Dysfunctional Family Quotes

“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, Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“The fear of abandonment forced me to comply as a child, but I’m not forced to comply anymore. The key people in my life did reject me for telling the truth about my abuse, but I’m not alone. Even if the consequence for telling the truth is rejection from everyone I know, that’s not the same death threat that it was when I was a child. I’m a self-sufficient adult and abandonment no longer means the end of my life.”
― Christina Enevoldsen, The Rescued Soul: The Writing Journey for the Healing of Incest and Family Betrayal

“The happy family is a myth for many.”
― Carolyn Spring

“Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said "I am sorry for what you went through" or "I am here for you." Instead they said hurtful things: "Oh he was young." "That is what kids do." "It is not like he was some older man you didn't know." Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.”
― Erin Merryn, Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness

“You cannot fix people who will not take feedback, because from their perspective, they do not have a problem.”
― Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

“Abusive parents have inappropriate expectations of their children, with a reversal of dependence needs. Parents treat an abused child as if the child were older than the parents. A parent often turns to the child for reassurance, nurturing, comfort, and protection and expects a loving response.”
― Benjamin James Sadock

“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, Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“She was so upset about a blog that maybe a total of six people read yet had no compassion for her granddaughters who had suffered the physical and emotional pains of sexual abuse and whose lives were changed forever. The two cannot even be compared, yet when someone is in denial about what happened, they cannot perceive what is true. It seemed too hard for her to let her mind go there and believe her grandson could do such terrible things.”
― Erin Merryn, Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness

“The fetus is biochemically connected to the mother, and her external, internal, physical, and mental health affect the overall development of the fetus. Stress and depression during pregnancy have been proven to have long-term and even permanent effects on the offspring. Such effects include a vulnerability to chronic anxiety, elevated fear, propensity to addictions, and poor impulse control.”
― Darius Cikanavicius, Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults

“It is one thing to know about your dysfunctional habits but quite another to change them.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“You owe it to yourself to stand up and advocate for yourself. To not agree to what is harmful to you. To protect yourself from further bullying, manipulation, gaslighting, and abuse.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“You can tell a lot about a person's childhood by whether or not they like Christmas.”
― Stephen Elliott, Happy Baby

“I don't think your family was a very safe place to be a little girl.”
― Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

“THE NO CONTACT RULE:

1. Zero contact; face to face & online.
2. No phone calls.
3. No text messaging.
4. No attending events where they're present.
5. No emails.
6. No letters, cards, or gifts.
7. No checking their social media profile.
8. No contacting their family and friends.
9. No combing through old photographs.
10. No going down memory lane.
11. Zero communication.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“Baiting is the narcissist and flying monkeys deliberate act to provoke emotional reactions from you. It's to confirm their superiority and power over you. The destruction they inflict onto you may baffle you. Baiting could take any form. It's essentially them doing something vile to evoke a negative response from you.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“As a survivor of sibling abuse, the toxic shame is not for the survivor to carry. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were not the one to commit atrocious acts of violence. You have been victimized and traumatized. Today, release the stronghold of toxic shame. The toxic shame belongs to each sibling who abused you.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“As a reflect on my life, here is what I have learned, how I have grown, and how I've been transformed. Little Dana as a child may have been a people-pleaser. She may have been a vulnerable, naive girl who was controlled by her mean-spirited family members. But that little girl doesn’t exist. Not anymore.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“With gratitude, I have become a healing balm to thousands of people, if not more, who have suffered child abuse, sibling abuse, a dysfunctional family, narcissistic abuse, sexual assaults, and hellish traumatic events. Most importantly, other trauma survivors know they are not alone.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“After spending five decades of being beaten down, mistreated, and stabbed in the back, little Dana grew up. Little Dana fearlessly faced her trauma wounds. Little Dana cracked open that terrifying door to process and to address everything. And when I write everything, I mean ‘every rotten thing said and done to harm me.’ Everything from my early childhood sexual abuse, child neglect, psychological abuse, physical abuse, unfit parenting by my narcissistic mother, to my sister’s spouse who sexually assaulted me, to every imaginable covert scheme by my six toxic siblings (AKA Flying Monkeys) who sadistically enjoyed hurting me. They each took great pleasure in trying to destroy me, my life, my health, my relationships, my career, and my reputation.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“Sibling abuse didn’t just happen to you. It didn’t only happen to me. It has happened to millions upon millions of people worldwide. Let that sink in…

According to the website, Hope4Siblings.com, “In America alone, there are over 40 million sibling abuse survivors. Society pays a huge price when sibling abuse is not given attention and goes uncorrected in lives of many adults. The over-learned maladaptive coping skills generated by an abusive sibling can affect adulthood. Because of sibling abuse, victimization occurred again in their childhoods through bullying. Sibling abuse is often directly connected to the formation of adult personality.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“The dysfunctional family relationships are disastrous. Poisonous. There can't be reconciliation. We cannot restore a destructive relationship with abusive siblings when they won't repent. Repentance requires them to turn away from their transgressions and evil schemes. In most cases, toxic siblings won't repent.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“It's perplexing how family members claim their undying love for us. They can say whatever they choose. Their actions and behaviors don't match their words. There is an imbalance in sibling and parental relationships. There are distinct discrepancies in what they claimed (saying they did nothing wrong) versus my reality of what took place (abuse). LOVE AND ABUSE CANNOT COEXIST.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“Family mobbing is a strategic process of power and coercive control. What makes mobbing so insidious - and so underreported - is that here, the family is the site of violence, trauma, and shame.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“Sibling triangulation is a heartless form of manipulation in which one person seeks to control a three-person interpersonal situation for their selfish needs. It can involve the use of threats of exclusion or strategies tom divide and conquer. Sibling triangulation may involve narcissistic abuse. The narcissist could be your father, mother, sibling, partner, spouse, relative, friend, co-worker, boss, or someone else.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“Sibling abuse, triangulation, and alienation will influence your ability to trust others. The core problem isn't your lack of trust. Rather, you've experienced unhealthy dynamics with dishonest folks. You may have spent years or decades dealing with backstabbing siblings, friendships, or family members who lied to you, hurt you, and deceived you.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“If anyone ever tries to tell you that Thanksgiving is all about the food, don't you dare believe them, sure, some people will try to make it about the food, but it's really about love, respect, and gratitude. Without those ingredients, you might as well be serving cardboard.”
― Cherilyn Christen Clough, To UnEat An Elephant: A Memoir

“Daddy was an idea man who never quite found a way to make a living with his ideas, but I never doubted his love for Momma. At the same time, I looked around the cabin with its fence-like walls and felt sorry for Momma; she deserved better than to have spiders and mice going through her stuff.”
― Cherilyn Christen Clough, Chasing Eden

“Our blood up, we searched the streets for hours, but we never did find the guy. I asked Mom and Dad if we should close the doors and windows when we went to sleep. They wouldn't consider it. We needed the fresh air, they said, and it was essential that we refuse to surrender to fear. So the windows stayed open. Maureen kept having nightmares of men in Halloween masks. And every now and then, when Brian and I were feeling revved up, he'd get a machete and I'd get a baseball bat and we'd go Pervert Hunting, clearing the streets of the creeps who preyed on kids.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“A few days later, Dad was able to walk around, but he had no appetite, and his hands still trembled. I told Mom that maybe I had made a terrible mistake, but Mom said sometimes you have to get sicker before you can get better. Within a few more days, Dad seemed almost normal, except that he d become tentative, even kind of shy. He smiled at us kids a lot and squeezed our shoulders, sometimes leaning on us to steady himself. ‘I wonder what life will be like now,’ I said to Lori. ‘The same,’ she said. ‘He tried stopping before, but it never lasted.’ ‘This time it will.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘It’s his present to me.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Healthy families are sustained by honesty; unsafe systems are threatened by it.”
― Deanna L. Lawlis