Bradshaw On, page 11
6. We are driven and compulsive.
7. We see everything in extremes—black and white, good or bad, for me or against me, love everything about me or you don’t love me at all.
Family Roles
In chronically dysfunctioning families, the family members are selectively cut off from many of their feelings and are in rigid role performances. There are many kinds of roles, such as The Hero, Scapegoat, Lost Child, etc.
In themselves, roles are not bad, and as Shakespeare wisely pointed out, we all play many roles in our lives. The roles in chronically dysfunctional family systems are different. They are not chosen or flexible. They are necessitated by the covert or overt needs of the family as a system. They function to keep the family system in balance. If Dad is a workaholic and never home, one of the children will become Mom’s Emotional Spouse since the system needs a marriage for balance.
In an alcoholic family, one child will be a Hero or Heroine because the family system needs some dignity. If the family system has no warmth, one child will become the Emotional Caretaker and be warm and loving to everyone. If the system is ravaged with unexpressed anger and pain, one child will become the Scapegoat and act out all the anger and pain. In each case, the person playing the role gives up his own unique selfhood in order to keep the system in balance. In chronically dysfunctional families, the individual exists to keep the system in balance. The whole family is dis-eased. The roles are capitalized to signify their rigidity. Because the chronic stress is not relieved, each person lives in reaction to the distress coming from chemical abuse, incest, violence, work addiction, eating disorder, parental rage or sickness, or whatever the compulsivity is.
RIGID ROLES AND CONTROL
In addition to balancing the chronically dysfunctioning family, rigid roles are the false selves that shame-based family members use in order to have a sense of control over the distress the family is experiencing.
Control results from the disabled will and is one of the major defenses for shame. Shame-based people will attempt to control all the relationships they are in. Shame is the feeling of being flawed and worth-less. It demands that we hide and live in secret. Shame-based people guard against unguarded moments. In an instant of unguardedness, you could be exposed, and that would be too painful to bear. Shame-based parents control their children. Children in shame-based families play their rigid roles as a way of controlling their parents. Always being Helpful, always being a Hero, a Rebel, a Perfect Child, a Scapegoat, etc., is a way to control the family that controls you. This control madness is another way dysfunctional families set their members up for addiction. Addictions are ways to be out of control. Addictions provide relief.
Co-dependency
Co-dependency is the core outcome of dysfunctional family systems. I will expand the discussion of co-dependency in chapter 8. Co-dependency is a dis-ease of self-esteem. People who are co-dependent no longer have their own feelings, needs and wants. They react to the family distress and play out a rigid role. They learn what feelings their role demands and what feelings they may not have. For example, I was my family system’s Hero. As a Hero, I had to be brave and strong. I learned to play a role of always being “up” and competent. In playing this role, I had to give up my fear and vulnerability. Since my fear and vulnerability were real parts of me, I gave up parts of myself. My role became my false self. It was an act whereby I played my enmeshed role in my alcoholic family’s script.
These rigid roles are ways to survive the intolerable situation in a dysfunctional family. They function like ego defenses. They become part of the total family’s fantasy bond. We are a happy family. We love each other. Each member plays his part to keep the system closed and rigid. Each member shares the mythology of the family trance. Each unconsciously agrees to share a certain focus and to share a certain denial. The denial constitutes the family system’s “vital lies.” Each member believes that exposing the lie would be unbearably painful and would break up the family.
Denial
We will see the trait of denial most vividly when we look at incest families. The shared secret and the shared denial are the most horrible aspects of incest. Perhaps nothing so accurately characterizes dysfunctional families as denial. The denial forces members to keep believing the myths and vital lies in spite of the facts, or to keep expecting that the same behaviors will have different outcomes. Dad’s not an alcoholic because he never drinks in the morning, in spite of the fact that he’s drunk every night. Chronically dysfunctioning families are also delusional. Delusion is sincere denial.
A client of mine sincerely believed that her brutally violent father was not an alcoholic because he quit drinking every Lent.
This delusion and this denial also apply to our false self roles. We become so identified with each role that we could pass a lie detector test. Our true self has been buried so long in the unconscious family trance, we think the role is who we really are. In my book Creating Love, I refer to this as mystification.
Cultural and Subcultural Boundaries
In addition to the intrafamily and ego boundaries, the family system has a third boundary. This one exists as an invisible line around the whole family. I call it the cultural or subcultural boundary. Nationalities and religious affiliations are the strongest factors in this type of boundary. Italians, Greeks, the Irish, etc. have their own special rules and “vital lies.” Likewise with Pentecostalists, Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Jews, etc. These subculture boundaries control the flow of information coming into and going out of the family. These boundaries also govern behaviors with the “other”: the strangers, the ones outside of our clan. These boundaries can contribute greatly to the family’s level of dysfunctionality.
For example, a client of mine who was a rigid Christian fundamentalist engaged in incest with her father because she had no right to disobey him. Her interpretation of her religion supported the poisonous pedagogy belief in parental ownership.
These subculture boundaries can also contribute greatly to keeping the system closed. They control knowledge and information. A major factor in getting out of a dysfunctional family is awareness about abuse and dysfunctionality. If your religion prohibits reading psychological works as part of secular humanism, you may not be able to understand many kinds of abuse and family dysfunction.
Thus, a characteristic of chronically dysfunctional family systems is that the more they try to change, the more they stay the same. They have no new information to break the old beliefs that form the circular feedback loops in the system. If parents are sacred and must be honored at any cost, one cannot even look at the possibility that they were abusing you.
Rules
The overt rules that create dysfunctionality are the rules of the poisonous pedagogy. The parents are dysfunctioned as a result of these erroneous rules, which they carry within their own psyches. The parents parent themselves with these rules. Without critically questioning and updating them, they pass them on to their children. Thus, parents become unintentional carriers of a virus. Add to this parents who are in advanced stages of addiction and the voltage is intensified.
The commonalities of dysfunctional families we have been describing can be summarized as a body of covert rules that operate unconsciously to create the distress in families. These rules are:
1. RULE OF CONTROL
You must be in control of all interactions, feelings and personal behavior at all times. This is a cardinal rule in all dysfunctional, shame-based family systems. Once you control feelings, all spontaneity is lost. Control gives each member a sense of power, predictability and security. Control madness is a form of severe disability of the will. Someone suffering from control madness will try to will away what cannot be willed away, such as the fundamental insecurity and unpredictability of life.
2. RULE OF PERFECTIONISM
Always be “right” in everything you do. This tyranny of being right can be about any norms the multi-generational family system has preserved. The norm may be about intellectual achievement or moral self-righteousness or being upper class and rich. The perfectionistic rule always involves an imposed measurement. There is a competitive aspect to this rule. There is a one-up, better-than-others aspect to this rule that covers up the family members’ sense of shame.
The fear and avoidance of making a mistake is the organizing principle of life in a perfectionistic family. The members live according to an externalized image. They become self-image actualized. If you suffer from this rule, you will be busy observing your own actions in a situation while internally self-monitoring: “Am I coming across okay?” “Am I getting it right?” You are committed to impression management and you constantly compare yourself with an external norm in an attempt to measure up.
No rule leads to hopelessness more powerfully than this one. Since the ideal is a mental creation, it is fantasy rather than reality. The perfectionistic ideal is shameless since it disallows mistakes. Shame as a healthy human feeling lets us know we are finite and incomplete. Shame lets us laugh at our mistakes. Shame tells us we are always in need of feedback and human community. Shame lets us know we are not God. Shame lets us know we are human. Following the perfectionism rule leads to hopelessness because to be perfectly human is to be imperfect. Perfectionism is inhuman.
3. RULE OF BLAME
Blame is another defensive cover-up for shame. Blaming behavior covers our shame or projects it onto others. Since a shame-based person cannot feel vulnerable or needy without being ashamed, blame becomes an automatic way to avoid our deepest feelings and true self.
Life’s spontaneity and unpredictability inevitably break down the control rule. Blame is habitually used to regain the illusion of control. Blame is how the shaming process continues to function. As we feel the danger of vulnerability and exposure, we shame the others with blame.
4. RULE OF DENYING THE FIVE FREEDOMS
This rule follows the perfectionist rule. “You shouldn’t think, feel, desire, imagine, see things or hear things the way you do. You should see, hear, feel, think, imagine, desire the way the perfectionistic ideal demands.’’
5. THE NO-TALK RULE
Don’t talk openly about any feelings, thoughts or experiences that focus on the family’s constant state of distress. This rule is a corollary of Rule 4. The denial of expression is a fundamental wound to humanness. Human beings are symbolic animals who speak and express themselves in symbols. We create new life and new frontiers through the symbolic function of the imagination. Certain family secrets can be maintained for generations because of this rule. I explored this idea in my book, Family Secrets.
6. THE NO-LISTEN RULE
Family members live so defensively that we are not present when others speak. The need to engage in “impression management” necessitates thinking about our next response rather than listening to what is being said.
7. INCOMPLETION RULE
Don’t complete transactions. Keep the same fights and disagreements going for years. This rule may be manifested in two ways. One is through chronic fighting and conflict without any real resolution. The second is through enmeshment and confluence; agreeing never to disagree. The family has either conflict or confluence, but never contact. Members stay upset and confused all the time.
8. UNRELIABILITY RULE
Don’t expect reliability in relationships. Don’t trust anyone and you will never be disappointed. Since our parents never got their dependency needs met as children, they cover up this insatiability with fantasy-bonded illusions of self-sufficiency. By acting either aloof and independent (walled boundaries) or needy and dependent (enmeshed boundaries), everyone feels emotionally cut off and incomplete. No one gets his needs met in a functional manner.
Figure 4.7 sums up the profile of a dysfunctional family. This chart is a composite of the actual types of dysfunctional families I will discuss in the next three chapters. The Rigid Roles are not listed accurately; they are simply listed. I encourage the reader to use this chart and the next three chapters as a checklist for your own personal self-discovery. Most of our present human dysfunctions can be described by the term compulsivity. Violence, sexual disorders, eating disorders, emotional and religious addictions are the ills that destroy people’s lives. Let us look at these now.
The key points covered in this chapter can be summed up using the letters of the word DYSFUNCTIONAL.
Denial and Delusion
Dysfunctional families deny their problems; hence, the problems never get solved. Such families also deny members the Five Freedoms.
Yin/Yang Disorder
There is an intimacy vacuum in a dysfunctional family. The intimacy vacuum contributes to the dysfunction.
Shame-based
Nonfunctional families are shame-based. The parents have internalized their shame and act shameless toward their children. The children often feel ashamed of the family.
Fixed, Frozen and Rigid Roles
Roles are created by the needs of the family as a system. Children give up their reality to take care of the needs of the system.
Undifferentiated Ego Mass
Members of dysfunctional families are enmeshed in each other’s boundaries. If Mom is scared, all feel scared. Members feel for other members.
Needs Sacrificed to the System
Members of a dysfunctional family cannot get their individual needs met. Individual needs are put aside for the needs of the system. There is almost always low-grade anger and depression in a dysfunctional family.
Confluence or Conflicted Communication
The communication style in dysfunctional families is either open conflict or the agreement never to disagree (confluence). There is rarely any real contact.
Togetherness Polarity Dominates
Individual differences are sacrificed for the needs of the family system. In dysfunctional families, the individual exists for the family. It is difficult to leave dysfunctional families.
Irrevocable Rules
In nonfunctional families, the rules are rigid and unchanging. The poisonous pedagogy helps to set up these rules. The dominant rules are control, perfectionism, blame, denying the Five Freedoms, no-talk, no-listen, incompletion and unreliability.
Open Secrets
The open secrets are part of the vital lies keeping the family frozen. Apropos of open secrets, everyone knows what everyone pretends not to know.
Nonchanging Closed System
Everyone plays his role to control the controlling distress. But the more each plays his role, the more the system stays the same. The French proverb, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (the more something changes, the more it remains the same), sums up the dilemma of the closed family system.
Absolute and Grandiose Will
The major catastrophe of the dysfunctional family is that members have their wills disabled. Each person’s birthright of freedom is impaired. Control itself is a product of the disabled will. The no-talk rule results in frozen feelings that contaminate one’s emotional intelligence. The will to will or self-will taken to the extreme creates chaotic and unpredictable behavior in chronically dysfunctioning families.
Lack of Boundaries
Members of dysfunctional families give up their ego boundaries as a way to maintain the family system. Giving up ego boundaries is equivalent to giving up your identity.
Five
Compulsive Families: Checklist for
How Your Self-Esteem was Damaged
in an Addicted Family
The open secrets. Everybody knows about them and nobody is supposed to know that everybody knows.
R. D. Laing
After 17 bitter years of painful alcoholism, I put the cork in the bottle 30 years ago. In many ways the last thing I would have believed as a child was that I would become an alcoholic. I cried myself to sleep many a night because of my father’s drinking and his abandonment. Frozen with fear in my bed at night, I waited for him to come home, never knowing exactly what was going to happen. I hated alcoholism and all it stood for. I obsessed about his drinking day in and day out. At 30 years old, I wound up in Austin State Hospital on a voluntary commitment for the treatment of alcoholism.
As paradoxical as it seems, many children of alcoholics become alcoholics. And if they don’t become alcoholics, they often marry alcoholics or people with some other compulsive, addictive personality disorder.
This paradoxical pattern focuses on the truth of “families as systems” more than any other single factor. Some 20 years ago, persons from alcoholic families started realizing that there were commonalities in their lives that seemed to have less to do with them and more to do with their families of origin. Led by Robert J. Ackerman, Claudia Black, Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse, Janet G. Woititz and Wayne Kritsberg, the Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACoA) movement formed. With the Adult Children’s movement, the family systems concept took a giant step forward.
During the first decade of my recovery from alcoholism, I knew nothing of the Adult Children’s phenomenon. I had dabbled intellectually with family systems. I had incorporated the work of Virginia Satir, Jay Haley and R. D. Laing into my adult theology classes at Palmer Episcopal Church in Houston. But I never got the connection with my own alcoholic family of origin. I thought that my addiction to excitement, my people-pleasing and approval-seeking, my overly developed sense of responsibility, my intimacy problems, my frantic compulsive lifestyle, my severe self-criticalness, my frozen feelings, my incessant good-guy act and my intense need to control were just personality quirks. I never dreamed that they were characteristics common to adults who as children lived in alcoholic families.
Even though I was recovering from alcoholism, I was still acutely compulsive. My compulsivity was causing life-damaging consequences. I was working, buying, smoking and eating compulsively. This realization led me to seek further treatment for my still-addicted personality.
