If you grew up in trauma and dysfunction, you probably don't realize that the type of toxic family that you grew up in is more common than you think. I'll go further that the types of issues that you struggle with as an adult, is predictable from the type of family structures that you grow up in.
So I'm going to cover in this video, what I think are seven highly common toxic family systems and I'm also going to add about what kinds of issues might need to be processed with each type of system.
I'm Patrick. I'm a childhood trauma therapist, I'm primarily a group therapist and I usually have all my group clients complete something called the genogram which is their family tree of dysfunction - three generations of alcoholism, depression, personality disorders, um sort of cultural stuff, historical stuff, and what we're looking for is to have a clearer picture of the person's story through doing this visual sort of exercise. I've been in private practice for about 10 years now and I was thinking I've probably heard about 500 stories, 500 cases where the person is presenting their genogram to me into the group and through those 500, this is where this list of seven, where I was thinking about seeing the patterns and I came up with these seven, sort of families that I see in my own practice. This is not a rigorous research study, this is not empirical data, it's just sort of what I see in my practice.
I'm thinking that childhood trauma, what I'm learning, is so much more patternized and predictable and I think that that's why you guys are maybe, like, resonating with these videos because this is the stuff that is sort of my clients stories are teaching me about these patterns. So, as you're watching, you can identify with one specific of these seven. You might say, "Oh my God, that's my family to a t" but most likely you're going to identify with several of these and there'll be overlap or combinations of these.
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So, here we go. I do want to say that this list can be triggering and I don't mean to name things in such a casual way as you hear me talk. It's just sort of I'm so sort of used to this work that's where that is sort of coming from. But I don't mean to be sort of insensitive, but as a heads up we're going to get into some pretty heavy duty stuff. Stick around to the end of the video about how to make this into a resource. I'm going to have some instructions about how you can use this list and your own sort of healing in your own journey.
Number seven: first one is looks good on paper. Incidentally these are just random numbers, it's not leveled in severity or anything like that. So you may have heard that term before - looks good on paper. This family's major focus is controlling image and avoiding feelings at all cost. Feelings like of shame, problems with the kids, problems in the marriage. This family does not do feelings. In fact, I think more energy goes into covering up feelings, than the energy that it would actually simply take to address them. Some traits and examples: Inauthenticity that other people in the community don't pick up on. Meaning that the family is seen as like super, super legit, super has it together. People don't notice the dysfunction underneath. A family like this can be meticulous about the yard but they will cover things up like a really unhappy marriage. There's a lot of energy that goes into covering up messy things in the family like teenagers acting out no one talks about the drunk uncle or the affair so there's lots of sort of secrets, lots of sort of pretending or putting things away. Values. This is big. Values are usually heavily rooted in one station in life - going to the right school, becoming a doctor, looking perfect dress-wise, image and status. There can also be a vibe of like looking down upon you know mediocre sort of professions, um mediocre schools, artists, you know looking down upon the secular, looking down upon the non-secular, just doesn't matter. This tends to be from an affluent sort of like sort of dynamic and affluent family but it doesn't mean that it can't come from lower economic statuses and sort of like all types of families can be looking trying to look good on paper. This family also sort of perceives having problems as weakness which is a big one. I often think about the the parents of this family. They want to be seen as like contributing members of society or they want to seem like good church people but their inner life can be a disaster. This kind of system is really confusing and oppressive from the place of pressure on kids to perform and to look certain ways and no one does feelings and it's pretty rigid. Kids in these families really struggle with their own identity and maybe spontaneity. They can also struggle later in life with authenticity and being true to themselves. Kids, like I think about teenagers growing up in this or late teenagers, is like if they don't get into the right school they can become suicidal, if they make mistakes, they can get into a major depression where the stakes are so high in a family like this which is pretty bad. Adults who grow up coming from a family system like this may potentially struggle with perfectionism, authenticity, like I mentioned, disappointing others, a bit of emptiness in a way that they may think that becoming top tier doctor is going to make them sort of happy but there's a chasing of things, comparing themselves to others and maybe not knowing how to have fun. The thing to maybe process in your recovery if you grew up in a family system like this is how things were so conditional and how the adults were totally focused on the wrong things - that's one piece in therapy that I'm probably going to be discussing with a client who grew up in a family system like that. So that's number seven.
Number six is what I call ships in the night. This is really a family that is centered upon neglect and disconnection when it comes to connecting as a couple and then connecting as a family. Incidentally through these examples guys, I'm just giving heterosexual examples, it can be applicable to anything of being applicable to same-sex marriages, try not to look at these from such a concrete lens. I'm open to whatever your experience was.
So ships in the night. Here are some examples... Kids go to boarding school or they stay with other family and there's not connection. The parents seem to be living separate lives as if they were playing house still, parents are more engaged in work, their own friendships outside of the family or have secret lives rather than be invested in their own marriage and their own children. Children might be raised by grandparents, they may get more parenting from their friends parents and there's a deep sadness to this system because it's like no one knows how to connect. Children can feel that the parents are actual strangers. That much lack of connection or they have a vibe like that, I also think about maybe like one parent is working six months out of the year and then that parent becomes sort of a stranger to the children. In adulthood, for those coming from a family system like this, they're most likely going to struggle with intimacy on several levels. Also, someone coming from this family system will also probably struggle with feeling like they're always on the outside of things, um, and later when if they get married or have friendships, they may see their partner or their partner's family interact from a place of intimacy and it's like super foreign them. Lastly, being neglected is very familiar to someone who comes from a family system like this and they might have a really low bar about what to expect from others. The thing to process with coming from a family system like this in your own healing journey or in therapy or whatever, is to hold the parents accountable for being so checked out and that they were just going through the motions of of kind of having a family without actually cultivating having a family. There's a big difference between those two things. I think about it like a non-child-centered house.
So moving on, so that was that.
Number five is what I call, this one's big, it's what i call the anti-love family. This one's hard. As messed up as my own childhood was, my mother was able to be loving and affectionate when we were small when she was sober or when she was home. She expressed love and was affectionate but she actually didn't have the behavior to back that sentiment up as sort of a healthy mom. The anti-love family is in a total deficit of affection, appreciation, warmth, camaraderie and it's sadly and horrifically rooted in contempt and disgust for some, if not all the family members, so children are just the recipients of such contempt from their parents. There's a marked purposeful like nastiness due to the parents being either mentally ill or having loads of self-hate themselves going on or a lot of their own unresolved trauma and the family like acts out from a place of deep bitterness. some traits... You're bullied at school, you come home and the message is "what do you want me to do about it?" You know? That's that contempt. Vulnerability in a family in like this is usually made fun of if you're vulnerable or if you're sensitive or if you're in trouble, they get entertainment out of that. Sentiments like "you don't need any help, your life is perfect," like that kind of stuff. There can also be sort of a sadistic enjoyment when someone is failing or needs help. Parents in these systems are really off about their responsibility about raising children. They are totally narcissistically removed from that concept and there's a sick message in a family like, if i'm miserable you're going to be miserable, which is just pretty nasty. Children grow up in this heartbreak and in some of them become cold themselves or some of them become painfully sensitive because growing up with a family like this, things are made to be so personal. Even if you're born highly sensitive, it's like super personal in a family system like this. In adults who grow up like this, usually struggle with expecting similar treatment from friends and partnerships and bosses. That's what I mean by that. They are also usually confused with kindness. Someone who comes from a family system like this and really struggle taking in that they're lovable because that would spark off a lot of grief about what it was actually like. So the thing to process this, the recovery idea, or the thing to work on in therapy, is the betrayal of love and responsibility by holding the parents accountable for not doing anything about their own highly toxic stuff. The person would have to also, um, spend some time trying to buy into the concept of love and that they're lovable and what I mean about that first part is growing up in a family system like this, is like, there's really you know, the betrayal of like yeah I'm your mom, but I also have contempt and disgust for you. Like that's a betrayal and holding the parents accountable for that they caused that - that's what I mean.
Moving on, number four is what I call the chaos system. This is children just growing up in severe chaos and the parents being sort of like highly chaotic themselves. There could be multiple moves. There could be parents getting divorced and back together several times. There could be severe poverty or survival mode, there could be multiple affairs, there could be high, high drama amongst the adults up top. You know, like dad moves out on a Tuesday and he's back in the home on Thursday. In a system like this, there can be a lot of broken promises and the family is weirdly familiar with the fast-moving chaotic changes so much that they assume that that's kind of how life is. It can also be domestically chaotic. What I see, it's sad, but it's like a total loss of basics for children such as like clean laundry, stable consistent schooling, stable food, basic, basic needs. It's sad that often the children in a system like this are treated as almost like pets, like once the parents feel like food and shelter is established, that that's all you need. Children will struggle with shame and they will try to start to get their needs met like from other people like from friends and teachers and that's a very shameful experience to put a child up to because things are so chaotic at home. What it's like for having for adult clients who grow up in this is, I often have clients who grow up with addicts and or where they were in the military and they were moved around a lot. They might struggle, I know that this sounds weird, is that adults who grow up like this may struggle with moving into an apartment and actually unpacking, because you know sort of establishing themselves or establishing an apartment is something that they don't necessarily know how to do because they're so familiar with it's like "later for that, I don't know how to do that, it's not that important, survival is important." Disassociation is a common one - which makes a lot of sense to me because these children aren't helped with catching up from one chaotic thing to the next, there's not parenting around that and my clients who grow up on this often need to do work around belonging to a group or a place or in a partnership or something. They're also usually fiercely independent due to the shame for having grown up in this which is a way to protect themselves. They are still, you know, it's interesting that client that comes into me who grew up like this, they're still sort of an emotionally in transit, um, and it's really good for them to process about what got lost for them sort of along the way in a childhood like that. Clients growing up in this can be highly intense about cleanliness or money or lack or stability or expectations or they may deeply struggle with organization themselves. They may literally not know how to clean up or be organized. The thing to maybe process with this in your healing journey or in therapy, is grieving about the lack of stability and consistency while holding the parents accountable for being so loose with the child's development.
So number three is toxic divorce slash loyalty. This is another common on. I'm not saying divorces are toxic. I actually think divorces are good modeling for children if a relationship isn't working out. What I'm saying is if the children aren't helped in that process, if there's bitterness and nastiness and poor co-parenting and resentments and mess, that's when it becomes toxic. So that's what I mean. Some examples are, and this is a big one, usually up front in my mind is the concept of parent alienation - where kids are sort of brainwashed about one parent due to the other parent being very vindictive or mentally off. So there's really like a character assassination of one parent over the other. There can also be step parents in the mix who are introduced, it's like it's really painful and horrific that kids will go through a nasty divorce and shortly after a step parent is introduced and that there's even now more abuse because that step parent is toxic. There could also be that it's simply that, you know, there was no processing of the divorce at all - it doesn't have to be sort of nasty co-parenting or anything but there's just no discussion it's a little bit like, "well dad's moving out, we're moving on, who wants to go to Chuck e Cheese?" and it's a surreal experience that no one is processing this big, huge life event. Children in these scenarios are often asked to choose sides, um, sometimes directly in verbatim or sometimes that's super indirect like through like parent alienation. Even if a step parent is a good person, kids feel like they're betraying their biological parents by establishing a relationship with the step and kids also absorb the vibes of say a bitter parent, um, because children are heart based and they will absorb the resentment of this parent as a way to ally with them and to sort of take care of them and what the cost is is the the relationship with the other parent is greatly compromised because of that so it's really important for co-parents and divorced parents to not talk poorly about the other parent like hopefully we know that more now. In adulthood, people who come from this family system are most likely going to struggle with trust and intimacy. They are going to have issues about not feeling protected, like you know, dad has a need dad marries an evil stepmom and they're not protective, that's where that sort of uh triggering and accountability and rage comes from which might go on our partners as I mentioned in other videos um and the idea of thoughtless and oblivious, there's a great example about that of having trigger issues around people who are thoughtless and oblivious, if you come from a family system like this or actually any of these family systems. Adults who come from these systems like this also really struggle with taking sides. They may also have like a big body reaction if there's conflict even if they're not involved in that conflict. A classic thing is like co-worker A and B, they're having a fight and if you're a child of divorce, that can really unravel you even though it doesn't involve you. Our inner children may secretly feel deep down, this is a big issue that I talk about with my clients, that loving relationships are sort of a lie - that healthy marriages aren't really true and given their experience, you can sort of see why. But I also sort of teach my clients to think about, or the concept of, what our parents model about marriage and intimacy becomes our blueprint for it. Which is like, oh that's a big thing that we need to kind of wrestle with and unravel because we have to establish a new idea of healthy relationships because that old blueprint is so compromised.
So the thing to process with this one is I think mainly the concept of choosing sides, but also to process the heartbreak of having some parents being labeled as bad or character assassinated or that parent alienation sort of stuff because it's like children are sort of set up for that sort of toxic loyalty stuff and also a recovery idea is to think about what kind of conversations did you need as a child from your parents if they were healthy about that divorce or introducing a step parent and all that jazz.
Moving on is number two - is being a single parent. Being a single parent when it's not by choice. I can't imagine how stressful that is and I'm not saying that being a single parent is bad but here are some examples where my clients who have had a single parent where it becomes abusive. So it's when the kid was the actual adult and it's an upside down thing and the single parent was really more like the child. That there was codependency between the child and the parent because the parent treated the child uh as like a confidant, as more like a friend as more like a sister than it being sort of like I'm the adult parenting you. Kids growing up in this will have to like make themselves totally selfless due to the stress of the parent being on their own, they are raising themselves, they are doing everything themselves, that kind of a thing and even that stuff can be like just non-fault circumstance stuff. Often there are way too many sort of either boyfriends or girlfriends or step adults in this child's life without the parent really thinking about the impact of that on the child. That shows that a single parent might have lived in a very messy lifestyle or was potentially very immature and not protective. Even sadly that the the single parent may be extremely limited and it's super hard to hold them accountable meaning that the single parent is like "I don't know how to drive, i don't know how that works, I'm not doing anything like that", like really limited and that the child would have to just make accommodations and figure out their life without those sort of basic, sort of resources and this is hard but I've often had clients who have a single parent and who made their child out to be like energy that's like you ruined my life that the child feels like such a burden and that message is coming from that toxic adult from a place of intense blame, blaming them for their existence which is brutal. Adults who grew up like this can exhibit, I call it like a superhero complex, to cover up the shame or they sort of were a superhero making everything happen for this, for this parent or or making the the system work. They will struggle with the void of the lost biological parent. It's rare that there was a connection there. They may feel like they struggle in life feeling that they're a burden to everybody or everything is their fault, they may feel like they ruin people or ruin situations. They may really struggling with holding others accountable and I think the thing to process this in your recovery or in therapy or whatever, is that you didn't ask for that and you didn't ask to be considered as a burden or you need to process the immense feelings of responsibility that shouldn't have been yours.
Number one, the final one, and then we're gonna do an additional one after that, is probably the most common one. You guys are probably more familiar with this. This is what I call aggressor codependent. This one is very common, very familiar. One of the parents is rageful, violent, toxic has some cluster b stuff going on or is substance addicted and the other parent is codependent and doesn't protect or doesn't leave. I know that that's loaded and I know that that's complicated but this is just, I'm looking at that system from how I sort of see this. Some examples... the kids witness the co-dependent avoid or try to make things work even if that parent is being abused, so there's that witnessing of all that. Kids will take care of the codependent and that codependent parent may allow that kind of caretaking to happen. The abusive or the aggressor usually holds things hostage, like the money, the job, the house which is a really rageful kind of like really oppressive kind of system issue. The system is usually locked and dancing around the aggressor's feelings and the co-dependent parent is probably teaching that dancing. Kids witness a toxic power struggle like coming back to if I ask a client, "what did your parents model for you?" This family is modeling that relationships are a power struggle or a hostage crisis or both. That's what I mean about that concept. For adults who grow up in a system like this, they will struggle with trust. They most likely, what I see, hold a lot of internal rage about accountability, about people not being protective, that kind of a thing. They can find themselves in codependent relationships themselves, they can be very familiar with toxic people, they can be very triggered about not feeling protected or heard from their partner, like that's where all the rage kind of goes that should be going to that co-dependent parent. The thing to process or some things to process, and this one in your healing journey or recovery, is that it's usually the codependent parent that we're going to be needing to do most of the work on. We might see them as a victim, we might see them as a tragic figure, we might have seen them as sort of doing their best, but there is a lot of work to do with the safer parent because it's almost like the aggressor is sort of a no-brainer and hopefully that makes sense meaning it's so like loud and obvious that that person is sort of toxic that we don't need to kind of like figure it out so much. But there is a lot of wounding that happens with the aggressor. But again, most of my clients have to do their work so a lot of work around the codependent parent.
So there's that.
An honorable mention in this list is for those children that grow up in adopted families or foster care. While it's not super common, is I do want to include it because it's sort of I feel like there's not enough voice to that in some of these videos. So kids growing up being displaced or having multiple caregivers or what I call like fast-switching or fast-moving attachments is really detrimental to a child. We all can understand that, we all kind of get that. All of the moving and loss usually causes kids to disassociate, meaning leaving their emotional safe body and go up into their heads thinking about what is the next move, what's the next thing that's going to happen. That's pretty much a definition of trauma. In all of these families, kids would be leaving their bodies and going into their heads - that's what I mean by that. So for those who are adopted and in foster care or have several families to process rather than one, so the healing piece in that is they have to process their biological parents, they may have the process like that good family that they were with for six months and then the really nasty family that they were with for three years. So there's a lot of processing. So I wanted to mention that.
So that was the list. I wanted to let you know that how you can use this list as a resource is to first write down the types of family systems that you really resonate with. You can be from a single parent system as well as a chaotic system and one that also falls into the anti-love category. So those are three lenses to really look at where we come from and what kind of appropriate issues given where we come from, are we going to be looking at to work on. I'd also have you include some major personal details about your story. Like dad was a narcissist, siblings were acting out and being abusive, mom had affairs or she was a drinker or that an uncle stayed with you and there was an abused kind of component to that uncle. So that's what I mean, I did my best to give a ballpark of each sort of family system but you're going to be personalizing it as you sort of do this. If you'd like to write out your own genogram, like those jpegs that I had on the screen, that's just one nuclear family, but there's there's generations going on in the genogram. You can check out the e-course that I have on my website - if you want to do one thoroughly for insight and perspective about your own sort of story and that's all up on my website.
So I hope this video was helpful to you guys and as always may you be filled with loving kindness, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease, may you be joyous. Take care and I'll see you later.
