Re: family systems

[Guest guest]

Walking,

 

I don't think it is the book I read--some of the research you talk about does

not sound familiar.  On the other hand, it sounds like it's a good book and that

you're getting a lot out of it, so I'm glad you're reading that one instead.  It

may be better than the book I read, although some of the information sounds

similar.

 

I think the family systems dynamic makes a lot of sense.  I can't really tell

that much if it applies to my own family because I can't really remember and

it's hard to have much perspective on the behavior of the family as a whole when

I often was mostly just really trying not to know much of anything about what

was going on.

 

It makes sense to me that the family would be really invested in not changing

because they are living in the midst of crisis.  The pressure simply to survive

seems very overwhelming in that instance, and if you are worried about your

survival, you look to try to keep repeating what seems to have allowed you to

survive in the past.  Deviating from that would seem very dangerous.

 

I also think it's very hard not to have a family with a bpd member who is not in

recovery and not also have the family be completely organized around dealing

with the pathology because it is so all-consuming.  Maybe it is possible to have

healthy families with a mentally ill member when that person is in treatment for

it, but it seems to me that when the person is not, the family ends up in

unrelenting crisis and it is the unreleanting crisis that precipitates

rigidity.  It's not that everyone wants the bpd to continue, but they want the

family to be stable and certain behaviors have seemed to keep it that way in the

face of the bpd crises.

 

I also agree that behavior in a family with someone with bpd is likely to be

bizarrely predictable.  It was in my own experience.  When nada acted out,

everyone reacted in more or less the same ways for more than a decade.  There

was absolutely no change in anyone's role.  When many of us start to step out of

our roles in the family, it seems like many people face pressure from siblings

and the other parent to change back.

 

Ashana

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[Guest guest]

The dynamics present in an alcoholic home can also manifest themselves in other

families where one family member has strong issues...whether they be drug

addicts, compulsive gamblers, workaholics, and even if they are mentally ill or

have severe physical illnesses or disabilities.

2

-- In WTOAdultChildren1 , " walkingto_happiness "

wrote:

>

> Hi friends.

> Ashana on here recommended a book to me: The Alcoholic Family. She didn't

tell me the author's name, so I'm not sure if I'm reading the same book she

meant, but I got a book of that title by Dr. Steinglass.

>

> THis book is giving me a lot of lightbulb moments, I have a hard time putting

it down. Ashana recommended this book because it is written from a Family

Systems perspective, which is apparently the idea in psychology that alcoholism

or mental illness or anything pathological at all happens in the context of a

family.

>

> There is so much to this book! I'm only partway through, and I understand so

much in such a different way. It's almost as if, if you substitute " BPD " for

" Alcoholic " in the title and in the book itself, the book would still make

sense. For example, instead of thinking of myself and my behaviors that I don't

like as individual behaviors, they make a lot more sense in terms of a family

system that is structured and created around the pathology. So, it is not just

an alcoholic, but the entire family is arranged around alcohol. And, although

everyone in the family may say in therapy that the alcoholic is the problem, the

entire family stays put and nothing changes. In the book, the author describes

how alcoholic families go through a constant cycle of sobriety and then

intoxication. They did really intersting studies where they had the alcoholic

get drunk and observed the family's interactions. The researchers observed that

the family would interact more when it was in its intoxicated state. Some of the

family members would say they could only express emotions during this time.

Other families would avoid each other during intoxicated times. Whatever their

reactions, the entire family had really predictable behaviors and patterns

surrounding the intoxicated time periods. The reserachers point out that what

had previously been described as a chaotic environment, the alcoholic family is

actually really predictable.

>

> One thing that is also really interesting is that there are different times

in the life cycle of families, there are different issues families deal with.

In the middle stage, alcoholic families are interested in maintaing things the

way they are, and they shortcircuit any normal developmental growth on the part

of individuals in the family in order to maintain the alcoholic family system.

In contrast, a normal family (Whatever normal means these days) would be

flexible to change and allow each individual member to address their specific

developmental needs and the entire family would be able to accomodate change and

development within it.

>

> Wow. I think this really applies to the BPD family as well. MY FOO had roles

for each FOO member to paricipate in the FOO BPD system. I was always stuck at a

certain age around them. I could never address my own developmental needs

throughout the entire decades I was in contact with the FOO.

> I also see any change being threatening to the FOO. Any change was not met

with flexibility, but rather with anxiety, panic and drama. This maintaned the

status quo, similar to the intoxicated state in the alcoholic family maintaining

the same arrested development for the family system and the individuals in it.

I think this really relates to my experience of my own FOO.

>

> I so do this, to this day. When faced with any change in a relationship or

friendship or business, I get all worked up, anxious and I confront people, and

up till now I thought it was me, and I would beat myself up about it after.

Now, I see that I learned this behavior as part of the BPD Family system.

>

> Perhaps change can be met with calmness. And not excitement and anxiety.

That was the predicatable pattern of response to change in my FOO. Totally

inflexible. The point was to maintain everything as it was, to maintain the BPD

family cycle or family system. I am drawing my analogy from the alcoholic

family system.

>

> Can anyone relate? ANyone read this or a similar book? Is this the book you

meant, Ashana?

>

> Thanks,

> WAlking to happiness.

>

[Guest guest]

I would agree as I discovered this when reading several books on the topic of

how to deal with my BPD mom over the past couple of years, my feelings and

symptoms resembled those described for children of alcoholics which really took

me aback.

> >

> > Hi friends.

> > Ashana on here recommended a book to me: The Alcoholic Family. She didn't

tell me the author's name, so I'm not sure if I'm reading the same book she

meant, but I got a book of that title by Dr. Steinglass.

> >

> > THis book is giving me a lot of lightbulb moments, I have a hard time

putting it down. Ashana recommended this book because it is written from a

Family Systems perspective, which is apparently the idea in psychology that

alcoholism or mental illness or anything pathological at all happens in the

context of a family.

> >

> > There is so much to this book! I'm only partway through, and I understand so

much in such a different way. It's almost as if, if you substitute " BPD " for

" Alcoholic " in the title and in the book itself, the book would still make

sense. For example, instead of thinking of myself and my behaviors that I don't

like as individual behaviors, they make a lot more sense in terms of a family

system that is structured and created around the pathology. So, it is not just

an alcoholic, but the entire family is arranged around alcohol. And, although

everyone in the family may say in therapy that the alcoholic is the problem, the

entire family stays put and nothing changes. In the book, the author describes

how alcoholic families go through a constant cycle of sobriety and then

intoxication. They did really intersting studies where they had the alcoholic

get drunk and observed the family's interactions. The researchers observed that

the family would interact more when it was in its intoxicated state. Some of the

family members would say they could only express emotions during this time.

Other families would avoid each other during intoxicated times. Whatever their

reactions, the entire family had really predictable behaviors and patterns

surrounding the intoxicated time periods. The reserachers point out that what

had previously been described as a chaotic environment, the alcoholic family is

actually really predictable.

> >

> > One thing that is also really interesting is that there are different times

in the life cycle of families, there are different issues families deal with.

In the middle stage, alcoholic families are interested in maintaing things the

way they are, and they shortcircuit any normal developmental growth on the part

of individuals in the family in order to maintain the alcoholic family system.

In contrast, a normal family (Whatever normal means these days) would be

flexible to change and allow each individual member to address their specific

developmental needs and the entire family would be able to accomodate change and

development within it.

> >

> > Wow. I think this really applies to the BPD family as well. MY FOO had

roles for each FOO member to paricipate in the FOO BPD system. I was always

stuck at a certain age around them. I could never address my own developmental

needs throughout the entire decades I was in contact with the FOO.

> > I also see any change being threatening to the FOO. Any change was not met

with flexibility, but rather with anxiety, panic and drama. This maintaned the

status quo, similar to the intoxicated state in the alcoholic family maintaining

the same arrested development for the family system and the individuals in it.

I think this really relates to my experience of my own FOO.

> >

> > I so do this, to this day. When faced with any change in a relationship or

friendship or business, I get all worked up, anxious and I confront people, and

up till now I thought it was me, and I would beat myself up about it after.

Now, I see that I learned this behavior as part of the BPD Family system.

> >

> > Perhaps change can be met with calmness. And not excitement and anxiety.

That was the predicatable pattern of response to change in my FOO. Totally

inflexible. The point was to maintain everything as it was, to maintain the BPD

family cycle or family system. I am drawing my analogy from the alcoholic

family system.

> >

> > Can anyone relate? ANyone read this or a similar book? Is this the book

you meant, Ashana?

> >

> > Thanks,

> > WAlking to happiness.

> >

>

[Guest guest]

I would agree as I discovered this when reading several books on the topic of

how to deal with my BPD mom over the past couple of years, my feelings and

symptoms resembled those described for children of alcoholics which really took

me aback.

> >

> > Hi friends.

> > Ashana on here recommended a book to me: The Alcoholic Family. She didn't

tell me the author's name, so I'm not sure if I'm reading the same book she

meant, but I got a book of that title by Dr. Steinglass.

> >

> > THis book is giving me a lot of lightbulb moments, I have a hard time

putting it down. Ashana recommended this book because it is written from a

Family Systems perspective, which is apparently the idea in psychology that

alcoholism or mental illness or anything pathological at all happens in the

context of a family.

> >

> > There is so much to this book! I'm only partway through, and I understand so

much in such a different way. It's almost as if, if you substitute " BPD " for

" Alcoholic " in the title and in the book itself, the book would still make

sense. For example, instead of thinking of myself and my behaviors that I don't

like as individual behaviors, they make a lot more sense in terms of a family

system that is structured and created around the pathology. So, it is not just

an alcoholic, but the entire family is arranged around alcohol. And, although

everyone in the family may say in therapy that the alcoholic is the problem, the

entire family stays put and nothing changes. In the book, the author describes

how alcoholic families go through a constant cycle of sobriety and then

intoxication. They did really intersting studies where they had the alcoholic

get drunk and observed the family's interactions. The researchers observed that

the family would interact more when it was in its intoxicated state. Some of the

family members would say they could only express emotions during this time.

Other families would avoid each other during intoxicated times. Whatever their

reactions, the entire family had really predictable behaviors and patterns

surrounding the intoxicated time periods. The reserachers point out that what

had previously been described as a chaotic environment, the alcoholic family is

actually really predictable.

> >

> > One thing that is also really interesting is that there are different times

in the life cycle of families, there are different issues families deal with.

In the middle stage, alcoholic families are interested in maintaing things the

way they are, and they shortcircuit any normal developmental growth on the part

of individuals in the family in order to maintain the alcoholic family system.

In contrast, a normal family (Whatever normal means these days) would be

flexible to change and allow each individual member to address their specific

developmental needs and the entire family would be able to accomodate change and

development within it.

> >

> > Wow. I think this really applies to the BPD family as well. MY FOO had

roles for each FOO member to paricipate in the FOO BPD system. I was always

stuck at a certain age around them. I could never address my own developmental

needs throughout the entire decades I was in contact with the FOO.

> > I also see any change being threatening to the FOO. Any change was not met

with flexibility, but rather with anxiety, panic and drama. This maintaned the

status quo, similar to the intoxicated state in the alcoholic family maintaining

the same arrested development for the family system and the individuals in it.

I think this really relates to my experience of my own FOO.

> >

> > I so do this, to this day. When faced with any change in a relationship or

friendship or business, I get all worked up, anxious and I confront people, and

up till now I thought it was me, and I would beat myself up about it after.

Now, I see that I learned this behavior as part of the BPD Family system.

> >

> > Perhaps change can be met with calmness. And not excitement and anxiety.

That was the predicatable pattern of response to change in my FOO. Totally

inflexible. The point was to maintain everything as it was, to maintain the BPD

family cycle or family system. I am drawing my analogy from the alcoholic

family system.

> >

> > Can anyone relate? ANyone read this or a similar book? Is this the book

you meant, Ashana?

> >

> > Thanks,

> > WAlking to happiness.

> >

>