Koren Zailckas

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Common Features of Dysfunctional Families

These features occur in most dysfunctional families:

• Lack of empathy, understanding, and sensitivity towards certain family members, while expressing extreme empathy towards one or more members (or even pets) who have real or perceived “special needs.” In other words, one family member continuously receives far more than he or she deserves, while another is marginalized.
• Denial (a refusal to acknowledge abusive behavior; also known as the “elephant in the room”)
• Inadequate or missing boundaries for self (e.g., tolerating inappropriate treatment from others, failing to express what is acceptable and unacceptable treatment, tolerance of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.)
• Disrespect of others’ boundaries (e.g. physical contact that other person dislikes; breaking important promises without just cause; purposefully violating a boundary another person has expressed)
• Extremes in conflict (either too much fighting or insufficient arguing between family members)
• Unequal or unfair treatment of one or more family members due to their gender, age, birth order, family role (mother, etc.), abilities, race, caste, etc. (may include frequent appeasement of one member at the expense of others, or an uneven enforcement of rules).

Though not universal among dysfunctional families, and by no means exclusive to them, the following features are typical of dysfunctional families:

• Abnormally high levels of jealousy or other controlling behaviors
• Conflict influenced by marital status:
  • between divorced or separated parents, usually related to, or arising from their breakup
  • conflict between parents who remain married, often for the “perceived” sake of the children, but whose separation or divorce would, in fact, remove a detrimental influence on those children (must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as breakup may harm children)
  • parents who wish to divorce, but cannot due to financial, societal (including religious), or legal reasons
• Children afraid to talk (within or outside the family) about what is happening at home, or are otherwise fearful of their parents
• Abnormal sexual behavior such as adultery, promiscuity, or incest
• Lack of time spent together, especially in recreational activities and social events (“We never do anything as a family”)
• Family members (including children) who disown each other, and/or refuse to be seen together in public (either unilaterally or bilaterally)

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“Because the perception of anger is so negative, women tell me that they are either unaware of its presence or, if aware, they keep the anger underground in other ways because they fear the consequences of expressing anger. They know that some people will get mad at them. Others may leave them. Others may hurt them. This is another paradox: The ways in which women seem to go underground with their anger often produce the consequences they were trying to avoid. They are left. They get hurt. They hurt themselves.”

- In Women’s Experience, Patricia L. Munhall

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#Fury #GoodGirlGoneBallistic

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