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A friend of mine grew up in a home of ten children. It was a large Catholic family. Both parents were verbally abusive alcoholics. The pain in the home was great. To defend themselves, the children withdrew from their parents and one another. When they became adults, the ten were virtual strangers to one another. Psychological problems were rampant. Several became homosexuals and lesbians as adults. If friendships developed among the children, it was in the adult years. The defense of social isolation did two things: first, it decreased the pain and kept it away, and second, it gave some pleasure in that they found ways, many of them unhealthy, to preoccupy the mind. They did not realize the deep loneliness present in this large family of twelve. Nor did they recognize the losses of positive worth. They lacked the opportunity to develop happiness skills and to discover the pleasures of affection. Nor did they receive the greatest gift of all, a positive picture of themselves and their respective genders, which was supposed to be given by their parents. Other defenses are used in the dysfunctional or stressed out home. The children learn to use evasion and develop a façade. “Practiced amiability” is one way to describe this. On the surface a friendly smile is present, while underneath there is nothing. Emotions are not being experienced because for years they have been repressed. Often this is very confusing for a person from a healthy family who marries someone from a stressed out family background. Initially the person with practiced amiability may seem quite charming. After the wedding, when the healthy partner seeks intimacy, he or she is in for quite a surprise. The closer she or he attempts to get, the more nervous the other becomes. A woman married a very charming Latino man. As she attempted to become close, he spent more and more time at the gym. When questioned by a counselor about it, all he could say was that a healthy body was very important. What he was really doing was using the gym as a defense when he felt anxiety over intimacy. His anxiety was due to his lack of happiness skills. The exercise got him out of the home, preoccupied his mind, and most important of all, he did not have to deal with the challenges of intimacy. Eventually they divorced. Some
defenses are chemical in nature. Drugs, alcohol, and smoking
can all be used to kill the pain of relationship. At the same
time they supply some pleasure. What they really do is deaden the
pain in the heart and give some pleasure. Researchers have found that some teenagers are drug resistant. As they researched the teenagers, a common factor was found. Many of them came from happy homes, and they had deep sense of feeling worthwhile. In fact, they had a positive identity. The teenagers who succumbed to drugs were different. Often they came from stressed out homes. Lacking a positive identity or any identity at all, their resistance was low. A counselor to troubled teens and their parents said that inevitably the parents of troubled teens never seemed to smile, and they carried a scorecard to keep track of their children’s failures in their pocket. They were always critical of their children. Unfortunately, even religion can be used as a defense. On the one hand, it provides a means of getting out of the family and preoccupying oneself. On the other hand, religious experiences can be used to induce pleasure in order to escape pain. Christianity, however, was not meant to be used that way. In Christianity, God wants to walk with us through pain so that we can discover a wonderful truth. Oftentimes His comfort can go deeper than our pain. When the central symbol of Christianity is the Cross, it is no surprise that facing pain is a natural part of the Christian experience. Whenever religion is used to keep a person from facing life, it is unhealthy. The principles of an unhealthy home:
These principles are not painted on the walls, but they are the implicit assumptions that govern relationships. As these assumptions work themselves out, the relationships become more and more strained. Due to the pain and stress, often as not addictive behaviors will arise to kill the pain. The heart cannot endure pain. A person’s identity, or the instinctive picture a person carries in the heart, is also negatively affected. It can be affected in one of two ways. The first way is that the person will not have a clear, nor positive, picture of who he or she is within the heart. In a chaotic home neither accurate nor appreciative insights are shared. That being the case the individual at the very best will not have a clear sense of personhood. At worst, he or she will have a deeply negative instinctive view of who he or she is. The way out for the adult who has been damaged by an unhealthy family background is to be reparented by God the Father. Many adults in the world have to discover God as a good “Dad.” Through that relationship, they will have the opportunity to be encouraged, sympathized with, and confronted with kindness, so that the adult ends up with the mind of a sophisticated adult, but the joyous heart’s freedom of a child. That is what Christianity means by salvation. The first step in being reparented by God is to believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died for our wrongdoing, was buried, and rose from the dead. The death He died was a true loss of life, and the resurrection was a true return to life. The resurrection shows that God the Father was pleased with what His Son had done. Out of that pleasure, God will make right anyone who trusts in his Son. After an act of trust in Jesus Christ, the Father in Heaven will begin the process of reparenting the adult. If the new Christian participates in the process intelligently, progress should be fairly rapid. If the Christian refuses to participate in a healthy way, God the Father will be faithful and continue the process. Because that is what good dads do.
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here are four realities that are
present in the stressed out or very unhealthy home. People do
not know who they are or they have a false picture as to who they
are, they do not sustain their relationships through deep affection,
defenses are used repeatedly, and happiness skills are minimal.
Happiness skills are those abilities to sustain long-term
relationships. When a home is in pain and stress, defenses
will arise. Defenses have two purposes: to give pleasure
and to keep out pain. A number of defenses exist, but the most
common one is relational isolation.
