Question: Hi Thanks for your message. the family dynamics is what is happening you are right. My romantic relationship that was supportive on the side has been complex now too as it really was initiated (this was an ex boyfriend from years ago who as a friend I have been in touch with on and off as my real estate agent) I ran to him when these things with family made me run away. over the years I have realized how supportive he has been and my feelings and decisions though real in terms of wanting a long term thing with him, have been clouded by my neediness and vulnerability due to my family drama. This has caused me to get too close to fast and now back track, didn't completely sleep with him but pulled back, now he is distant and he has been my support system. I have asked him about it now as he knows I was vulnerable and though it was his idea to take it slow now so he would also know my feelings for him are real, I need him during this time and his support is invaluable to me. As for counseling I have gone to counseling because of need to figure out healthy relationships (as didn't see it in my family) on and off for years. CBT has helped me but my family I cannot change. They would never come to counseling with me and I feel like they may go on their own and that's fine but you are right that communication is a big issue and not listening to each other. But my brother will listen to my mom, but not to me, my sister out of helplessness and really evil I would say paints my mom and I as the crazy ones since she has big issues with my mom and because I don't allow her to use me or manipulate me. it's so unhealthy I need my sister to be cut off and the only people I could work on are my mom to the extent possible (and I have told her any drama she brings into my life I will not participate in not over text not in person not in any way) which has for now at least made her tone it down a bit. She is more vocal and rude to me when her family is around her and she takes their side over me. The danger with her is she has no borders, no respect for privacy that has caused many issues; I cannot trust her with any info If I am upset with a family member and I tell her, she goes and attacks them, the same happened when she told my brother and he attacked me, so this not dealing with the person directly is a big issue. I will only deal with the person directly in future if I choose to have a relationship at any distance, but I can't change them, they will continue as they have.....it's unhealthy. I needed to get out. even though my brother and mother have reached out to me, I am uncomfortable with both of them still, but time is helping me get a bit easier with my mom, but just texting I still don't want to talk to her. when she calls I don't pick up avoiding her. But I know I need to see her and even if small time frames at a time communicate with her. the trust is so low I haven't let her know where I live just that I am in a nice new place nearby. I don't trust her to keep it to herself and tell my brother who might show up here. I don't trust him now as way he attacked me verbally condescending over text because of my mom. So he and I am not sure how I can deal with all these all at once, so I am letting myself have distance and jsut taking mini steps with my mom now. and will allow her to only treat me with respect and no drama and act healthy or it will affect our relationship she needs to understand. with my brother not sure what can happen....he has embarassed me in front of our family and and bullied me I feel and even though we had zero issues before these dramas he and I get pulled into, and my sister painting me as someone I am not, he gets affected by that and that bothers me a lot....... it's too much all of it to handle at once, so I can only handle what I can and step back. I want to move on with my life too as I am looking for work, during this whole ordeal I was also fired, I know I was distracted at work but also in a new industry I didn't think was the right fit for me so it's ok but I need to focus to find new work and handle this romantic relationship too.....

Penny Bell Says...:

It sounds as if you have been able to establish some firm boundaries around yourself where your family is concerned, and in particular with your mum, with whom you are feeling courageous enough to risk working on a relationship. It's much easier to walk away than it is to work on a relationship that is peppered with hazards, so good on you for persevering. She's your mum, after all, and troubled as she may be, you two have a bond that is special and as you have said, worth hanging on to. If you stick to owning yourself in your family relationships, commit to owning yourself rather than trying to change others or allow others to own you, you will be able to keep those clear boundaries and limits and that should keep your anxiety levels down. There is always that pull from family members to fuse with them, to take sides with them against another or to take the blame for something, and owning yourself by making sure you resist that pull will help you differentiate from the family fusion and become interdependent rather than codependent. I feel as if I'm telling you something you already know though - so well done, keep on doing what you're doing, and I wish you all the best with your relationship with your mum.

Question: Hi Penny I have been going through a few months of unbelievably difficult family drama involving extended family affecting my mother whom i love dearly and me the most but overall bad fallout on everyone. The issues are related to immediate family first extended family has made worse. The biggest 2 issues I need to deal with are my sister's manipulation for years out of jealousy, hate, resentment I can't understand where she has on purpose planting in my brother's and now possibly extended family trying to ruin my reputation and make me seem not credible to make me feel small by spreading rumours about me being delusional....this is very painful and strictly meant to manipulate. It has affected my relationship with my brother and because of it even after reaching out to her for a healthy respectful relationship she could not handle it for more than a couple of weeks. there is too much hate in her for me and I have decided the best thing is to cut her out of my life for good due to her going to far and continuing to try to hurt/attack my soul. This means I won't see my little niece/nephew either. The drama has caused my mom betray me by listening to manipulation by my uncle and his wife, but even though they have tried to distance her from me and made her weak then brainwashed her against me, she knows me better and how loyal I have been to her, so she keeps reaching out to me but I have moved out of her house and extremely hurt she turned on me because of extended family. she also starts drama and then my brother has attacked me for it, being intimidating, condescending and verbally abusive. I have told him to stop or there won't be any relationship; I have no issues with my brother except for what others cause between us (i.e. my sister , my mom, my cousin) My cousin and uncle/wife and in combination with my brother /sister caused pain for my mom but it comes down to my sister, brother havign no respect and bullying my mom. my sister wants play that with me and she is not being allowed; I stop her...so she has no choice but to make me seem not credible to make me sound crazy, when she has had psychopathic tendencies writing death letters to my mom as a teenager, telling my mom to go die for years and sending me numerous belittling verbally abusive manipulative notes over the years. My brother has never been verbally abusive to me until the recent drama has made him go a bit coocoo it is all based on lack of respect I have told my brother as long as he is harmful in his communication and making feel not safe around him there will not be any relationship this is very difficult for me as I love him very much and we recently traveled together with zero issues, in fact it was so good, he was telling all about how his friends/colleagues who traveled with us loved me and he was proud of me. So it is clearly created by others all this drama he has been reaching out to me and it has been difficult for me to talk to him as he doesnt' know how our sister and extended family have used him too to cuase issues and affect my mom's health and cause issues between our whole family, and ironically when I have tried to protect my mom, he is using me as a scapegoat for someone to blame, attack, which I don't appreciate at all. it's affected my life , work, and romantic relationship I am in. Please help my mom and brother at least mean a lot to me but I want this extended family and my sister to have no contact as they use any chance to cause issues between these 2 people I care about and me. I have a hard time even going to have a lunch with my mom or brother when they reach out to me I can't handle my brother lecturing me when I haven't done anything; it hurts too much. I feel like telling him to not talk about this stupid drama that has nothing to do with us, he says he wants to talk about good brother/sister stuff only, but i feel that's just to pull me back to bully me again to accept guilt for stuff others done and my blood pressure has been up and I won't put myself through that if that's where a conversation goes. there has been injury done and he doesnt' get it.... I need to look for work right now and take care of my well being my dog and my relationship with someone special to me. :( how can I manage all this, it's like an avalance of problems only thing that has helped me cope somewhat has been this romantic partner, a couple good friends' support and meditation. Please help.

Penny Bell Says...:

Thank you for your question – you have given me a very good picture of what’s going on with you and your family and how you are feeling in it. I can see that you have come to the end of your tether and that you want something different for your life, and I fully understand that.

By way of responding to your question, I’ll write a little bit about family systems and how I see yours, according to the information you’ve given me, and what I think would be helpful for you.

When family counsellors work with families that are experiencing distress, they try to look past the individual family members and view the family as a system that has its own life and energy and that has distinct patterns of operation that are often outside the awareness of the individual family members. These systems have particular attributes of cohesion, or distance and closeness, as well as flexibility, or rigidity and chaos. The level of cohesion in a family is reflected in the emotional bonding family members have with one another, and the level of flexibility is reflected in the family’s ability to permit changes in roles and rules within the family structure. Too much cohesion causes the family to be enmeshed and overly entwined in each other’s lives; too little cohesion causes members to be distant and isolated. Too much flexibility leads to chaos, and too little to rigidity - sticking to the existing spoken or unspoken rules, and stagnation. A family that is functioning well will have a good balance between stability and change (healthy flexibility) and will be together but allow separateness (healthy cohesion). A third element necessary for healthy family functioning is communication – the family’s ability to listen to each other – and this either facilitates or impedes flexibility and cohesion.

It sounds as if your family’s system has difficulty communicating and listening carefully to one another, and family members are quite enmeshed with each other. The reason I say this is that you are feeling misunderstood, attacked, manipulated and wrongly accused by many of your family members, that the messages are being passed between family members about you (rather than directly to you), and that your family system is looking inward, so that the conversations and stories are commonly about other family members and their effects on the stability of the overall system (the effect of the behaviour of family members on other family members); there is a lot of blame, and nothing much changes over time. This is raising the levels of anxiety throughout your family system, and of course in you.

Something that happens within families to reduce the anxiety levels is triangling, and it sounds like this is what’s happening in your family. A triangle is a 3-way relationship where the anxiety has risen between two of the family members to such an uncomfortable level that one brings in a third member to offload about it, thus distancing themselves from the member they have difficulty with and coming closer to the one they have drawn in. This in turn can create its own intensity and once again a third person can be drawn in to talk about it, and this can go on forever, especially in a family that is enmeshed.

The way you are thinking is a family process that Family Systems Theory has identified as one way family members reduce their anxiety – distancing or at the extreme, emotionally cutting off the family members that cause them the most anxiety. This can feel wonderful at first, because the person feels relieved of the stress, and free. Down the track though it can cause other problems for the person in that they look for the closeness they’ve lost with their family in either their work or people outside the family, sometimes with disastrous results – for example, workaholism, or overwhelming friends or partner with the unmet needs from the family system.

Having said that, I think that sometimes it can be very beneficial to pull back from the family temporarily – to obtain relief and some peace for oneself, to find your personal power again, and to find yourself again and who you are apart from your family. Sometimes in an enmeshed family this differentiation from the rest of the family isn’t completed during the teen years because of the pull of the family to continue to “be like us”, so it happens later on when that demand becomes threatening to the person’s sense of self.

Something that you could do that would make good use of your time apart from your difficult family members would be to obtain counselling with a qualified family therapist. At some time during therapy you may have the opportunity, and feel ready, for one or more family members to come into the session with you so that you are all able to feel heard by each other in a safe environment. You may find after you have been in counselling for a while working through your family and personal issues that you are feeling stronger and are able now to reconnect with some of the folk that are distressing you at the moment – slowly, carefully and safely, of course. That way, if the family member is in your experience still too toxic for you, you can withdraw again easily.

It’s great that you have a romantic partner that you can feel close and safe with, good friends and of course your faithful dog – these are all factors in maintaining good mental health in the face of a family crisis.

I wish you all the best with your pursuit for peace and strong healthy family relationships.

Penny