Personal Growth : Breaking Cycles of Dysfunction

    The next section of is about Personal Growth and taking back control of our own journey. It is the conscious decisions we make to heal ourselves. This entry is specifically about breaking the cycles of dysfunction in your family and your life.

    Dysfunction, like abuse and growth, comes in a myriad of varieties but it will have a pattern and is often generational. There are a set of unspoken rules for how the dysfunction works and continues. Families may unwittingly pass these unspoken rules and dysfunction down through generations, even while attempting to break their own cycles. 

    The first step to breaking a cycle is to acknowledge that one exists in the first place. It is taking a step back to observe patterns of behavior within a family unit and/or within your own actions and to access if this pattern leads to healthy behaviors or dysfunctional behaviors. It may include empathizing and sympathizing with why this pattern has emerged while also recognizing its overall impact to the family and personal health.

" My examples will largely be from the perspective of someone breaking family cycles. The hardest part of seeing the pattern for me was that I was too close to it. I could understand why people were behaving that way and I was giving them a pass. Understanding why someone behaves badly can be helpful in pattern recognition but it should not be a pass on behaving better or holding someone accountable." - D.M.

    The next step is to decide what you are going to do about this cycle of dysfunction that you have recognized. Depending on the type of dysfunction, even making small changes for yourself  can generate a reaction in others around you. It can be hard to decide where to start making changes - Are you going to start therapy? Confront your family with the issue? Get sober? Take an anger management class? Go low or no contact with people? Use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to modify your own behavior?

    Once you have decided what to do you need to act on that decision.

    Most issues are the sort that you need to start with personal work and changes in your own life before you can incorporate any others in making changes. While therapy can be a great tool for some, it may not be the best fit or even accessible to all. The starting point has to be taking accountability for your own actions and making an effort not to repeat patterns of dysfunction in your own life. 

"I know that saying to make an effort not to repeat a pattern sounds over simplified and in some ways it is but that is the base of what breaking the cycle is. It is taking a long hard look at the life those around you live, noting the behaviors and outcomes and then making a decision for yourself on what you want. For example, I made note of my parents communication styles and how they handled anger. I knew the way their actions made me feel and I decided that I would not be handling my anger the same way they did. It has been an imperfect process of learning what management style works for me but ultimately I have reached my goal of not weaponizing my anger but using it as a conversation piece when moving toward a solution with my own partner and community. I still struggle with feeling like I have rage and anger issues but my feelings do not dictate my behavior. I am not continuing a cycle where my anger is used to create fear in others. " - D.M.

    Ways to break cycles of dysfunction

• Be honest and open to healthy criticism
• Be open to good faith conversations about how your behavior impacts others
• Be willing to sincerely apologize and make an effort to change problematic behaviors
• Disengage from bad faith conversations that continue patterns of dysfunction, this may take practice to learn to recognize
• Make a consistent effort to engage in healthy behaviors
• Accept that you may not know what a healthy behavior is and seek out information and resources to help you learn - its okay not to know what you don't know
• Seek professional help as needed, especially for mental health or addiction issues
• There are some struggles that simply can not be managed alone and it is okay to ask for help when you need it.
• Surround yourself with a community who supports your healthy choices
• Sometimes the family we are born into is not the most supportive, you may need to reach out to your found family or to a support group instead
• Be willing to set firm boundaries with others
• You have to advocate for yourself even if that initially makes you feel guilty or mean
• No is a full sentence
• You can love someone unconditionally without tolerating their behavior unconditionally
• Its okay to put yourself in time out if you need space
• Remember that progress is not linear and that your growth will come with both victories and defeats, but you can always try again tomorrow

   

     Some issues are worth a discussion with your family about why a pattern has emerged and about how it no longer serves to help the family. Whether this is something that is safe or that you have the spoons for is a serious consideration before starting a discussion. A discussion does not mean change on the part of others is guaranteed. 

Some discussions may be heavier one on one conversations with a parent or partner. This can be a place of growth if both parties are receptive to it.

    "Following up on my previous example, once I had addressed my own management of anger and worked through some of my own trauma I had a conversation with my mother. She was receptive to having an adult conversation where she explained to me the personal work she had done and acknowledged the way her anger impacted my upbringing. She then resolved to continue her personal work and the result is we have a much stronger healthier relationship today."- D.M.

    Some discussions will be a series of conversations with multiple people over time that result in an overall change for a wider family unit.

    In my family, the discussions that we have been having focus on mental health and how we talk about it primarily. It is myself and one of my cousins driving these conversations. They are not big sit downs with everyone in the extended family but rather a series of short conversations we have as they come up organically. The overall result is a gradual shift in how most of our family talks about and treats people who are openly struggling with mental illness resulting in more compassion and awareness.

    We do still have family members who are not open to change, but they have identified themselves as not being a safe place to seek help in mental health situations and the rest of the family has been able to adjust their expectations accordingly." - D.M.

    Family or group therapy may be a good fit for some situations but it is important to remember that certain types of abusers can make this an ineffective option. 

    Breaking the cycle of dysfunction is more about a million small choices you make rather than one big one. You may find that you break some cycles and not others. You can always make the decision to try again tomorrow or to try to help someone else in your family or community break a cycle you can not.

    " I talk a lot and I am close to both my grandmothers. It has been an eye opening experience to hear what cycles they broke in their own family before I was born. I think it is important to appreciate that sometimes there is a lot that needs to be fixed and each generation is working within its own paradigm. Again, I am not excusing some behaviors that still came down through the family but understanding why has helped me better evaluate why I make the choices I make.

    One of my grandmothers waited to have children until she could provide a stable home away from her mentally unwell mother in law. The other made a point to be a supportive mother and grandmother in a way she did not have in her own life. They each made their own mistakes but these were big decisions where they were learning as they went and wanted BETTER for their own children. Its imperfect and flawed as all humans are but I still see they act on the motivations for those decisions even today in their attempts to make our family a safe and happy place to be.

    And at the end of the day, both of these women are still willing to have conversations with me about their choices, their successes, and their failures so that my generation can learn from them and do better. This is them breaking a cycle still, because it is a relationship I have with them that neither could have had with their own grandmothers." - D.M.