Dysfunctional Family Background and dysfunctional behaviour in adulthood

When children grow up in a healthy family, the whole family will be attuned to each other and make space for each other’s needs and wants, moods, and best interest. 

When children grow up in a family situation that is dysfunctional in some ways, teaching a child they are not allowed to talk, trust, feel or be important in any way, dipped in conflict, abuse, neglect, etc. the child will learn to live in anxiety and denial of their own needs and self.

Jayden, a friend from childhood, has graciously allowed me to share her story.  Note that her name and minor details of the story had been changed in order to protect her privacy.  (Trigger Warning).

Types of dysfunctional families:

·       The abusive family:

The threat and punishment is used as a way to control other family members.  This child likely has experienced conflict, violence, neglect, and the like.

·       The Exploitative Family:

A family member exploits their children or spouse in any way that would serve him / her best without consideration of other family members’ needs.

·       Authoritarian Family:

One family member is in total control of the rest of the family, making strict rules that are to be meticulously followed, not leaving room for any individuality or personal choice.  The spouse will be Depressed and go along with it. 

·       Emotionally Unavailable family:

This may mean that a parent is emotionally making themselves unavailable by not attending to their child’s needs, even though they are made aware of these needs and they are present physically, but can sometimes come in unexpected forms, such as too much screentime, working too long hours, traveling for work often, being on their phone too often, etc.  This causes a disconnect between parents and children.

·       The Addicted Family:

A family affected by addiction is most often a family that is financially unstable and children are getting neglected.  The child’s basic needs, such as food, clothing, education, etc. are not being met, and the child often becomes the responsible one in the family looking for ways to take care of the parents and provide food for the family.

·       Poor Communication Family:

This may mean either silent treatment, or constant yelling, but could also mean that we talk about everything but how we really feel about the tough stuff and keep our conversations superficial and light.

·       High Conflict Family:

The family members are always stirring up a fight over even small issues that seems totally unimportant.   These fights are intense and often at some point ends up becoming physically violent.

Possible signs of growing up in a dysfunctional family include:

·       You lack sufficient communication skills.

·       You feel responsible for others and often feel like you should be rescuing others from their problems.

·       You have become a perfectionist.

·       You have a serious lack of healthy boundaries

·       You partake in disordered eating, or have an eating disorder.

·       You are a people-pleaser.

·       You are constantly feeling a heavy burden of guilt and shame.

·       You are very hard on yourself.

·       You use or are addicted to substances.

·       You and your family have different public and private personalities and come across as fake and loving in public,
but the total opposite in private.

·       You are unable to trust others.

·       You strongly prefer isolation over socializing and connecting with others.

·       You may have frequent anger outbursts over seemingly small issues.

·       You may be quite a bit more mature for your age and struggle to connect with your own peers.

·       You will likely suffer from Depression and Anxiety.

·       You may have very low self-esteem and feel like you’re not important enough to take up space / Have a victim
mentality.

·       You may be overly self-critical, and critical of others.

·       You may have performed poorly in school.

·       You may have tendencies to deliberately self-harm, or have suicidal ideation.

·       You may find it very difficult to concentrate and switch between tasks.

Children growing up in a dysfunctional family can feel very lonely and isolated and find it very hard to socialize and build deeper connections.  They learn to adapt and build coping mechanisms that work within the dysfunction, but coping mechanisms that are in itself dysfunctional and doesn’t work well in a healthy situation outside of the family. 

Let’s have a look at the roles children take on to survive dysfunction…

Roles children take on in a dysfunctional family:

·       The Mediator / Caretaker

This child’s role is to take care of conflict in the family, never having their own needs met.  This child constantly tries to rescue family members from their own words and actions, and tries to keep the family intact.  They take on duties and responsibilities way beyond their age, and become much more mature than their peer group.  The role they need to fulfill at such a young age causes severe Depression and Anxiety.  This child finds it difficult to relax, even though they most often feel exhausted.  They are busy bees who can’t sit still. 

·       The Golden Child / Hero

The Golden Child shines in several areas of life, being given many compliments and being the pride of the family, and at the same time feeling immense pressure to perform and achieve in an attempt to mask the dysfunction of the rest of the family.  These children become perfectionists who only feel loved when they achieve great things. 

·       The Clown / Mascot

Dysfunctional families have a very intense nervous energy at any given point in time.  The Clown is the child who takes on the role of lightening the mood by cracking jokes when things get too tense as a distraction and life saver.  This child, however, feels a lot of pressure and anxiety to keep up this comic stance and fears not being able to save the day with their jokes next time.  Any conflict is answered by a joke and a real deep conversation is often not something this child can achieve.

·       The Scapegoat / Black Sheep

Someone has to carry the blame, right?  The Scapegoat, ironically, is often the most emotionally stable one in the family.  This is the child who speaks the truth about what’s going on in the family and confronts its dysfunction, but the family responds by making this child the “problem child” for not going with the dysfunctional rules of the family.  This child is often compared to the Golden Child and they only ever get attention when they messed up, which leads to them misbehaving or getting into trouble with the police as teenagers and even older in order to get some attention. 

·       The Lost Child:

The lost child happily hides behind the Golden Child and makes themselves invisible, being quiet, isolated and trying desperately to fend for themselves as much as possible, even though their needs are unmet and they feel desperately lonely and unloved.  This child has low self-esteem and bad social skills, making building meaningful, deeper relationships with others almost impossible.

·       The Rebellious Child:

This child is neglected and only gets attention when doing something bad.  They start doing things that make their caregivers angry as a little child, but may as a teenager get involved in more serious misdemeanors, such as abuse of alcohol and other drugs, getting involved in crimes, and becoming the child other children’s parents warn them about making friends with. 

Now that we’ve come this far, we realize just how important healthy, stable relationships are for healthy brain development and for the child becoming a healthy member of society, connecting with others and being curious about the world, however, these are not the only kinds of traumas children go through. 

With a brain that hasn’t been fully developed, and immature coping mechanisms, children deal with the death of a loved one, a severe car crash, prolonged illness and chronic pain, being bullied, and more. 

If we, as adults, struggle to cope so much when something like this happens to us, how much more a child.

Have Questions? Contact us:

Sunet Gopaul
Specialist Psychotherapist (Trauma)

Adelaide Psych Central

Willow Chambers Building
191 Melbourne Street l North Adelaide l SA l 5006
08 8180 0606
sunet@adelaidepsychcentral.com.au