Radical Healing from Dysfunctional Families

Hi, I am Dr. Jameca Cooper. Make sure you like this video and subscribe to this channel. Today we are still in the midst of our 30 Days of Radical Healing. I'm so excited about it because I want to make sure that I give you tools that can really help you end your year in a positive way while reflecting on what this year has been for you, and then starting off the new year in a much, much, much better place. That's really the goal of all of this. I want to make sure that we have the tools to do the things in life that we want to do. So today we're going to focus on something that I deal with in my therapy with individuals and families a lot, and it's radical healing from dysfunctional families. So before I can even start on radical healing for dysfunctional families, I have to first define or describe what is dysfunctional. I get this question a lot because I think when you— most people think about, oh, I come from a dysfunctional family, they automatically think about certain things. So I think the things that pop up for people that are clearly and obviously dysfunctional are things like addiction. Addiction is one of those things that everyone would agree on. This is dysfunctional. If you come from a family where alcohol addiction or drug addiction is common in your family, So, you know, anytime you're spending time with your extended family, you're going to be around people who are addicted to a substance. They're addicts, and they're going to have behavior of an addict. So most people would agree that that would be dysfunctional, a dysfunctional behavior. Alcohol and substance abuse is a mental disorder, but when you have individuals around you that suffer from it, it can often impact you and your health, your physical and mental health, actually. So addiction is one of those things that we, we know that if you come from a family with addiction, that would definitely be considered dysfunctional. Other things that people automatically, no, fall into the category of addiction are— I'm sorry, not addiction— things that fall into the category of dysfunctional families are things like abuse. If you come from a family where sexual abuse of individuals in the family is common, um, or let me put it this way, if you come from a family where there are individuals in your family who act with other family members in abusive ways or harassing ways, that is a problem. That would be a toxic situation. And that will be definitely considered a dysfunctional family. There are other things that would be considered dysfunctional families. If you come from a family where clear boundaries are not established by individuals in the family, so people blur boundaries, let's say everyone is involved in each other's lives intensely. An enmeshed family is what we call it in psychology. So boundaries were— families where boundaries are blurred, that would be a dysfunctional family. Families where communication or conflict may be high. So if every time you're around your family members there's an argument, there's a fight, there's conflict, there's disagreements, that would be considered dysfunctional as well. Or even if you come from a family where you just feel like it lacks warmth, nurturing, or love, so that you go to spend time with your family but it feels very cold in a very sterile environment, that could still be considered dysfunctional. Because I think most people would agree, or at least hope, that families would involve love and warmth and kind of feelings of, of like, at least. And when you come from a family or go to a family to visit that doesn't have those things, that could easily be considered as dysfunctional. So the So there are a few examples of things that could be considered dysfunctional, but I want to focus on ways that you can heal as a woman of color, how you can heal from dysfunctional families. And one of those ways, and this is what I always consider to be the very first thing you need to do to heal from a dysfunctional family, and that is distance. There must be distance and space between you and the dysfunctional family unit. You cannot get well, you cannot heal from a situation while you're still in it. It would be like you— um, this is extreme— this would be like you having someone try to cut your arm off with a chainsaw and then you deciding, oh no, I'm gonna act like this isn't bothering me, but the person is still here cutting on my arm, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna get over it while this is going on. You can't not— you can't get over things while they're still going on. So in order to heal from a situation, you have to get some distance and space from it. So whether that means moving out of the house from them if you're living with them, moving to a different part of town, moving to a different city or state, whatever distance looks like, or just infrequent contact with those people, that could be distance as well. So distance is one of the first things I recommend with dysfunctional families. It's necessary to have distance so that you can begin the process of healing. You need the distance and the space. Second thing is And again, I say this all the time. This is one of the things I talk about in my book, I Am My Sister's Keeper: The Brown Girl's Guide to Radical Healing. You can find it on Amazon. But one of the things I talk a lot about in my book is the whole concept of testimony. And this whole concept of testimony is crucial to radical healing because you cannot heal from a situation unless you've expressed and acknowledged what that situation is. So it's not just expressing and acknowledge acknowledging what the situation is, but it's what has that done to you? What is it? What impact does it have in your life? That's really your testimony. Um, so testimony is a really big part. It's the number 2 thing that I'm telling you today about healing from dysfunctional families. What is your testimony about your dysfunctional family? Who, who are they? Who are— who's in your family? Who are these people? What type of behaviors, issues, um, have you seen over the span of your lifetime? What do you feel like has been dysfunctional in your case? Because what one person might consider to be dysfunctional, another person might easily say, oh, that's not dysfunction. It could be normal to them. So everyone has their own ideas about what dysfunction is and what it means to you too. So testimony is a very big part of that. Tell your story. What has your experience— what has your story of dysfunction in your family looked like? What does it look like? And what has that done to you? In other words, today, what do you feel about yourself in relationship to your family of origin, in relationship to the dysfunction that is your family? So that would be my second thing, providing a story, giving your life a story, giving your family a story, and providing that testimony. My number 3 thing would be to establish healthy boundaries between you and your dysfunctional family. So boundaries could be, that if you know that every time you are around your dysfunctional family, you start to go into depression, or you start to have symptoms of anxiety again, then it may be wise for you to not spend so much time with them. Even talking to them could be triggering for you. So establishing healthy boundaries means that you decide when— if, first of all, if you can deal with your dysfunctional family members, and if you can, then how often, and what does that look like. So maybe healthy boundaries for you means you only deal with your family once, once every year on the holiday, on one holiday. Maybe that means you only engage in phone conversations with them and you refuse to see them in person. But boundaries could be different for every person. You just have to sit and think about what's healthy for you and think about times in the past when you have been triggered by certain situations and how to minimize, um, those times so that they don't happen. Again in the future, or that they happen a lot less in the future. So that was my number 3. And then my number 4 is to— you have to get help in this area. Help from a pastor, help from a counselor or therapist, help to examine what this dysfunctional family has done to you. So coming from your dysfunctional family, what has that done to you? What patterns of dysfunction have you noticed in your family? How has that impacted your life? How has that impacted your parenting? How has that impacted your relationships, romantic and friendships? How has that impacted your productivity at work? Being able to examine the causes of coming from a dysfunctional family so that you can stop those patterns from continuing. So that was my fourth thing. Fourth thing was to examine. And then my last thing, number 5, is you have to be able to understand. Understand one thing that's very important about everyone that I work with that comes from a dysfunctional family. And to some extent, you could say everyone comes from a dysfunctional family. But one thing I have to make sure that everyone is clear on is that you are not your family. You are not your dysfunctional family. Just because your family may be messed up doesn't mean that you are messed up. You may be a product of your family, but you do not have to mimic those same patterns and those same behaviors and toxic traits. You have the choice. Hopefully you have an opportunity to break out of that and to do something different, to be something different. You don't have to be the sum and the result of your family, but you get to decide how you want to move forward. You get to decide what patterns you bring into your own family. So for that, you have to feel empowered. And again, the biggest thing is I want to make sure you leave today knowing that you are not your family. You have the opportunity right now today to do something. You may be the one factor involved in changing the whole cycle in your family, breaking that cycle. So in that respect, it gives you great power. However, also great responsibility. So these are some of my ideas about tips for you on how to heal from dysfunctional families. We are still in the midst of our 30 Days of Radical Healing. Make sure you like this video, subscribe to other videos. I will be talking more about what healing looks like for us at the end of this year and starting the next year. So I thank you for joining us. I'm Dr. Jameca Cooper Cooper. See you.