#like its so confusing they spend all this time establishing HER autonomy in her relationship with marc and how he doesnt just get to decide | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

c-ptsdrecovery · 4 years

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“A family is the first and most significant school we attend on how to relate to others. When this learning process, which takes years, is adequate, an individual acquires two abilities. The first is the ability to establish bonds, to engage in interactions with others that, given the right circumstances, may develop naturally into intimate relationships. The second ability is achieving and maintaining autonomy. Like most animals, human beings are utterly dependent when they are born. The process of achieving autonomy is long and complex, and can go awry in many ways.

What is central is that these two abilities, to establish bonds and to achieve autonomy, are complementary; neither can be reached independently of the other since each is the guarantee of the other (Bowlby, 1999). For the purposes of this paper, a dysfunctional family is one that doesn’t teach its members (or facilitate their learning of) how to relate to others, both inside and outside the family so that members can form bonds and achieve autonomy in their relationships with other people.

Two broad areas of relationship to consider in making a comparison between dysfunctional families and cults are distrust and dependence:

...According to Erickson (1950), trust is a basic interpersonal emotion necessary for healthy relationships. Trust in oneself and trust in others usually develop at the same time, with the growth of one encouraging the growth of the other. A deficiency of one also encourages a deficiency of the other. When trust is absent or deficient, relationships will be based instead on subtle or intense forms of control, which clears the way to abusive relationships.

... Both dysfunctional families and cults exhibit perversions of trust—that is, there may be deference or obedience between members, but neither is based on a well-founded belief in the good sense or good will of the other individual. Rather, members have been persuaded that the person in charge, or the controller, is more knowing or deserving or powerful; they also have learned that the consequences of disobedience to that individual may be harmful to them.

Dependence. A dysfunctional family makes its members weaker in many of the same ways that a cult makes its members weaker: In both contexts, members’ autonomy, critical thinking, identity, and dignity are suppressed or distorted to serve the needs of those in control (Langone, 1992). Both dysfunctional families and cults make their members more dependent upon their family or cult, and consequently weaker. Even if members of a dysfunctional family become estranged, there is often a psychological dependence rather than a healthy integration with people outside the coercive environment of which they were part. Similarly, members of a cultic group are dependent on their leader in a way that depletes rather than enhances their own strength; and often this tendency to unhealthy dependence on another continues even if the persons are able to leave the group.

“...When a parent isn’t able to differentiate between her needs and the needs of her child, she is quite plainly violating the boundaries that her offspring needs in order to grow. In addition to being deprived of his own space, the child isn’t allowed to make his own decisions. While one factor underlying such a lack of boundaries is a lack of trust in a child’s ability to make appropriate decisions, another factor often is a lack of trust by the parent in herself. As a consequence, as a psychoanalyst would say, she will project that insecurity onto her child. In families in which members trust themselves and each other, the members are able to differentiate between their own needs and the needs of others, which allows healthy boundaries to develop. In these families, privacy is permitted without being regarded as a threat. When this process of building boundaries is thwarted, members of the family may either become overly dependent on others’ opinions to make decisions, or they may ignore the advice or opinions of others when that input might be necessary or helpful.

...As in a family that assumes only the parents are qualified to make decisions about their child, a cult leader who insists that followers obey a myriad of minor rules throughout the day may implicitly communicate that the followers cannot measure up spiritually without him. The unspoken assumption is that “Without me, you are nothing.” People who have been involved in cultic groups, especially those born or raised in them, often find the very concept of boundaries difficult to grasp. They are so accustomed to another person invading and controlling their emotional and psychological lives that they may find themselves literally unable to make decisions about even the smallest details of daily life, such as what to eat, when to sleep, how to dress, or what to say to others in social situations.

Families who do not grant privacy to each other by means of healthy boundaries (loving distance) also tend not to trust what is outside their family; so they also are often more closed toward the outer world. In such families, all needs must be fulfilled within the family. Family members may view other families and people as threatening or dangerous, and therefore the family limits outside contacts. Thus, a child who has been invited to spend the night at a schoolmate’s home may be discouraged from doing that, or may be allowed only reluctantly and after being presented with a long string of precautions. Or parents may view other families as useless or boring. Consequently, the children in these families will tend to see the world outside as threatening or uninteresting and so remain, whenever possible, within the walls of their family. These families will remain isolated from other families, and therefore will hamper their members’ chances to integrate in other environments.

... Unhealthy families often have rules related to talking about feelings, especially uncomfortable feelings. For instance, a child may grow up feeling that it is shameful to display weakness or show confusion. These unspoken restrictions prevent family members from talking about problems, or even recognizing their existence, let alone taking steps to improve the situation.

...In both dysfunctional families and cults, the definition of who you are depends on whether you behave or feel according to the rules. Because the definition of who you are comes from the group and not from within you, you have to conform to the group not only to be accepted by them, but also to be accepted by yourself. Your identity is always at stake. The price you pay may be to disconnect from your inner being, where the feelings that are deemed bad by the group occur. To be accepted by the group, you must alienate from yourself. Both members of a dysfunctional family and members of a cult dissociate themselves in order to cope with the contradiction between the information that arrives from outside and from within. As a result, both family members and members of cults develop a basic insecurity that causes them to become very vulnerable.

... Thus, in a healthy family, a child with musical talent may be permitted to pursue that passion, even if the parents’ preference was that the child become a doctor, engineer, or farmer. Parents respect their child’s identity as it really is, not as they wish it were. They do not force their child into a role that is unnatural for the child. Nevertheless, in the process of the child and the parents trying to assert their initially different views, some degree of tension will arise. Dysfunctional families are that way to a great extent because they are not able to tolerate this tension, so they suppress it.

... In a dysfunctional family or group, the force of the group annihilates the separateness of the individuals in it. The people who hold the power in the family or the group decide what is good for the individuals in the group, ignoring that it might be bad for the individuals who make it up.

Dysfunctional Outcomes

Fusion or disconnection. Persons who cannot find freedom within a family may feel that the only way to be free is to cut all ties, that the only alternative to being enmeshed is disconnection. Often, they carry this behavior into other life relationships; these individuals will relate to people in other parts of their lives either by fusing with or by completely disconnecting themselves from others.

Controlling or being controlled. Those who leave an enmeshed family or a cult may relate to others in ways that reflect the control dynamic to which they are accustomed:

“I will try to control you. I want to know what you are doing at any given moment, what you are thinking about, what your problems are. I need for you to be dependent upon me.” Interestingly, in this type of relationship, the person exerting control is actually more needy than the person being controlled. This is the dynamic of the cultic leader, who depends upon controlling his followers to support his grandiose sense of himself.

“I will [paradoxically] require you to control me” (this is the complementary position of the previous example): “I will allow you to know everything about me. I will let you know constantly about my actions. I will share with you all my problems and worries and will let you solve them.” People who were taught by their family that being controlled was the condition for being accepted and loved may repeat that behavior as adults in social life and in romantic relationships. Likewise in cults, members are made to believe that the leader’s control over every aspect of their lives demonstrates his love for them.

Rebellion. Similarly, those who leave an enmeshed family or a cult through rebellion may relate to others in ways that reflect this need to rebel: “I will reject you through constant criticism and disdain. I will defensively attack you because I expect you to try to control me.” “I will [paradoxically] communicate that you should reject me because I am unworthy, volatile, and untrustworthy.”

#ouch #cults #dysfunctional family #toxic family #toxic parents

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