Ask Nakeia: You Are Not Crazy. You Come From a Dysfunctional Family

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“Your truth is valid, and healing is possible.”

We are back with a listener question, as part of our “Ask Nakeia” series.

If your family singles you out for being “extra,” for having boundaries, for breaking cycles, and for speaking the truth while everyone else continues to pretend… You may have asked yourself the same question.

In this episode, we will address the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family. The intention is to validate your experiences and provide practical steps for healing.

Question

“Shelly” said it would be too difficult to hear her question read aloud, and I will respect her wishes. She and I have had conversations via email.

But here is what she did permit me to include, a question you may have asked yourself before: Am I crazy?

Answer

My answer, Shelly, is: you are not crazy, beloved. You come from a dysfunctional family.

That is a one-sentence answer to your question, but let’s discuss this further…

I wasn’t conscious of the fact that life could be different for me until I was transferred to a new school in fifth grade. Being exposed to different backgrounds, life experiences, and family dynamics was a life-changing experience for me. And you know how life changed for me at 10 if you know me, if you’ve been a part of this community for some time. This is when I realized that not everyone was raised by their grandmom, their aunties, or foster parents like a lot of the other people in my community. Actually, almost everyone that I knew at the time either lived with their grandmom and auntie, or their grandmom and their mom, but no one lived in a home with two parents, where I came from. I didn’t know at that time that moms and dads stayed together as a couple and even got married.

As an adult, I am aware that this may not be the case, but it felt like everyone I knew at that new school knew that my life was vastly different than theirs. Like they knew that it was dysfunctional in some kind of way. I’m using the word dysfunctional now, but that’s not how I saw it back then. Again, everyone from my neighborhood came from the same circumstances. But going to that school and seeing people live differently, that exposure was an amazing turning point for me. What happened over time is that my biggest struggle was witnessing the polarity of life at school versus life at home, especially since everyone at home behaved as if our circumstances and dynamics were normal, when it absolutely weren’t.

When I came back home, everyone did whatever they did. It was like a Twilight Zone, and anyone who comes from a dysfunctional family and has been exposed to something different likely knows what I mean.

What Is A Dysfunctional Family

So what is a dysfunctional family? Let’s start by acknowledging that no family is perfect. I thought everyone’s parents were married, and every family was perfect. But I know now that is likely not the case.

A family can be categorized as a social system, and as with all systems, there is room for voids, glitches, and errors. Each family member is human. People are people. What makes a family dysfunctional are patterns of behavior that cause conflict, instability, abuse, or harm.

Neglect is often present. Addiction is often pregnant. Codependency is often present. Unhealthy roles are being played, and emotional and physical safety is always in question.

When it comes to dysfunctional families, it has been my experience, and the experience of the people that I have worked with, that there is a lot of gaslighting. A lot of family secrets, a lot of harmful traditions, a lot of emotional immaturity, all of those things run rampant in dysfunctional families, including mine. When someone grows into a mental space that makes them aware, like I was at 10, of what they came from and gives them the desire to change, they often question their sanity. Shelly did when she asked, Am I crazy?

We question:
Was it really that bad? Did it happen the way I remember? Am I being too sensitive? Did they really mean me any harm?

Many people who survive dysfunctional families walk away with holes in their memory or no memory at all. They completely dissociate. Or, they walk away heavy and weighed down by every single memory, leaving them unstable and burdened.

If you experience years of things like unclear boundaries, poor communication, excessive conflicts, instability, abuse, neglect, addiction, undiagnosed mental illness or untreated mental illness and unhealthy roles like being parentified or scapegoated, the golden child or the problem child, you are not crazy either. Your family was dysfunctional.

While reading Shelly’s email, I saw myself in so many ways. I remember how it felt to have my uncle and my dad go on drug binges for weeks at a time, stealing from me, making me scared to come home, and overdosing in front of my eyes. Then they would detox, come down for Sunday dinner as if nothing ever happened. And it would infuriate me when my grandmother would say, “Fix your dad’s plate.” You want me to fix the plate of the man who just stole my gold necklace, my bike, and the money he just gave me. You want me to fix the plate of the man who just came in and out of the house every single night while you cried and begged and pleaded for him to get his life together—because it was too stressful and too overwhelming for you.

That is what I experienced in childhood, and that is dysfunction.

I didn’t want to pretend as if everything was okay just because it was Sunday dinner, but that is what my family did. A phrase I heard all the time was, It’s still your dad.

It’s still your dad, you gotta respect him. It’s still your dad, you gotta love him. It’s still your dad. It’s still your dad... As if I didn’t know that the man who was traumatizing me was my dad.

Today, I just want to hold space for your truth, Shelly. And anyone who is listening and has experienced a background filled with family dysfunction, we’re gonna say some things that you may not have been able to say before. Truths that people gaslighted you out of.

Truths About Dysfunctional Families

I want you to know that you and your siblings can’t agree on the past because even if you grew up in the same home, you may not have experienced the same parents. Instead of trying to prove your truth to your siblings or to your parents, work to heal it for yourself.

One of the ways that I came to know this truth and understand it is with one of my siblings, actually two of my siblings… When it comes to these two siblings, I can’t say anything negative about my dad around them. I can’t share the truth of my experience without them getting upset, without them saying things like, “It’s still daddy. We gotta love him. We gotta give him grace, whatever it is that they say—especially my brother. There is at least a decade between me and some of my siblings. They didn’t experience my father in the thick of his addiction. He didn’t steal from them. They didn’t see him OD. I don’t remember them begging him to get his life together as I did as a child. And so the dad they knew and loved is not the dad I experienced. My dad was 16 or 17 when I was born. We grew up together. I watched him go from a boy to a man to an addict, and it was devastating for me. I loved every version of my dad. His addiction didn’t change that. My truth is still my truth, and I respect the truth of my siblings as well.

What I realized is that among my siblings, there is no space for me to vent or speak my truth about my dad, and that is okay. I have found safe spaces to share my experience. I have found in therapy a way to process it so that it doesn’t impact other people who loved him and knew him negatively. I have grown to hold space for the dad who was the man I looked up to and feared in a very reverent way, the man who protected me. I was an absolute daddy’s girl. I also hold space for the addict, the man I couldn’t look at in the face without crying because I saw the pain of his addiction in his eyes. I witnessed the impact of the addiction on him, on me, and on everyone else in his life. So I no longer have to prove what I went through. It is a fact.

I want you to know that your parent is likely fighting to play the role of mom or dad now, because they know they weren’t a parent in the household when you were growing up. Likely, you were the parent. You were the caretaker for you, for your siblings, and even for them, if they struggled with something like an addiction or a mental illness. And so you were what is known as parentified, that is, the role you played in your home.

I know you may be angry and resentful. Or you may be indifferent: “I’m grown. I don’t need them anymore.” I took that stance for many years. Either way, you have a right to decide how big a role your parents play in your life as an adult. You have a right to say, “Yes, you can come into my life in this way. Yes, you can come into my home in this way. Yes, you can be a part of your grandchildren’s lives in this way…” Or you can say, no. You can say, “No, I am not ready. No, it is not healthy. No, it is not the right time.” It is your choice. It is your decision. And every single one of your feelings is valid.

I want you to know… And I want you to take a deep breath… Your family secrets led to family trauma.

Your family secrets led to family trauma. You were not protected. You were neglected often. Things happened to you. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t your fault. It was absolutely your experience.

You’re not crazy.

And when you spoke up about it, no one listened. You weren’t heard or believed.

Use the voice that you have now to speak your truth. I hear you. I believe you.

It may be time to go to therapy. It may be time to start a journaling practice where you actually say what happened to you and the safety of your own home. The home that you created despite every single circumstance you endured. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But look at how far you’ve come. You’ve done an amazing job of getting by, of making do. But now it is time for you to speak your healing into existence.

I invite you to seek therapy, guidance, prayer, or maybe a support group. Now is the time.

I want you to know that many of your current struggles are consequences of your family’s dysfunction. It’s not your fault, but it is your duty to heal. You are obligated to become the person that you are meant to be, despite what happened to you, and it happened.

I know what it’s like to be hyper vigilant. I know what it’s like to be defensive. I know what it’s like to be so angry and aggressive, but those behaviors are a direct result of what you lived through. You lived beloved. You are in a new season of your life. It is time for you to practice new habits.

New ways of showing up, new ways of being.

Let’s talk about some of the behaviors that you exhibit right now that could be keeping you stuck, keeping you from moving forward. Things like lack of trust, hypervigilance, instability, and emotional immaturity. Maybe anxiety and depression, anxiety in your relationships, fear of being alone, or a desire to be alone. You don’t want to be with anyone or around anyone because you don’t want to get hurt again. Maybe you cannot communicate, maybe you are angry, and resentful.

All of those things have their roots in your family dysfunction. All of those things stem from some of the things you witnessed and endured, but you are empowered to heal all of that. Every single one of those things you can heal from.

9 Habits For Healing

Now, typically this is when I would start to give you “five ways to heal from your family dysfunction” or “four ways to know if you come from a family of dysfunction.” But instead of giving you a list of ways to heal, I want to encourage you to buy my book, Habits for Healing: Reclaim Your Purpose, Peace, & Power.

I want you to purchase the book as part of your healing practice in this season of your life. And if you cannot afford a copy, but you wanna start this work of healing from family dysfunction, you don’t wanna feel like you are crazy anymore, please reach out to me at the podcast@nakeiahomer.com. Send me your address so I can send you a copy of the book. I want you to purchase it, but if you can’t, please reach out so that I can send you a copy.

There are nine habits for healing in the book, along with an exercise to help you uncover how to cultivate the habit you need in this season of your life at the end of each chapter. I call it a mini session. If you were to work with me as a client, I would ask you the questions that I actually listed in the book. I want you to take the next nine weeks of your life and walk through each habit, or at least the habit that would make the most impact in your life right now.

The habits are self-care, letting go, personal accountability, lowering your expectations, self-forgiveness, not taking things personally, minding your own business, setting boundaries, and remembering who you are. I can say all nine of them off the top of my head because I worked my way through every single one of these habits to get to where I am today. In fact, to write the book Habits for Healing, and work with clients for years in the way that I did, I took a look back at how I got through some of the toughest seasons of my life—working through that family dysfunction, working through that trauma from my childhood. I share stories that I’ve never shared before writing the book. I share stories from clients I’ve worked with on habits for healing. So I want you to get the book.

I could list the nine ways to heal from family dysfunction, but I want you to get in your work and do this work for real, not just for an episode. I don’t want you to walk through another year thinking you are crazy. I don’t want you to show up at another family function without the boundaries you need to protect yourself. I don’t want you to have another journaling session with yourself without practicing self-forgiveness. There are nine habits. Take the next nine weeks of your life and go through them.

Moment Of Reflection

This is for Shelly, who inspired today’s episode, and anyone else who can relate to the life that Shelly and I have lived through.

My work in the world started with the work I had to do on myself first. I had to heal the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family. It is possible. At any age and at any stage of your life, I started at 10 and I’m still healing in my 40s. It is a lifelong journey.

Something may come up in your thirties that you never thought of before. You may wake up at 45 and remember something that impacted you in a way you chose to dissociate from, but you can heal. This journey will not be easy, but I created a guide to help you through it. So go out, get Habits for Healing. If you can’t afford it, reach out so I can send you a copy. It may be at your local library.

Finally, I want you to know that you are not crazy, beloved. You come from a dysfunctional family. It is time to speak your truth, process some of the trauma, and get back to creating a life that you want and deserve.

Until next time, beloved, I hope this helps.