Adults of Dysfunctional Families

Searching for Answers to Life’s Problems

When clients see me, they say that they feel like something is wrong with them – but they don’t know what it is.

One client was drinking too much, overeating, getting sick a lot, and had been seeing older men since she was a teen. She knew this wasn’t who she wanted to be, but she didn’t know how to stop any behaviors.

Whenever we talked about her childhood or her family, she would come in the following week to tell me she had been drinking hard for the past few days.

She even missed work and had to have her sister call in sick for her – because she hated that feeling of being “in trouble,” which was her worst nightmare.

Her problems kept coming one after the other.

Staying Busy and Avoiding the Problem

At other times, she was so busy that she would forget to eat. On those days, she said she liked to miss eating because maybe she could lose some weight and fit into her new jeans that were too small. She’d bought those jeans as an inspiration to lose weight.

But was it also that she didn’t have to think about what was going on in her head?

As we worked together, she noticed she would feel dizzy and strange after an insightful session. She also noticed that her drinking and eating behaviors became worse on the days after we talked.

Reality appeared to escalate her binge drinking and eating.

Lack of Family Reassurance

Whenever she talked about her family, she would start her sentence by saying, “This is going to sound terrible – but…” My reassurance that everything she said to me was confidential helped her see that she had been living in a family where she felt unloved, unnoticed, or uncared for in any appreciable way.

While growing up, she thought that her family members were busy with something else and that their behavior was normal. If her mother forgot to give her lunch money, that was because she had not reminded her mother.

Trying to be a “good girl” was her goal – she wanted to stay out of trouble, so she did everything correctly. But sometimes, that was not possible, and she felt so inadequate and worthless.

Thanks to those jam-packed days, she was successful at her job. But no matter how many promotions she received or how big her bonus was, she didn’t seem to feel happy. In her mind, she thought that her family didn’t even notice her success.

She failed to connect her experiences during childhood and how they continued to make her feel small and forgotten as an adult.

Not Knowing – But Striving for Connection

Some of us grew up in families with too much alcohol, too much focus on food and weight, or too little loving attention from parents.

You may not even be sure about what is wrong. But you find yourself either unable to understand your feelings or haunted by internalized critical thinking that keeps you from doing your best in life.

Our minds and bodies are connected, and when they get disconnected because of an intolerable circumstance, they become hard to reconnect.

Identifying the problem leads to reconnection and healing.

Time to Reconnect

Let’s work together to help you find your feelings and reconnect, both emotionally and physically.

Sometimes, the situations you find yourself in are so stressful or even dangerous that you don’t let yourself “feel” anything. The feelings get stuffed down somewhere, and eventually, they need to be acknowledged and validated.

That’s why I am here. Let me assist you in discovering yourself, the real you, the one who is not judging.

Together, we can get to a place where you can feel your worthiness and find your voice. All the power lives in you.

Please call me at (805) 497-0077, and we’ll chat for 15 minutes to determine if I can help you find your Best Self.