the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

Today’s question from Onsite is “What are some of the lows that arose from your family of origin, and ho have these affected you?”

Honestly there are SO many lows. Maybe one day I will need to list all of them, but there is one in particular that came to my mind first. One of the biggest lows is that lack of conflict resolution, perspective taking, and empathy that happens during conflict. There is so much of all the four horsemen of the Gottman apocalypse (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling), plus often gaslighting, lack of accountability, lying, and even violence. It felt like a tornado and honestly, my family members still act like this during conflict, which is why I have my boundaries with them. From an early adult life I noticed this, and I honestly had not learned to manage conflict better, but at least I was aware and wanted to fix it. Since then, I have worked on myself a lot and handle conflict better with people like my husband, friends, and colleagues whenever they do come up. It seldom feels tense anymore, just raw and vulnerable. Unfortunately, when conflict does come up from time to time with my family, I momentarily revert back to my childhood and teenage self, and my more executive functioned/emotionally mature brain is just blocked. Hence, my boundaries and the need to emotionally and physically distance myself from family members for the time being for my own health to continue figuring out what’s going on within me, and also because I feel like sometimes my family members are looking for drama and I just refuse to participate anymore.