The Unspoken Rules Of A Dysfunctional Family

Dysfunctional families often perpetuate the unspoken rules of don’t talk, don’t trust, and don’t feel.

This impacts not only your childhood development but also your adulthood. Safety is a concern when you grow up in a family that feels chaotic or unstable.

Secret keeping can also be a sign of a dysfunctional family.

Even if your childhood wasn’t physically abusive, it may have been neglectful, emotionally abusive, or mentally abusive. It could also have been a combination.

Sometimes, people from dysfunctional homes will indicate that they had everything they needed to meet their material needs while growing up. This is only one component of a stable, loving home.

Neglect, emotional abuse, and verbal abuse can be sneaky in this situation because there isn’t an outward sign of turmoil. It develops within you.

If you suspect that you grew up in a dysfunctional family but aren’t ready to face it, you may still be in denial. This is a common sign of dysfunction because it helps protect the generational cycle of trauma within a family structure.

Sometimes, family members are not ready to talk and identify dynamics at the same time. You may not have had options while growing up, but it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Denial keeps family secrets in place so that they can continue.

If you are part of a family that believes in not talking about the problems within your structure, you may be part of a dysfunctional familysystem.

When you don’t heal from dysfunction within your family, you tend to recreate these patterns in another relationship.

You can even play out your family role in relationships like lost child, hero, or scapegoat.

You may notice that a partner is like one or both of your parents.

You may notice that a boss is like one of your siblings.

Stopping generational patterns and dysfunctionrequire you to do the opposite of what has been done. It means that it is time to talk, trust, and feel to help relieve the pain of the past and make different decisions for your future.

These are not easy choices, and grief can follow when you realize that your perception was different from reality. A willingness to learn and grow can be beneficial during this time as well as getting professional support when you don’t identify as having a functional family.

Many people grew up in dysfunctional homes or had a toxic family, so though you are special, you may not be as unique as you think.

This is how support and recovery groups can help with breaking the cycle of generational trauma.

By not talking, trusting, or feeling; you are carrying trauma and grief within you rather than healing.

To express grief from within, trauma-based therapy can be beneficial in order to release painful memories that are stuck in your body.

Your body may remember trauma that your brain can’t. When this happens, trauma-based therapies can help you.

Unspoken Rules of A Dysfunctional Family

Rule #1: Don’t Talk.
What does it mean not to talk within a dysfunctional family?

Read More: “5 Ways To Help Yourself When Your Body Feels Your Trauma”

Family dysfunction continues because secrets bind you in shame with your siblings, parents, or caregivers. When you keep secrets about your family history, the shame remains within your extended and nuclear family units.

This can be incredibly painful for people who want to heal from their dysfunctional past.

Deep-rooted shame can keep you stagnant and unwilling to take a risk.

This is why not talking feels important to many people who come from dysfunctional families.

You may think you are the only person who is going through this type of issue. When you talk about the problem, you realize that there are other people just like you.

Measuring self-disclosure can be beneficial during this time.

You may unknowingly create more chaos by telling people who are not safe about your family dysfunction. This is when setting and maintaining boundaries can help.

A clinical therapist can be a person who will support you with talking about family dysfunction in a safe way.

You can also talk about dynamics within your family with support from recovery groups, especially if substance use or codependency has been a symptom of not talking while growing up.

Rule #2: Don’t Trust.
What does it mean not to trust within a dysfunctional family?

Read More: “5 Ways To Become Your Own Loving Parent”

Unstable and chaotic environments during childhood do not feel safe, and this can mean that it was hard to trust anyone, especially adults.

As a result, you may not trust yourself in situations, which can lead to mistrust with others. While growing up in a dysfunctional family, you may have felt letdown many times.

You likely had unmet expectations and failed to resolve problems.

Now, you may have a difficult time with decision making because you may not trust that you are capable of making the right one.

This can lead to perfectionism and not trusting yourself to make a safe mistake. If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, a mistake may have felt catastrophic.

Developing trust within yourself can happen through keeping promises with yourself and braving mistakes even when they feel tantamount to your future.

Rule #3: Don’t Feel.
What does it mean not to feel within a dysfunctional family?

Feelings may have become frozen while growing up in a dysfunctional family or experiencing childhood trauma.

There may not have been a space to feel anything other than needless, wantless, or even happy.

Depending on your role within your family, you may not have felt safe to feel anything other than numb.

Read More: “What To Know About Therapy And If Therapy Is Right For You”

If you had a parent that got angry or depressed, it may not feel safe to feel those emotions now because you may believe that those feelings won’t ever go away since they didn’t seem to go away as a child.

Helping yourself get professional support like therapy can be beneficial to feel again. You are a complex individual that has many emotions within you.

Identifying and being able to articulate your emotions can be helpful in feeling them.

You likely already know what many emotions feel like, and now it may be time to identify them so that they can pass through you instead of getting stuck.

Stuck emotions can have long-term effects on your mental and physical health.

Dysfunctional families stay dysfunctional by perpetuating the don’t talk, don’t trust, and don’t feel rule.

To help break the cycle of generational trauma and begin to heal, you can be the change maker in your family. It can start with you. You don’t have to do this alone. Many people lean on professional therapy, recovery groups, and spiritual modalities to help.

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Written by: Randi Thackeray, MA
Clinically Reviewed and Edited by: Julie Reichenberger, MA, LPC, ACS, ACC