110 Quotes About Dysfunctional-families

Since children from dysfunctional families are so good at judging others, they also judge themselves finding themselves unacceptable when compared to others, always assuming they are second best, not enough. This is a painful realization so often they hide behind righteous arrogance.

Being judgmental is a form of attack keeping others off balance.

Boundary violations are deeply experienced.

If we want to improve, first we have to recognize our own maladaptive coping skills, called codependency, then change.

If no one has boundaries…how can there be any transgression?

With improved coping skills forged through my midlife crisis, I now listen first and do not control, and I allow these now adult children to come to their own conclusions about what they want for their lives.

Codependency is a learned set of behaviors, thought processes, and habits. When combined together, they fit a very loose definition. All people exhibit these traits to some degree, but some of us allow them to dictate our relationships with others and ourselves.

I’ve written more about my parents than any writer in the history of the world, and I still return to their mysterious effigies as I try to figure out what it all means—some kind of annunciation or maybe even a summing-up They still exert immense control over me even though they’ve been dead for so long. But I can conjure up their images without exerting a thimbleful of effort.

There is a world of difference between the experienceof 'care' – the wiping of a bottom, the bathing of a body: basicbiological obligations – and the intimacy that makes us wantto live.