Be Silent And Obey The System

Toxic family rules live at the center of a dysfunctional family system and are designed to keep secrets hidden, enable abuse, keep children in line and avoid responsibility while also preventing safety, growth and connection. Toxic family dynamics can have far-reaching impact on our lives as adults. Children of toxic parents are emotionally starved. The family dynamic functions around the needs, wants, and chaos of the parent. We live with a grief not accepted or understood by society.

Transcript

Welcome to the Stuck Stops Here,

A podcast devoted to cycle breakers.

We want to celebrate and empower those who have woken up and decided that toxic,

Generational dysfunction can end with you.

My name is Tammy Atman and I hit rock bottom in 2014 and during those moments of despair,

I decided change was my only option.

Physical abuse,

Both covert and overt,

Is contagious and leaves invisible scars.

The next generation deserves better than what we got.

Join me and my amazing co-host and producer,

LW,

As we have raw and real conversations infused with bad words and humor designed to inspire awareness,

Acceptance and strength.

We are not therapists and have no clinical training.

You are not alone.

Healing does not happen in isolation.

Together all of us can break the familial chains of shame,

Guilt,

Fear and blame.

Our Stuck can stop you.

Dysfunctional families despise the truth tellers and whistle blowers.

They are all about admiring the emperor's new clothes and they turn on anyone who dares to mention the nakedness.

Quote by Dr.

Sherry Campbell.

Toxic family rules live at the core of a dysfunctional family system and are designed to keep secrets hidden,

Enable abuse,

Keep children in line and avoid responsibility while also preventing safety growth and connection.

Toxic family dynamics have long lasting impact on our lives as adults.

Children of toxic parents are emotionally starved.

The family dynamic functions around the needs,

Wants,

Desires and chaos of the parent.

Children are objects.

Things to be controlled,

Used and manipulated.

It is common for parents to abuse one child while worshiping another.

Each role the children play serves some distorted need of the parents.

The more abused child is raised feeling unloved and rejected while the worship child feels love for good performance and behavior.

Neither is loved or appreciated for who they are.

A toxic person is the product of a toxic environment.

So they are often not aware of their own harmful patterns.

I was not.

Without intervention it can be perpetuated further because we remain in auto pilot and choose to partner with people that reinforce the dysfunction that we were raised with.

Shannon Thomas,

Trauma therapist and author of healing from hidden abuse states that toxic parents exhibit a chronic lack of empathy towards their children.

There are many long lists of toxic family traits and patterns.

I am focusing on the eight that affected me the most.

One,

They make cruel and critical remarks and give you the silent treatment.

Two,

You are expected to avoid conflict at all costs.

Maintain the status quo and never need anything.

Three,

They ignore boundaries because boundaries mean rebellion.

Four,

They play the blame game and make you feel bad about feeling bad.

Five,

Parentification.

The parent children dynamics are reversed.

I was forced to grow up too soon and I had heavy emotional responsibilities.

An adult that was forced to be a parent to a parent as a child will feel compelled to serve as a source of stability and authority even at their own expense.

Control and domination.

My parents viewed us as an extension of themselves and deployed a my way or highway approach to everything.

They were threatened by our independence and autonomy and took comfort in our lack of self-confidence.

This made me anxious,

Full of self-doubt and constantly second guessing my decisions.

Seven,

They move the goal posts.

Manipulative parents change the rules in the middle of the game.

Just when you think you have achieved what they wanted,

It is not good enough.

They have mastered passive aggressive behavior.

This can include guilt trips,

Nonverbal hostility and resentment and cruel sarcasm.

I was frozen and frustrated by the hypocrisy and the twisted communication style my parents used.

The psychological games they played made me feel powerless,

Helpless and trapped.

There is one constant underlying message that is repeated in every article I read,

Every video watch and every book I read.

It is extremely psychologically damaging living in a world of suppressed frustration.

Our society does not validate the emotional,

Verbal and mental abuse that children experience.

Most attempts at sharing our stories are met with disbelief and the minimization of what we are trying to communicate.

This can't be that bad.

Your parents love you.

So we are expected to honor thy mother and father,

To do as we are told and accept who our parents are.

And if we don't,

We are wrong,

Which means blaming the victim.

There is no amount of storytelling we can do that will be more powerful than the societal standard held to never separate from family.

We live with a grief not accepted or understood.

Reducing contact or cutting ties with family is perceived as incomprehensible and something that we caused and brought on ourselves which only intensifies the loneliness and shame that we have been living with for too long.

Risk family rules often stay with dysfunctional families through generations and for life.

Unless someone becomes aware of them and breaks the pattern,

They will get passed on to the next generation.

These are four steps that I took in the early stages of my handling journey.

One,

I acknowledge that their behavior is abusive and I stopped denying the harm that they cause me.

Two,

They don't bother chasing closure and I have given up the fantasy that they will change.

They won't.

I stopped devoting energy to them and stopped reacting to their guilt trips and manipulation.

Three,

I grieve the loss of having the kind of parents that I wanted and needed and deserved.

Like many of you listening,

I was robbed of the child that I should have had and we all deserve to mourn that.

Four,

I had a choice between peace or staying in the toxic relationship with them.

There's no way to have both.

If it brings you more pain than joy,

It's probably not worth it.

I have chosen strict low contact.

Bottom line is there's no right way to deal with a toxic family member.

Only you can decide how much contact is right for you.

I have included a link to two books that I found very helpful called Healing the Child Within,

Written by Dr.

Charles L.

Whitfield and But It's Your Family,

Written by Dr.

Sherry Campbell.

I will end with a quote from Dr.

Whitfield.

When a child is not nurtured or allowed freedom of expression,

A false or codependent self emerges.

We begin to live our lives from a victim's stance and experience difficulties in resolving emotional traumas.

The gradual accumulation of unfinished mental and emotional business can lead to chronic anxiety,

Fear,

Confusion,

Emptiness,

And unhappiness.

We're 326 years old.

My lips are sealed There's a weapon That they use In their defence Silence When they look at you,

Look right through you That's when you disappear And so begins the fear It matters what they don't say Just pretend We're all okay Hey hey hey My lips are sealed Ain't no mind to what they say It doesn't matter anyway My lips are sealed Lyrics by Speak my darling You can fly Tell me your story Forget their lies Can you hear them?

They talk about us Think we're great Well I can't relate They don't see us Not the real us They have a shield Secrets to be concealed It matters what they don't say Just pretend we're all okay My lips are sealed Ain't no mind to what they say Ain't no mind to what they say It doesn't matter anyway My lips are sealed My lips are sealed My lips are sealed You have been listening to The Stuck Stops Here This is LW No Lie Join us again next time Where we continue to dig deep And dive in So we can stop the stuck

Reviews

Are lips are sealed

Thank you Tami. ❤️

Thank you for helping others heal our dysfunctional, family garbage! What an awesome talk. And I loved the “Go Go’s remake song!

You have said everything I never could have said but dreamed of. It’s to late for me but at least I know one person that truly understands. My story is your story that no one would hear from me. I gave up. I am alone and isolated months before the pandemic. Great excuse to hide behind. No one has questioned or called me. I started getting answers/ the real truth when I stopped being the one always calling, caring and putting forth the work into the relationships. Then years later my heart and world was shattered by the truth. At least I know the truth I guess. The denial would have been more pleasant. I’ll never know what I could have been. It would have been something great.