Our team met yesterday w a group focused on estrangement & alienation in family dynamics. So much of what’s talked abt in MH revolves arnd the individual.
But this group came to us bc we focus more on the causes & conditions that lead TO whatever ails someone. The concept of Same Here is that we allll go thru challenging life events, we all have nervous system that become dysregulated to varying degrees…& that dyregulation combined w our underlying genetics impacts how we think, feel, & function – for ALL of us. So…what’s common is the challenging life events we all go thru, putting us ALL on that same MH continuum.
This group was sharing w us, amongst the breaks-up, job losses, verbal & sexual abuses, sicknesses & losses of loved ones, etc., are the complicated fam dynamics – & especially those between adult (college & above) children & their parents/aunts, uncles, etc. Yes those dynamics can get complicated, but they’re not talked abt enough.
Estrangement, alienation, & even triangulation (pulling one parent or child to one “side” or another). These things MAJORLY impact MH.
And so, amidst the convo, I shared how many ppl have called me – as a peer advocate who’s open abt my own challenges, to tell me how their fam dynamics have changed in the last 2+ yrs bc of all we’ve been thru w the p@ndemlc.
It’s a topic we’ve touched on before: did you get the shot, or not? Mask or not? Mask arnd some ppl & not others? Allow some ppl in your house & not others? Whether we like it our not, based on who we invited back in our lives – over to hang/not, to restaurants/not – our decisions were/are on full display.
There are SO many ways members in fam’s have interacted w each other (or ignored bc of the above) – in ways they never have had to before. And this is on TOP of all the other fam dynamics that are always tricky.
When I brought up this pt, & my fear of how big an issue this is, the line on this post is what was shared w me: What Stays In The Dark, Grows In The Dark. If we don’t address it, it doesn’t go away. It GROWS. Fam’s need to know this. Ignoring it doesn’t erase it!