How to Thrive When you Come From a Dysfunctional Family

Have you ever met anyone afflicted with a terrible disease I call blame-otitis? People with this condition are simply incapable of accepting responsibility for their own failings. Regardless of what they do, they will blame someone else. If they are struggling to make ends meet, it’s because their spouse spends too much money. If they are late, it’s because their kids wouldn’t co-operate. Do you suffer from this illness? People with blame-otitis often accord the ultimate blame to their parents, because it was their parents who really messed them up.

Stop the Blame Game

As you may know I didn’t come from the most functional family. My father was an alcoholic and we never had a lot of money, so it was a pretty tough upbringing, but there comes a time in every adult’s life when you have to stop blaming your parents and take responsibility for your own mistakes. You can no longer excuse yourself because you had a hard childhood. Often excuses start as a small seed but then grow into a cohesive argument. However, excuses distract you from what really matters and become a means of sabotaging your success. How can you prosper if you are using all your energy resenting your mother and father because they were poor parents?

Focus on What You Want

My belief is that you need to focus on what you want. Any other issues that is occupying your thoughts are an unwelcome distraction. If you are wasting your energy being angry with your parents because they weren’t perfect, then you need to stop … today! You need to re-direct all that energy back to your own life. Stop finding reasons why your parents failed you and start finding reasons why YOU can succeed in the future. Write down what you want out of life and then start formulating a plan for how you will get it. Instead of cursing your past, develop expectations about the future. Expect your life to go well. Expect to make money, get promoted, have happy relationships. Do not embrace a philosophy of excuse-eology, claiming that your life is not what you want because you had a dysfunctional childhood. We all had dysfunctional childhoods, it’s just a matter of degree. Some people get very proficient at making excuses for their failings because it’s all they do. I advise you to refuse to make excuses and take responsibility for your own life. You are an adult now, not a big child. American basketball player John Woden once said, “Nobody is a real loser until they start blaming someone else.”

Take Responsibility

I am not denying that your parents caused you harm. Many people with children are unfit to be parents, but there still needs to come a point in life where you take control and responsibility for yourself. If you are really struggling to forgive your parents for a bad childhood, here is some food for thought.

Someone once said to me that compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. You need to see your parents as adults and your equal, not just parents. Try to understand what makes your parents tick and accept that they may also have been damaged by their childhood or past. They are not perfect. To heal it is essential that you move from a child-parent relationship to an adult-adult relationships. Accept that they are also struggling with pain and disappointment.

Accept your Hurts

You do not have to deny your hurts. Often we need to first mourn the damage inflicted on us as children before we can forgive, but do not spend your whole life mourning your lost childhood! Set aside some weeks, or perhaps months to grieve, but then move on! See a counsellor or psychologist if you need to.

If possible try to hold on to the happy memories from your childhood. Accept that your parents loved you, even if they weren’t great parents. Perhaps the only silver lining in the grey cloud of your childhood is that you have learnt what NOT to do to your own children. Thanks to your mum and dad’s appalling parenting you can avoid the mistakes they made.

Forgive your Parents

Maybe you will need to research your parents’ past and find out what happened to them. You could also ask them direct questions. Attempt to see the world from their perspective. You do not have to agree with their point of view, but at least try to understand how they have arrived there.

Ideally you need to forgive your parents for harming you, because forgiveness leads to healing. You will no longer have to waste all that energy blaming them for the misfortunes of your life. Blame and excuses will only short-circuit your destiny. You need to focus on YOUR future, not your childhood or your parents.

Once you forgive your parents, it doesn’t mean you have to be best friends with them. You may need to establish some boundaries and not let them have too much input into your life, but ideally you should forgive them for the harm they have done.

Sometimes people hide behind blame. It is easier to blame the past rather than risk having a go at life and coming up short. Some people prefer to see themselves as a victim because they find that less frightening than going out into the world and shaping their own future. Find the courage to leave the past behind.

Create a Substitute Family

Do not be distracted from your future by your past. Instead create an environment to succeed. Start pursuing new relationships to enhance your life. Recruit dynamic staff, look for business partners who are innovative, befriend people who are talented and positive. Create a substitute family it your old one failed your! Keep your future goals at the fore of your mind. Do not focus on small quibbles from your childhood. Successful people are measured by the size of their thinking, so think big!

Blaming your parents keeps the hurt alive, and it gives your parents power over your life. Unless we forgive our parents we stay emotionally stuck in childhood and we keep reliving the pain of that time. It is actually easier to forgive our parents, leave our childhood behind, and finally grow up!