

"Dysfunctional families are the product of an emotionally dishonest, shame based, patriarchal society based upon beliefs that do not support Loving self or Loving neighbor." - Robert Burney
I wrote this column years ago adapting several different lists that I had. I do not remember the original sources. If anyone knows the original source of any of them, I would be more than happy to give credit where credit is due.
The emotional dynamics of dysfunctional families are basic - and like emotional dynamics for all human beings are pretty predictable. The outside details may look quite different due to a variety of factors, but the dynamics of the human emotional process are the same for all human beings everywhere.
The basic roles which I list below apply to American culture specifically, and Western Civilization generally - but with a few changes in details could be made to fit most any culture.
There are four basic roles that children adopt in order to survive growing up in emotionally dishonest, shame-based, dysfunctional family systems. Some children maintain one role into adulthood while others switch from one role to another as the family dynamic changes (i.e. when the oldest leaves home, etc.) An only child may play all of the roles at one time or another.
This is the child who is "9 going on 40." This child takes over the parent role at a very young age, becoming very responsible and self-sufficient. They give the family self-worth because they look good on the outside. They are the good students, the sports stars, the prom queens. The parents look to this child to prove that they are good parents and good people.
As an adult the Family Hero is rigid, controlling, and extremely judgmental (although perhaps very subtle about it) - of others and secretly of themselves. They achieve "success" on the outside and get lots of positive attention but are cut off from their inner emotional life, from their True Self. They are compulsive and driven as adults because deep inside they feel inadequate and insecure.
The family hero, because of their "success" in conforming to dysfunctional cultural definitions of what constitutes doing life "right", is often the child in the family who as an adult has the hardest time even admitting that there is anything within themselves that needs to be healed.
This is the child that the family feels ashamed of - and the most emotionally honest child in the family. He/she acts out the tension and anger the family ignores. This child provides distraction from the real issues in the family. The scapegoat usually has trouble in school because they get attention the only way they know how - which is negatively. They often become pregnant or addicted as teenagers.
These children are usually the most sensitive and caring which is why they feel such tremendous hurt. They are romantics who become very cynical and distrustful. They have a lot of self-hatred and can be very self-destructive. This often results in this child becoming the first person in the family to get into some kind of recovery.
This child takes responsibility for the emotional well-being of the family. They become the families 'social director' and/or clown, diverting the family's attention from the pain and anger.
This child becomes an adult who is valued for their kind heart, generosity, and ability to listen to others. Their whole self-definition is centered on others and they don't know how to get their own needs met. They become adults who cannot receive love, only give it. They often have case loads rather than friendships - and get involved in abusive relationships in an attempt to "save" the other person. They go into the helping professions and become nurses, and social workers, and therapists. They have very low self-worth and feel a lot of guilt that they work very hard to overcome by being really "nice" (i.e. people pleasing, classically codependent) people.
This child escapes by attempting to be invisible. They daydream, fantasize, read a lot of books or watch a lot of TV. They deal with reality by withdrawing from it. They deny that they have any feelings and "don't bother getting upset."
These children grow up to be adults who find themselves unable to feel and suffer very low self-esteem. They are terrified of intimacy and often have relationship phobia. They are very withdrawn and shy and become socially isolated because that is the only way they know to be safe from being hurt. A lot of actors and writers are 'lost children' who have found a way to express emotions while hiding behind their characters.
It is important to note that we adapt the roles that are best suited to our personalities. We are, of course, born with a certain personality. What happens with the roles we adapt in our family dynamic is that we get a twisted, distorted view of who we are as a result of our personality melding with the roles. This is dysfunctional because it causes us to not be able to see ourselves clearly. As long as we are still reacting to our childhood wounding and old tapes then we cannot get in touch clearly with who we really are.
The false self that we develop to survive is never totally false - there is always some Truth in it. For example, people who go into the helping professions do truly care and are not doing what they do simply out of Codependence. Nothing is black and white - everything in life involves various shades of gray. Recovery is about getting honest with ourselves and finding some balance in our life. Recovery is about seeing ourselves more clearly and honestly so that we can start being True to who we really are instead of to who our parents wanted us to be. (Reacting to the other extreme by rebelling against who they wanted us to be is still living life in reaction to our childhoods. It is still giving power over how we live our life to the past instead of seeing clearly so that we can own our choices today.) The clearer we can see our self the easier it becomes to find some balance in our life - to find some happiness, fulfillment, and serenity.
6/9/08 I received an e-mail from
Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse
pointing out that the four roles originated in her book Another Chance - Hope and Health For The Alcoholic Family published in 1981. I acknowledge her on my recommended book page as one of the Pioneers of the Adult Child / Codependence recovery movement.
I mentioned in February's column that Richard Bach's book Illusions was a major factor in my quest to understand how there could possibly be a Higher Power, a God-Force, that was Loving. In April's column I talked about Dr. Paul's chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the impact it had on my Spiritual Belief system. This month I am going to focus on another major influence in enlarging my perspective of how the Universe works, in expanding the intellectual paradigm that was dictating my relationship with life - Quantum Physics.
(I am using a quote about quantum physics from my book at the end of this column - as well as several short ones within it - instead of the beginning, because it works better that way.)
The groundwork was laid for paradigm expanding concepts of quantum physics by a mystical messenger named Albert Einstein. There are several quotes that I use on the page facing the copyright page in the beginning of my book that come from individuals whom I consider to be mystical messengers.
This quote from Mark Twain speaks to the reality of human internal dynamics that I keep repeating throughout my writing. Our intellectual paradigm - mental attitudes, definitions, and beliefs - determine our perspectives and expectations, which in turn dictate our relationships and emotional reactions. If our intellectual paradigm is limited - if we cannot imagine a larger perspective of life - than what we perceive is limited, is out of focus. If we cannot use our imagination to open up to different interpretations of what we are seeing, then we are wearing blinders and can only see a limited view.
As an example: A traditional therapist / psychologist / psychiatrist has a limited perspective that restricts them to labeling behaviors - that are symptomatic manifestations of codependency in my belief - in such a way that they fit into the boxes their intellectual paradigm dictates. A Freudian will twist everything to fit into the second chakra perspective that Freud was viewing life from. A Jungian will come from more of a heart chakra centered point of view because Carl Jung reached that level of consciousness - but even then emotions are usually discounted.
Someone who believes that brain chemistry is the higher power in determining emotional health, will look for chemical solutions. (For more on this topic, see the addendum to my article Obsession / Obsessive Thinking Part 1 - which was originally published here on Suite 101.)
Einstein was not saying that knowledge was unimportant - what he was talking about is how the growth process works. Here is a paraphrase of a paragraph in which I describe this paradigm / perspective expansion in another work of mine.
(Intellectual growth in relationship to some concept / topic / area - physics for example, or a new invention of any kind - works dynamically through these intuitive, imaginative leaps of perspective. The same dynamics apply to the emotional and spiritual growth process - and can cause emotional turmoil because what we need to let go of to grow emotionally are ego definitions that are limiting our relationship with self and life. There is an inherent conflict between the human ego and the nature of the life experience for humans that I wrote about in this article: Loving and Nurturing self on your Spiritual Path.)
Einstein was able to make huge leaps in knowledge because he was willing to surrender to expanding his intellectual paradigm by trusting his intuition to guide his imagination into seeing the puzzle of life from a larger perspective. He was able to think outside of the box - and make huge breakthroughs in understanding - because he learned to follow his intuitive, mystical guidance to higher levels of consciousness that afforded him expanded perspectives of whatever aspect of the puzzle he was looking at.
Albert Einstein stated that there were dimensions beyond the concrete three-dimensional one that humans experience.
Einstein's pioneering work paved the way for the revolutionary, mind expanding concepts of quantum physics.
I was so desperate to find some meaning and purpose to life that I was willing to go wherever I was led in my quest to find a concept of a Higher Power that could possibly Love me. I was open to the messages that were coming my way - and willing to buy Illusions when I discovered it in a grocery store at only 3 months of sobriety. I was later willing to start reading and trying to understand quantum physics when I was led to books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukov.
And, let me tell you, I hated science in school. In college I took geology to fulfill my science requirement - even though it involved twice as many course hours - because I hated physics and chemistry and such. (I ended up really getting into geology by the way - fascinating stuff.) So, we are talking a major surrender here.
I don't remember now how I was led to studying quantum physics - or when exactly on my Spiritual growth path it happened - but it was a major influence for me in a multitude of ways. I will be sharing some of the ways this impacted my Spiritual beliefs in some future columns. The following quote from my book however, is kind of a bottom line as I see it.
We are all connected. We are all part of the ONENESS that is The Source. The Great Spirit is present in everyone and everything.
"Attempting to suppress emotions is dysfunctional; it does not work. Emotions are energy: E-motion = energy in motion. It is supposed to be in motion, it was meant to flow.
Emotions have a purpose, a very good reason to be - even those emotions that feel uncomfortable. Fear is a warning, anger is for protection, tears are for cleansing and releasing. These are not negative emotional responses! We were taught to react negatively to them. It is our reaction that is dysfunctional and negative, not the emotion."
"The way to stop reacting out of our inner children is to release the stored emotional energy from our childhoods by doing the grief work that will heal our wounds. The only effective, long term way to clear our emotional process - to clear the inner channel to Truth which exists in all of us - is to grieve the wounds which we suffered as children. The most important single tool, the tool which is vital to changing behavior patterns and attitudes in this healing transformation, is the grief process. The process of grieving.
We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional."
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Emotions are energy that is manifested in our bodies. They exist below the neck. They are not thoughts (although attitudes set up our emotional reactions.) In order to do the emotional healing it is vital to start paying attention to where energy is manifesting in our bodies. Where is there tension, tightness? Could that "indigestion" really be some feelings? Are those "butterflies" in my stomach telling me something emotionally?
When I am working with someone and they start having some feelings coming up, the first thing I have to tell them is to keep breathing. Most of us have learned a variety of ways to control our emotions and one of them is to stop breathing and close our throats. That is because grief in the form of sadness accumulates in our upper chest and breathing into it helps some of it to escape - so we learned to stop breathing at those moments when we start getting emotional, when our voice starts breaking.
Western civilization has for many years been way out of balance towards the left brain way of thinking - concrete, rational, what you see is all there is (this was in reaction to earlier times of being out of balance the other way, towards superstition and ignorance.) Because emotional energy can not be seen or measured or weighed ("The x-ray shows you've got 5 pounds of grief in there.") emotions were discounted and devalued. This has started to change somewhat in recent years but most of us grew up in a society that taught us that being too emotional was a bad thing that we should avoid. (Certain cultures / subcultures give more permission for emotions but those are usually out of balance to the other extreme of allowing the emotions to rule - the goal is balance: between mental and emotional, between intuitive and rational.)
Emotions are a vital part of our being for several reasons.
"Recovery involves bringing to consciousness those beliefs and attitudes in our subconscious that are causing our dysfunctional reactions so that we can reprogram our ego defenses to allow us to live a healthy, fulfilling life instead of just surviving. So that we can own our power to make choices for ourselves about our beliefs and values instead of unconsciously reacting to the old tapes. Recovery is consciousness raising. It is en-light-en-ment - bringing the dysfunctional attitudes and beliefs out of the darkness of our subconscious into the Light of consciousness.
On an emotional level the dance of Recovery is owning and honoring the emotional wounds so that we can release the grief energy - the pain, rage, terror, and shame that is driving us.
That shame is toxic and is not ours - it never was! We did nothing to be ashamed of - we were just little kids. Just as our parents were little kids when they were wounded and shamed, and their parents before them, etc., etc. This is shame about being human that has been passed down from generation to generation.
There is no blame here, there are no bad guys, only wounded souls and broken hearts and scrambled minds."
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
Inner child work is in one way detective work. We have a mystery to solve. Why have I have I been attracted to the the type of people that I have been in relationship with in my life? Why do I react in certain ways in certain situations? Where did my behavior patterns come from? Why do I sometimes feel so: helpless; lonely; desperate; scared; angry; suicidal; etc.
Just starting to ask these types of questions, is the first step in the healing process. It is healthy to start wondering about the cause and effect dynamics in our life.
In our codependence, we reacted to life out of a black and white, right and wrong, belief paradigm that taught us that is was shameful and bad to be wrong, to make mistakes, to be imperfect - to be human. We formed our core relationship with our self and with life in early childhood based on the messages we got, the emotional trauma we suffered, and the role modeling of the adults around us. As we grew up, we built our relationship with self, other people, and life on the foundation we formed in early childhood.
When we were 5, we were already reacting to life out of the emotional trauma of earlier ages. We adapted defenses to try to protect ourselves and to get our survival needs met. The defenses adapted at 5 due to the trauma suffered at earlier ages led to further trauma when we were 7 that then caused us to adjust our defenses, that led to wounding at 9, etc., etc., etc.
Toxic shame is the belief that there is something inherently wrong with who we are, with our being. Guilt is "I made a mistake, I did something wrong." Toxic shame is: "I am a mistake. There is something wrong with me."
It is very important to start awakening to the Truth that there is nothing inherently wrong with our being - it is our relationship with our self and with life that is dysfunctional. And that relationship was formed in early childhood.
The way that one begins inner child healing is simply to become aware.
We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional."
Last month I mentioned two of the ways that many of us learned to distance ourselves from our feelings - 'talking in the third person' and 'avoiding owning our feelings verbally,' - a third very prevalent technique is story telling.
This is a very common method of avoiding our feelings. Some people tell entertaining stories to avoid feelings. They may respond to a feeling statement by saying something like 'I remember back in `85 when I. . .' Their stories might be very entertaining but they have no emotional content.
Some people tell stories about other people. This is the stereotypical Codependent of the joke about when a Codependent dies someone else's life passes before their eyes. They will respond to an emotional moment by telling an emotional story about some friend, acquaintance, or even a person they read about. They may exhibit some emotion in telling the story but it is emotion for the other person, not for self. They keep a distance from their emotions by attributing the emotional content to others. If this type of stereotypical Codependent is in a relationship everything they say will be about the other person. Direct questions about self will be answered with stories about the significant other. This is a completely unconscious result of the reality that they have no relationship with, or identity as, self as an individual.
Perhaps the most common story telling diversion is to get very involved in the details of the story 'she said. . . . . then I said. . . . then she did. . . . .' The details are ultimately insignificant in relationship to the emotions involved but because we do not know how to handle the emotions we get caught up in the details. Often we are relating the details in order to show the listener how we were wronged in the interaction. Often we focus on how others are wrong in reaction to the situation as a way of avoiding our feelings.
Here are two very typical examples of this type of emotional distancing I witnessed recently. A person in obvious pain spoke for twenty minutes about a loved one who was dying. For 19 and 1/2 minutes of that twenty the person talked of what the doctor and nurses were doing wrong, of the details of incidents which happened. For a few brief seconds the person touched on their own feelings and then very quickly jumped back to the details of what was happening. The other example is the woman who is terrified of having a stroke and being partially paralyzed for several years like her mother was. Recently her older sister had a stroke. This woman, in talking about what is happening, cannot talk about her fear or pain, instead she talks about how her sister's children are behaving incorrectly.
I am very sad to see people in this kind of emotional pain. I am sad that they do not know how to be emotionally honest about what they are feeling. This is very typical and common in this emotionally dishonest society. We have been trained to be emotionally dishonest and need to go through a learning process in order to retrain ourselves to allow ourselves to own the feelings.
An integral part of that learning process is grieving the wounds from our childhood and earlier life. By not grieving earlier losses there may be so much suppressed energy that any current loss threatens to burst the whole dam of emotions. This literally feels life-threatening.
When I started to do my own emotional healing it felt like if I ever really started crying that I wouldn't be able to stop - that I would end up crying in a padded room someplace. It felt as if I ever really let myself feel the rage that I would just go up and down the street shooting people. It was terrifying.
When I first became willing to start dealing with the emotions it felt as if I had opened Pandora's Box and that it would destroy me. But I was led by my Spiritual guidance to safe places to start learning how to do the grieving and safe people to do it with.
Doing that grieving is overwhelming terrifying and painful. It is also the gateway to Spiritual Awakening. It leads to empowerment, freedom, and inner peace. Releasing that grief energy allows us to start being able to be emotionally honest in the moment in an age-appropriate way. It is, in my understanding, the path that the Old Souls who are doing their healing in this Age of Healing and Joy need to travel to get clearer about their path and accomplish their mission in this lifetime.
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