Quotes & Sayings About Dysfunctional Family

Character is destiny. For the cronic do-gooder, the happy-go-lucky sociopath, the dysfunctional family, under the gun everyone diverts to who they are. We may hunger to map out a new course, but for most of us, the lines have been drawn since we were 5. — Mary McCormack

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

Appeasers will always try to get the least dangerous person to bend to the most dangerous person. This is one of the main problems in dysfunctional relationships. The more mature and rational you are the more you are victimized because, they are aware that you're not going to be as aggressive, destructive, or possibly as abusive and so you are the one who has to bend. You're the one who has to change and this constant rapping of rational people's souls around the prickly irrationalities of other people are what appeasers are constantly doing. — Stefan Molyneux

A lot of people feel like they're victims in life, and they'll often point to past events, perhaps growing up with an abusive parent or in a dysfunctional family. Most psychologists believe that about 85 percent of families are dysfunctional, so all of a sudden you're not so unique. My parents were alcoholics. My dad abused me. My mother divorced him when I was six ... I mean, that's almost everybody's story in some form or not. The real question is, what are you going to do now? What do you choose now? Because you can either keep focusing on that, or you can focus on what you want. And when people start focusing on what they want, what they don't want falls away, and what they want expands, and the other part disappears. (Jack Canfield) — Rhonda Byrne

Seizing God's vision means deciding that you will not spend another day surviving your work environment, family dynamic, or dysfunctional situation. — Steven Furtick

We all come from dysfunctional families and these days I guess that's pretty normal. — Carnie Wilson

All I can tell you is that every family on the planet is dysfunctional and we celebrate occasions as generously as we know how to do. We are all doing our best to appear grateful to have one another. Weren't appearances worth something? — Dorothea Benton Frank

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

Shame is a powerful feeling. There is a tremendous difference between making a mistake and believing you are a mistake...If I don't see myself as being a mistake then it is I who must take responsibility and I am not ready to accept that. — David W. Earle

When you journey inwardly exploring yourself, a sense of personal trust begins. — David W. Earle

If they had a pill that would fix every dysfunctional family in the world, don't you think they'd be selling it?"
"I don't think the world is ready for that kind of happiness. — Michael Thomas Ford

There's something to that in both directions," said Ekaterin mildly. "Nothing is more guaranteed to make one start acting like a child than to be treated like one. It's so infuriating. It took me the longest time to figure out how to stop falling into that trap."
"Yes, exactly," said Kareen eagerly. "You understand! So - how did you make them stop?"
"You can't make them - whoever your particular them is - do anything, really," said Ekaterin slowly. "Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste ... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just ... take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that's hard. — Lois McMaster Bujold

On his contract negotiations with the Devils: It's beyond money at this point. They're not even treating him as a member of their family, unless it's a dysfunctional family. — Kurt Overhardt

Of course, everybody's family is dysfunctional - we've accepted that. What are we supposed to do? Hate our parents for the rest of our lives? — Sandra Bernhard

When I thought about how much time I had already put into a relationship without reciprocation from the other person and how I spent YEARS recovering and trying to recover from the damage of her verbal, emotional and physical abuse and neglect, I realized that I was the only one trying and I wasn't the problem! That understanding changed everything! — Darlene Ouimet

It is hundreds of tiny threads of memories, which sew people together through the years. Despite, their mental separation they stay woven into that tapestry out of habit, emotion, obsession or fear. — Shannon L. Alder

You know the definition of a dysfunctional family, don't you? It's any family with more than one member in it. — Sarah Pekkanen

In Limerick, a family that was dysfunctional was one who could afford to drink but didn't. — Malachy McCourt

I come from a dysfunctional family, so my views of parents and parenting used to be highly mixed. — Tamora Pierce

I came from an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, full of abuse and alcoholism. And eventually everyone within the family had committed suicide. — Story Musgrave

No, I wanted to say, he didn't cut off her hands because he didn't have to, he had cut them off long before, with years of keeping all authority in his own palms, all the rules and all the power and all the answers emanating from him and no one else. And if you don't understand that, if you've never been in such a family, then you can't know the way the mind shackles itself and amputates its own limbs so adeptly that you never think to miss them, never think that you had anything so obscene as choice. — Carolina De Robertis

The more dysfunctional, the more some family members seek to control the behavior of others. — David W. Earle

With the world as it now presents itself, there is something perverse, and probably dysfunctional, about a person who stays in the same house for 40 years. What about the expanding family syndrome, the school-lottery migration, the property portfolio neurosis? Have you no imagination? — Iain Sinclair

We fight a lot, you know, but that's family. We may be dysfunctional but we're still family. — Star Jones

Maybe every family is dysfunctional, and that's the only thing in common throughout the world. — Julie Delpy

When I clicked into this idea of doing a band and examining a band as a dysfunctional family, I wanted to reverse that Rescue Me formula. — Denis Leary

Sitting on the hot seat of change requires much courage, patience, and persistence. — David W. Earle

We all have rosy memories of a simpler, happy time- a time of homemade apple pie and gingham curtains, a time when Mom understood everything and Dad could fix anything. "Let's get those traditional family values back!" we murmur to each other. Meanwhile, in a simultaneous universe, everyone I know, and every celebrity I don't know, is coming out of the closet to talk about how miserable they are because they grew up in dysfunctional families. — Cynthia Heimel

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 Saenz

You did not invent these family habits. Your family is like mine, for thousands and thousands of years our families have embraced a dysfunctional lifestyle, passing these habits as gospel on to subsequent generations. This was not done out of malice, spite, or hate, but what they knew best. As ineffective as these habits are, you never stopped to consider another way of loving. — David W. Earle

The more severe the dysfunction you experienced growing up, the more difficult boundaries are for you. — David W. Earle

A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it. — Mary Karr

People talk about dysfunctional families; I've never seen any other kind. — Sue Grafton

My mom called Grandma today and told her we would no longer be attending family parties. My mom told her we have had enough of being blamed for something Brian did and everyone brushing it off like it was no big deal. — Erin Merryn

I play a guy who believes he's a king. He's the most common man in the world; in fact his family, like his suits, are just make-up. It's about dysfunctional people and dysfunctional relationships. — James Caan

I was quite able at the insignificant work I did in MI6, but absolutely dysfunctional in my domestic life. I had no experience of fatherhood. I had no example of marital bliss or the family unit. — John Le Carre

I know we're all psychotic, single and completely dysfunctional and it's all done over the phone,' Tom slurred sentimentally, 'but it's a bit like a family, isn't it? — Helen Fielding

If you should choose to look at those files, you will have to live with the consequences of your choices while, at the same time, being mindful that these choices will not only effect you, but will also infect, sorry, I intended to say effect, our entire family. — Donna K. Childree

Though all the daughters eventually succeeded in escaping from their families, they felt, even at this time of the interview (while in their 20s and 30s) that they would never be safe with their fathers, and that they would have to defend themselves as long as their fathers lived. — Judith Lewis Herman

'The Glass Castle' by Jeannette Walls is the quintessential dysfunctional family. — Sara Shepard

"Joy" is based, albeit loosely, on the life of Joy Mangano, an entrepreneur, inventor and QVC shopping network star with the mega-selling Miracle Mop. Jennifer Lawrence is excellent as Joy, but the film starts off on the wrong foot with woeful depictions of her background as the only sane person in her dysfunctional family. — Kenneth Turan

THE DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY RULES 1. Control or Chaos. One must be in control of all interactions, feelings and personal behavior at all times - control is the major defense strategy for shame. In the less-than-human shameless marriage, both parents may be cocaine addicts or addicted in other ways. They may be dishonest criminals. The children experience chaos, as well as secrecy rules that guard their family's behavior. 2. Perfectionism or Anomie. Always be right in everything you do. The perfectionist rule always involves an imposed measurement. The fear and avoidance of the negative is the organizing principle of life. The members live according to an externalized image. No one ever measures up. In the less-than-human family, there are no rules - the children have no structure to guide them. — John Bradshaw

The entrance into the family of an outside professional with legal authority is always a crisis-ridden event, but it may be the best insurance that the incest will not continue. — Janis Tyler Johnson

In my family, as in all dysfunctional families, instead of parents who act as strong and nurturing role models for their children, you get these needy people who use their children. I was the kid who tried to take on the marriage. — John Bradshaw

Well, while I didn't have the more extreme experiences of some of my characters, I didn't exactly come from the most normal of households. Or rather, it was normal, in that dysfunctional families appear to be the norm. — Charles De Lint

It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack's mother, and Aliena's brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that her father had died in a dungeon, and she was legally married to Jack's stepbrother, and Ellen was an outlaw, and
She shook her head. It was no use pretending this was a normal family. — Ken Follett

I never dreamed I'd be a spokesman for anything. But Pac Bell just asked me. The money was OK; the scripts were fun because I had to do in 30 seconds what it takes a whole feature to do and because the dysfunctional family of agents, managers and lawyers who represent me said it was cool. — Chris Eigeman

A lot can happen [ because of the dysfunctional family]. People don't look at that. They think, "Oh, my kids are going to be fine. My kids are resilient." But at a certain point, the damage starts. They start to feel pain - and when they feel bad, they start to take painkillers. We want to kill the pain. — Nikki Sixx

A dysfunctional family makes for great writing - — Angela Rose

Families living in dysfunction seldom have healthy boundaries. Dysfunctional families have trouble knowing where they stop and others begin. — David W. Earle

I think every family is dysfunctional, and some manage to control it better than others. — Viggo Mortensen

And could you, from a place of love, actually stand up and, use force, to give someone back, the suffering, they were trying to put on you? Would I do it? Maybe it would even be, an act of fierce compassion, as Enso Roshi sometimes talked about, to not take it any more. To not cow down, anymore. To let my father know, the tyrant, the aggressor, that if he hits me, I'm going to hit back, and hard. — T. Scott McLeod

We come from fallible parents who were kids once, who decided to have kids and who had to learn how to be parents. Faults are made and damage is done, whether it's conscious or not. Everyone's got their own 'stuff,' their own issues, and their own anger at Mom and Dad. That is what family is. Family is almost naturally dysfunctional. — Chris Pine

So much of great American drama has been about a certain kind of dysfunctional family, and maybe my interests are in the kind of strange dysfunction that exists even among deeply functional families. — Stephen Karam

The survivor movements were also challenging the notion of a dysfunctional family as the cause and culture of abuse, rather than being one of the many places where abuse nested. This notion, which in the 1990s and early 1980s was the dominant understanding of professionals characterised the sex abuser as a pathetic person who had been denied sex and warmth by his wife, who in turn denied warmth to her daughters. Out of this dysfunctional triad grew the far-too-cosy incest dyad. Simply diagnosed, relying on the signs: alcoholic father, cold distant mother, provocative daughter. Simply resolved, because everyone would want to stop, to return to the functioning family where mum and dad had sex and daughter concentrated on her exams. Professionals really believed for a while that sex offenders would want to stop what they were doing. They thought if abuse were decriminalised, abusers would seek help. The survivors knew different. P5 — Beatrix Campbell

i can't tell if my mother is
terrified or in love with
my father it all
looks the same

i flinch when you touch me
i fear it is him — Rupi Kaur

I love you, Essie. Before you came into my life, I had considered ending myself. Three hundred years is a long time to be alone. You've given me hope, a career as a drag queen and a dysfunctional family. I am supremely grateful. Bite me." And — Robyn Peterman

Every family is dysfunctional, whether you want to admit it or not. — Shailene Woodley

If you are looking for love under rocks or bringing home water moccasins, you might be confusing love and pain. — David W. Earle

It doesn't matter whether you have the happiest upbringing ... the young Joe Scot had the most dysfunctional family there could be but it's still a family and it's a really good, strong family. But in spite of that he runs away from home. I relate to all of those things very directly. I hit 40 this year but I still think about being a teenager and hopefully I will for the rest of my life. They are important years. — Daniel Craig

Where does the fragmentation of a dysfunctional family begin? I believe it begins before the family does. I believe the wounds are already there, waiting to be cut into existence by the meeting of two unsuitable people and the birth of the children they go on to create with a love that is potent in its powers of destruction. — Rachel Moran

I can't love him. I don't. This feeling is not the selfish, grasping need that I've seen tear apart my family, writhing through heir hearts like worms through rotten apples. — Rosamund Hodge

It's as simple as you can explain all of 'Dallas.' We're a dysfunctional family forced to stay together. — Patrick Duffy

As a child marooned in a post-war South London backwater with no ready cash and a bafflingly dysfunctional family, I had to glean my amusement wherever I could. — Christopher Fowler

You were tossed away like a pair of beautiful, brand new shoes that did not quite fit. — Donna K. Childree

When I was your age, I would go to plays all the time, just sit in the darkness and try to take it all in inside me. Contain everything in some corner of my heart so that when I had my shot, it could all come pouring out - all the lights and moments and colour. — Brenna Ehrlich

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

You cannot fix people who will not take feedback, because from their perspective, they do not have a problem. — Henry Cloud

It's good to learn early that every show is a family
complete with dysfunctional relationships, tough love, and plenty of occasion for forgiveness ... — Kristin Chenoweth

So," said Patrick, "how is my favorite dysfunctional family? Righteously fucked or fucking righteously? — David Dalglish

I've learned that a family can have little glitches without being labeled dysfunctional. — Kathy Najimy

For the church as we know it is a tragically dysfunctional family, in which some children are starving while others have food stashed in their closets. Some of us are living on the street while others have empty rooms in our homes. And, of course, there are all sorts of things being done that bring great dishonor and embarrassment to the family name. — Shane Claiborne

Working in a restaurant means being part of a family, albeit usually a slightly dysfunctional one. Nothing is accomplished independently. — Joe Bastianich

When trying to explain the violent path of some Islamists, Western commentators sometimes blame harsh economic conditions, dysfunctional family circumstances, confused identity, the generic alienation of young males, a failure to integrate into the larger society, mental illness, and so on. Some on the Left insist that the real fault lies with the mistakes of American foreign policy.
None of this is convincing. Jihad in the twenty-first century is not a problem of poverty, insufficient education, or any other social precondition. (Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was earning more than $90,000 a year working for a drilling company in British Columbia, where he also reportedly proclaimed his support of the Taliban and joked about suicide bombing vests, with no repercussions.) We must move beyond such facile explanations. The imperative for jihad is embedded in Islam itself. It is a religious obligation. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I suppose it must be admitted that I was raised in a "dysfunctional" family, but in truth, I do not think I had any sense of that as I was growing up. Probably part of the reason was that all of my extended kin had families at least as dysfunctional as mine. Just to give a little of the flavor of it, my "Aunt Fern," who lived just across the street and was one of the most present and puissant female relatives in my life, was, to be genealogically precise, my mother's brother's, first wife's, second husband's, father's, 3rd, 4th, and 5th wife. (She married "Uncle Lew" three times in the course of her seven matrimonial ventures.) — Carlfred Broderick

In general, the more dysfunctional the family the more inappropriate their response to disclosure. Never expect a sane response from an insane system. — Renee Fredrickson

If this dysfunctional family was the best Sodom had to offer by way of morals, some might begin to feel a certain sympathy with God and his judicial brimstone. — Richard Dawkins

Putting labels on others creates a black hole of disregard where judgment thrives and schisms deepen. — David W. Earle

He is the Truth, and He wants us to deal in truth with ourselves and our loved ones. We want the truth about you and your family to flood into and overrun the secrets that keep you in bondage to dysfunctional behavior and relationships — Henry Cloud

I grew up very poor in a fractured family that was dysfunctional on both sides, but I sort of put up these reflectors to most of the negative things that have occurred in my life. I don't carry around much baggage. — Keith Stanfield

There exits within the ecclesia and among its citizens a phenomena I refer to as 'Spiritual Correctness'. Essentially it says: 'Don't say anything that could offend anyone, focus on what is right with the 'church' and its leadership, don't be critical, speak the truth in 'love', promote the status quo, don't make 'waves', don't call anyone 'out', respect 'authority', don't expose 'wrong-doing', cover those who 'spiritually abuse' others, keep it 'secret' within our family; don't ask any hard questions. Sounds exactly like the textbook definition of a highly dysfunctional family system. The only 'system' and its enablers that Jesus spoke out against vehemently was the religious system of His day and its leadership."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods

Isms' are described as transference of addictive patterns of dysfunctional behaviour, passed down from generation to generation. For instance, if a mother was an alcoholic who never made it into recovery, her behaviour would leave a mark on her children, husband, etc. Unless her adult children join some sort of recovery programme and adopt the mindfulness practice, they will have very similar behaviour traits to their mother but minus the alcohol abuse. There is a strong possibility that they will become codependent and form relationships with other codependents or alcoholics. — Christopher Dines

It is one thing to know about your dysfunctional habits but quite another to change them. — David W. Earle

My dark comic edge is the end result of trying to use humor to maintain my sanity growing up in a dysfunctional family in Honolulu. — Kirby Wright

Here's an idea, how about you stop drinking? How about you go to rehab? Or you could just do us all a favor and die. — Evelyn Smith

What is most important to understand about dysfunctional families is that in keeping the family "secrets," we are harming ourselves and diminishing our ability to be honest and open-hearted with ourselves and others we care about — Katherine Mayfield

In a family, no matter how dysfunctional she is, when one member loses, when one becomes smaller, all lose, all end up becoming smaller. — Angelos Michalopoulos

What I think is that every family is happy in their own fashion, and every family is unhappy in their own fashion. Every family is both functional and dysfunctional. — Elin Hilderbrand

Controlling others is the cornerstone of dysfunctional families. — David W. Earle

My family may be dysfunctional, but I think it's pretty functional in its dysfunction. — Amanda Torrey

Teenagers can spot hypocrisy a mile away and here I was telling them how to cope when they witnessed the shambles of my own life and how I was living. — David W. Earle

You have the right to set ground rules. This means deciding if, when, and how you want to see the people in your family. Many survivors feel that if they open up the channels at all, they have to open them up all the way. When you were a child you had two options - to trust or not to trust. Your options are broader now. — Ellen Bass

I quickly learned that you don't have to be incarcerated by suffering, and that, in spite of the dysfunctional nature of your family, you are an individual in full possession of your life. — Sufjan Stevens

Sometimes, in interviews, I am asked whether The Endless are a dysfunctional family. I do not believe i have ever observed a "functional" family, families are comprised, in equal measure, of unquestioning and undeserved love and of unquestioning and cruelly undeserved irritation: we muddle along s best we can. And that's the best that can be said for us. — Neil Gaiman

We've become something of a family.
A dysfunctional, fucked up family. — Krista Ritchie

Being real is being true to you. — David W. Earle

You think you have a handle on God, the Universe, and the Great White Light until you go home for Thanksgiving. In an hour, you realize how far you've got to go and who is the real turkey. — Shirley Maclaine

If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you'll be going, 'You know, we're alright. We are dang near royalty. — Jeff Foxworthy

If you do not forgive, you are demanding something your offender does not choose to give, even if it is only confession of what he did. This "ties" him to you and ruins boundaries. Let the dysfunctional family you came from go. Cut it loose, and you will be free. — Henry Cloud

It is a family; it's a slightly dysfunctional family, but it's also very close and warm and loving family. — Anna Wintour