Dysfunctional Families Quotes

“Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Carrie Fisher: "I did masses of opiates religiously.”
― Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge

“I knew Dad was concerned about my past associations. I was from the Trash Alley. It was my community. I hung out with thugs from the Frog Bottom, the Burns Bottoms, the Red Line, the S-Curve, the Sandfield, the Morning Side, and a bunch of other places that shall remain nameless. I knew all of the “Legends of the Hood”: Sin Man, Swap, Boo Boo, Emp-Man, Cookie Man, Shank, Polar Bear, Bae Willy, Bae Bruh, Skullhead Ned, Pimp, Crunch, and Goat Turd (just to name a few). I thought maybe Dad had summoned me as a “show and tell” for the kids in his neighborhood—the hardliner to scare those wayward suburban brats back into reality.”
― Harold Phifer, Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar

“A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.”
― Keri Hulme, The Bone People

“I explain to my patients that abused children often find it hard to disentangle themselves from their dysfunctional families, whereas children grow away from good, loving parents with far less conflict. After all, isn't that the task of a good parent, to enable the child to leave home?”
― Irvin Yalom, سپیده حبیب, Momma and the Meaning of Life: Tales of Psychotherapy

“If a man was around when Aunt Kathy came by, she would berate him and throw him out. I even saw her toss guys out at gunpoint. She’d threaten them and say, “I will shoot you until I can’t see you!” I remember thinking, “How is that possible? That’s a lot of damn shooting!” ”
― Harold Phifer, Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar

“The teacher pulled out a pile of papers. They were Bennie’s tests and homework assignments. Mrs. Lewis said, “Ma’am, here is the proof that Bennie isn’t up to a fourth grade level. He has an F on several of these assignments. In fact, a zero grade is too high for some of Bennie’s work this last year.”
― Harold Phifer, Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar

“See, I think there are roads that lead us to each other. But in my family, there were no roads - just underground tunnels. I think we all got lost in those underground tunnels. No, not lost. We just lived there.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster

“Adults who were hurt as children inevitably exhibit a peculiar strength, a profound inner wisdom, and a remarkable creativity and insight. Deep within them - just beneath the wound - lies a profound spiritual vitality, a quiet knowing, a way of perceiving what is beautiful, right, and true. Since their early experiences were so dark and painful, they have spent much of their lives in search of the gentleness, love, and peace they have only imagined in the privacy of their own hearts.”
― Wayne Muller, Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantage of a Painful Childhood

“The fear of abandonment forced me to comply as a child, but I’m not forced to comply anymore. The key people in my life did reject me for telling the truth about my abuse, but I’m not alone. Even if the consequence for telling the truth is rejection from everyone I know, that’s not the same death threat that it was when I was a child. I’m a self-sufficient adult and abandonment no longer means the end of my life.”
― Christina Enevoldsen, The Rescued Soul: The Writing Journey for the Healing of Incest and Family Betrayal

“The happy family is a myth for many.”
― Carolyn Spring

“Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said "I am sorry for what you went through" or "I am here for you." Instead they said hurtful things: "Oh he was young." "That is what kids do." "It is not like he was some older man you didn't know." Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.”
― Erin Merryn, Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness

“Awkward silences rule the world. People are so terrified of awkward silences that they will literally go to war rather than face an awkward silence.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“Making amends is not only saying the words but also being willing to listen to how your behavior caused another’s pain, and then the really hard part…changing behavior.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Another thing I learned in therapy?" Angie said. "The kids in dysfunctional families who act out and rebel are the ones who are the healthiest mentally. They're the ones who see that something's wrong. That's why they act out, because they see the house is burning down, and they're screaming for help. That was you.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“When faced with choosing between attributing their pain to “being crazy” and having had abusive parents, clients will choose “crazy” most of the time. Dora, a 38-year-old, was profoundly abused by multiple family perpetrators and has grappled with cutting and eating disordered behaviors for most of her life. She poignantly echoed this dilemma in her therapy:
I hate it when we talk about my family as “dysfunctional” or “abusive.” Think about what you are asking me to accept—that my parents didn't love me, care about me, or protect me. If I have to choose between "being abused" or "being sick and crazy," it's less painful to see myself as nuts than to imagine my parents as evil.”
― Lisa Ferentz, Treating Self-Destructive Behaviors in Trauma Survivors: A Clinician's Guide

“Sexual abuse is also a secret crime, one that usually has no witness. Shame and secrecy keep a child from talking to siblings about the abuse, even if all the children in a family are being sexually assaulted. In contrast, if a child is physically or emotionally abused, the abuse is likely to occur in front of the other children in the family, at least some of the time. The physical and emotional abuse becomes part of the family's explicit history. Sexual abuse does not.”
― Renee Fredrickson, Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“A home isn't always destroyed by outsiders; sometimes family members cause even greater damage.”
― Sanu Sharma, अर्को देशमा [Arko Deshma]

“She was so upset about a blog that maybe a total of six people read yet had no compassion for her granddaughters who had suffered the physical and emotional pains of sexual abuse and whose lives were changed forever. The two cannot even be compared, yet when someone is in denial about what happened, they cannot perceive what is true. It seemed too hard for her to let her mind go there and believe her grandson could do such terrible things.”
― Erin Merryn, Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness

“घर सधैँ बाहिरकाले बिगार्दैनन्, कहिले काहीँ घरभित्रकाले झनै नराम्ररी बिगार्छन् ।”
― Sanu Sharma, अर्को देशमा [Arko Deshma]

“We covered this around Year Three, Bill: that you're the Master of Space and Time and I'm a spastic Pomeranian.”
― Tracy Letts, August: Osage County

“In some instances, even when crisis intervention has been intensive and appropriate, the mother and daughter are already so deeply estranged at the time of disclosure that the bond between them seems irreparable. In this situation, no useful purpose is served by trying to separate the mother and father and keep the daughter at home. The daughter has already been emotionally expelled from her family; removing her to protective custody is simply the concrete expression of the family reality.
These are the cases which many agencies call their “tragedies.” This report of a child protective worker illustrates a case where removing the child from the home was the only reasonable course of action:

Division of Family and Children’s Services received an anonymous telephone call on Sept. 14 from a man who stated that he
overheard Tracy W., age 8, of [address] tell his daughter of a forced oral-genital assault, allegedly perpetrated against this child by her mother’s boyfriend, one Raymond S.

Two workers visited the W. home on Sept. 17. According to their report, Mrs. W. was heavily under the influence of alcohol at the time of the visit. Mrs. W. stated immediately that she was aware why the two workers wanted to see her, because Mr. S. had “hurt her little girl.” In the course of the interview, Mrs. W. acknowledged and described how Mr. S. had forced Tracy to have relations with him. Workers then interviewed Tracy and she verified what mother had stated. According to Mrs. W., Mr. S. admitted the sexual assault, claiming that he was drunk and not accountable for his actions. Mother then stated to workers that she banished Mr. S. from her home.

I had my first contact with mother and child at their home on Sept. 20 and I subsequently saw this family once a week. Mother was usually intoxicated and drinking beer when I saw her. I met Mr. S. on my second visit. Mr. S. denied having had any sexual relations with Tracy. Mother explained that she had obtained a license and planned to marry Mr. S.

On my third visit, Mrs. W. was again intoxicated and drinking despite my previous request that she not drink during my visit. Mother explained that Mr. S. had taken off to another state and she never wanted to see him again. On this visit mother demanded that Tracy tell me the details of her sexual involvement with Mr. S.
On my fourth visit, Mr. S. and Mrs. S. were present. Mother explained that they had been married the previous Saturday.
On my fifth visit, Mr. S. was not present. During our discussion, mother commented that “Bay was not the first one who had
Tracy.” After exploring this statement with mother and Tracy, it became clear that Tracy had been sexually exploited in the same manner at age six by another of Mrs. S.'s previous boyfriends.
On my sixth visit, Mrs. S. stated that she could accept Tracy’s being placed with another family as long as it did not appear to Tracy that it was her mother’s decision to give her up. Mother also commented, “I wish the fuck I never had her.”

It appears that Mrs. S. has had a number of other children all of whom have lived with other relatives or were in foster care for part of their lives. Tracy herself lived with a paternal aunt from birth to age five.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Father-Daughter Incest

“[U]nhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. He or she has to learn to forgive him or herself.”
― Jeanette Winterson

“I tried to copy my parents, as monkeys do, but they were trying to copy me, looking to the child for the energy and hope they had long since lost.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Gut Symmetries

“Like many family dynamics, it didn't have to be healthy, it just had to work.”
― T. Kingfisher, A House with Good Bones

“The CAS sent me to a therapist. He actually wasn’t half bad at first—real young, kinda cute, a bit stuck up with degrees in fancy IKEA frames all over his concrete walls and new-agey music playing. I mean, what kind of therapist has background music? Like was he going to massage my feet too? No doubt, he was making good money, though. To be honest, if he had made a move on me, I might have been okay with it.”
― Wayne Ng, The Family Code (206)

“There are alcoholics dripping from both sides of my family tree. Some grandparents, some great grandparents, some uncles and aunts all had long periods where they drank endlessly. Throw in mental illness here and there too. Some drugs. It’s their story to tell though, so I won’t try, but I feel like I was born with
scar tissue sometimes.”
― christopher morris, We Are All Made of Scars

“The second radical choice I made was to notice and then express the face that I was filled with rage and grief. Who knew? This was very disloyal to my family, for me to no longer play along with the family plan, but all the ways of pretending that I'd been taught were crippling, life-threatening. They had turned me from a delicious dough of flour, yeast, sugar and salt into a desperately self-conscious pretzel.”
― Anne Lamott, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott

“I hate it the way we always fight at mealtimes," Luke said. "It always feels like I'm getting ready to land on Normandy Beach when I sit down to this table.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“I could not measure the cost of loving a family so deeply and with such cold fury.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“Does a mother ever step back and see that it could be her doing, when she realizes that both her sons turned out to be their abusive father.

Is she more upset that she tolerated it from their dad OR mad that her daughters-in-law won't tolerate it from her sons.”
― Niedria D. Kenny