. We said we were
going to drive until we got to Florida today, and by God, that's
what we're going to do. No matter that More isn't feeling well and
needs to sleep. We need to get the house clean, and that's what
we're going to do.
Compulsive, rigid rituals rob life of its spontaneity. The fun, the
surprises in life, the unpredictability and the magic in life are
viewed as dangerous and threatening. Joy is replaced by routine.
Happiness is replaced by a dull plodding lifestyle that is neat and
tidy, but empty and lonely. Those of us who grow up in rigid

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families find the normal confusion of interpersonal relationships,
the ups and downs of friendship and the normal unpredictability of
changing social networks to be more than we can bear. As adults,
we seek out rigid, controlled relationships and social systems
where the rules of life are spelled out in black and white.
Unfortunately, life doesn't always work that way. And when life
takes one of its unpredictable little turns, we are left feeling scared,
cheated and manipulated, with no emotional tools for handling the
uncontrollable. Part of living a full,

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happy life is being able to let go of the uncontrollable. Growing up
in rigid, compulsive families does not prepare us at all for letting
go.
The "No Talk Rule"/Keeping "The Family Secrets"
Do you remember the old saying, "Don't air your dirty laundry in
public"? Somewhere along the line this call for tact and discretion
has become the battle cry of dysfunctional families. Granted, it
probably does not make much sense to take out a full-page ad in
your local newspaper announcing that Uncle Joe is an alcoholic.
But have we gone overboard in the other direction?
In dysfunctional families, this rule means "Don't yell for help when
you're about to drown." It means little children must go to school
every day, smiles on their faces and knots in their stomachs,
because they have been up half the night listening to their parents
have a bloody battle over money, or alcohol, or in-laws. It means
those same children dare not try to share their pain with a friend or
a school counselor because if they do, they will be emotionally or
physically beaten or shamed for sharing "family secrets" outside
the family. Above all, it means that we will grow up to believe that
we must handle all of our problems by ourselves, alone, in
isolation.
"Don't you be talking about our problems with Mrs. Smith."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"We don't talk about those things in this family."
We all know the feeling. Something is upsetting us at home. We
wish we could share it with someone to get a new perspective on

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things. But a little voice inside of us says, "If you let them know
what's inside, they'll think you're crazy!" Or maybe it's, "They
won't believe you anyway, or they won't understand or ..." This rule
is especially dangerous and destructive because it keeps family
systems completely closed.
Remember Sandy's mother? She tried talking with a friend whose
husband was in A.A., and her own husband threatened her so
severely that she never spoke to her friend again. This kind of rule,
in its extreme, is the worst form of tyranny. In milder forms, it
leaves children with the belief that what is inside of them is bad
unless it fits the family rules for what is and is not appropriate to
talk about.
Menstruation? "It just happens. Don't talk about it." Anger? "We
don't get angry at each other in this family." And so we are left
feeling that a big chunk of our insides is bad. "If we don't talk
about

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it, it will go away," we tell ourselves; but it never does.
Tina and Frank didn't talk about what was truly inside of them,
until one day what was inside of Tina burst forth with such
explosive force that she thought she was literally going insane. As
noted psychotherapist Carl Rogers (1973) says, any persistent
feeling should be expressed in a relationship, even if it seems
trivial. If not, the resentment that builds eventually reaches
destructive force and then we really have a mess on our hands.
With the "No Talk Rule", these things never get expressed.
Within dysfunctional families, each family member will argue that
they do share their problems with someone else in the family. If the
system is dysfunctional, then sharing the problems only with those
in the system will do nothing but feed the sickness.
Dysfunction feeds on dysfunction. We become so mired in our own
family problems that no one within the family has any vision
whatsoever. It is like the blind leading the blind or the helpless
helping the helpless which, in the long run, never helps.
Constructive change never happens in these systems until someone
breaks out of the system. Very often this someone will be an
alcoholic who kills someone while driving drunk, or a teenager
who gets caught selling drugs, or a husband or wife who gets
caught having an affair. Fresh air cannot get into these systems
until something cracks this powerful wall of "Don't talk".
Inability to Identify or Express Feelings
This is a by-product of the "No Talk" rule and of criticism and
control within a family.

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"Good children don't hate their brothers or sisters," we hear. And so
when we feel angry at our sibling, we don't know what to do with
it. The anger gets buried beneath a set of rules. Eventually a lot of
other feelings get buried along with the anger. Feelings of sadness,
hurt, fear and shame. As adults, we walk around with a mask on,
behaving in ways and expressing feelings which we think are
appropriate, which we think will lead to happiness. Instead, what
happens is that we learn to deny who we are, we deny what we feel
and we deny the reality around us. This perhaps is the ultimate
error we make as we continually step into our own traps.

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We don't learn from experience because it is too painful to admit
our true feelings surrounding that experience.
"Oh, yes, I just stepped in a bear trap. Well, not all bear traps are
bad, you know. I mean, without bear traps, where would we be?
We wouldn't have safe parks, We wouldn't have bear-skin rugs."
With our foot bloody and our ankle shattered, we say, "No, it
doesn't hurt that much. Those things happen."
If this sounds far-fetched, think of what we say when we are in a
relationship where we aren't getting our needs met.
"She stood me up for the fifth time in a row. Oh, well, I understand.
She had to work late. She needed her time out with the girls. She
..." To admit our true feelings in these situations would mean that
we would have to admit a painful reality, that a bear trap has
shattered our ankle and it hurts like hell, or that "she" is not good
for us and doesn't respect us.
To admit that I feel lonely in my family would mean that there is
something wrong. Because I am in a closed family system with a
"No Talk" rule, there is no way for me to know if it is me that is
wrong or my family that is wrong. Even if I am clever enough to
realize that there is something wrong with my family system, I am