More than 80% of abortion vulnerable women choose life after seeing ultrasound
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September is National Recovery Month, and Dr. Jessica Peck discusses family dysfunction
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: Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for healthy families here on family radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends, and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for healthy families. Happy Tuesday, everyone, and happy September 1st. It is already September, so even though you know, I live in Texas, it's still 117 degrees in the shade. It feels like I feel fall coming on. And I'm so excited about that. You know my regular listeners how much I will practice some self restraint by not mentioning the holidays. Okay, all right. That's it. That's all I'll say. I'll just say it's starting to glimmer on my horizon a little bit. And I was excited to see September, but September actually is something called National Recovery Month. Now you're probably wondering, what in the world is that? But it's something I want to talk about today and follow up to our show yesterday. Yesterday I interviewed Dr. Rhyen Rush, who's a pastor at Kingsland Baptist Church, just a little north of Houston, Texas. And he talked about his doctoral work, his dissertation, and looking at attachment theory and how that translates to the leadership style of pastors. Now, I'm really passionate about generational dysfunction and generational trauma. And I think yesterday we got a lot of great information and there were still some questions left unanswered. So I'm going to take some time today to talk about that. And it wasn't lost on me that this is the start of National Recovery Month. Now, this is a month that is observed to promote evidence based treatment and recovery practices from a number of things. There are all kinds of obstacles and traumas and trials and tragedies that we have in life that we need to recover from. But we want to celebrate people and families and communities and professionals supporting recovery. And I'll talk about Celebrate Recovery before we finish. But National Recovery Month is actually recognized by the National Council for Mintle well Being. And it really emphasizes the reality and possibility of recovery. Now, that's from a secular framework, but we have even more hope from a biblical framework. We have a biblical worldview because God's design for family is good. But. But every family, every single family is affected by life in a fallen world. There is no perfect family this side of heaven. There's some healthy families and I am so encouraged by those families. But there's no perfect family. And scripture honestly doesn't romanticize what families look like in a broken world. When we read through the pages of our Bible, it doesn't read like a social media scroll. The Bible contains betrayal and favoritism and deception and abandonment, abuse of power and grief and broken relationships, all within the context of family. Yet. Yet God repeatedly brings redemption into broken family stories, often when it's undeserved. And your family history may explain some of your patterns and it may help in your sanctification process because it doesn't have to determine your future. When we look at stories of family dysfunction in the Bible, there are so many. Look at Cain and Abel, sibling rivalry, jealousy and murder. We have Abraham and Sarah who had conflict and deception and family tension surrounding I don't trust God's plan. So here, take my maid. Remember that story, Isaac and Rebecca, all about parental favoritism, Jacob and his sons, favoritism, betrayal, jealousy, deception, selling a brother into slavery. David and his children, violence, conflict, estrangement, rebellion. Eli and his sons, parental failure, unchecked destructive behavior. We have Saul and Jonathan, who had a controlling, very volatile parent child relationship and created divided loyalties. There are so many stories there, and I want to drill down a little further on this and talk about generational patterns of dysfunction. Dr. Rush and I talked about that yesterday. But let's just look at this one example. Let's look at Abraham, who acted in deception out of fear, right? Abraham twice presented Sarah as his sister, not his wife, because he was afraid. He was afraid for his life. Now we see Isaac repeat that strategy. So Isaac tells Abimelech that Rebecca is his sister because he's afraid. And then we see Jacob, who used deception. He deceived Isaac to obtain Esau's blessing. He used disguise and manipulation. And then Jacob's son, the deceptions continued. Jacob's sons deceived him about Joseph's death. They used Joseph's bloodied robe to construct a false story of what happened. We have that continuing on through David, who used deception at several points, as most grievously, of course, was the story of attempting to conceal his sin. With Bathsheba and Uriah, we can see how these generational patterns of dysfunction can persist through a family tree and forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration and renewed access is not the same thing. Reconciliation requires the participation of more than one person. That reconciliation means we're both coming to the table. Sometimes you can forgive, you can drop that bitterness, drop that hurt, while still having healthy boundaries in a relationship. And generational healing does not mean, like we talked about yesterday, laying on the therapy couch and saying, well, it all started back with my mother, doesn't mean blaming our parents for everything that's wrong with us. It just means being humble enough to ask, what did I learn growing up? What did I normalize? What helped my family survive? What helped me survive emotionally, psychologically, physically? That may no longer be healthy in my life. What needs to stop with me now? This matters to me as a nurse practitioner because I care about holistic health. I believe God made us body, mind and spirit. And children live inside and dysfunctional family systems. And we know that even a child's physical health, even our own physical health as adults can be affected, by chronic conflict and by unstable relationships or things like addiction or abuse or neglect and stress impacts particularly developing children. It impacts adults for sure, but it has a particularly specific impact on brains that are still developing, brains that are at a particularly fragile place and are learning repeated patterns of behavior. And so that's important. So we're going to talk today about what does family dysfunction look like and what can we do about it once we know how it impacts us. Now, I, Today's conversation is educational. It is not diagnostic or therapeutic. I just want to make sure I'm clear about that. I'm not diagnosing you or your family because some of the language that I'll give you is clinical. But it's helpful when you hear this clinical language to know, oh, my goodness, I'm not alone. Like, this is a way that our bodies are designed to cope, and this is an unhealthy way. But we have some. We have some correction here. So I'm not providing individualized healthcare or mental health advice. I'm just sharing information to help you understand some of the things that we've learned about generational dysfunction and how you can consider your own perspective and recognize when you might need to reach out for some kind of support. And I'll tell you when and how and who that may be. But your individual circumstances are your own. And so I encourage, as I always do, to have a really good working relationship with a primary care provider you trust so you can talk about this. So looking at September as recovery month, we see that a lot of times in past generations, we focused on generational trauma that was really clearly identifiable. We looked at drinking, alcoholism, drug addiction, hitting or physical violence, infidelity or affairs, screaming during fights, losing your temper. And those things matter really enormously. But what happens after that behavior stops. And what we see and what I've seen is a generational trend to recognize, okay, some of those things that were just considered, hey, that's just part of life. You just deal with it. You move on. That's the family you have. You grow up. And then people will grow up and think, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not doing that in my family. And then what they didn't know, what we didn't know then, is that it's not just enough to say, I'm not gonna hit my kids. I'm not gonna drink. I'm not gonna use drugs. I'm not gonna cheat on. I'm. I'm not going to pursue a divorce. I'm going to do everything I can to keep my marriage intact. We still have to unlearn and relearn New ways to handle conflict. Because with all of those things come dysfunctional relationship patterns. We don't know how to regulate our emotions, how to build trust, trust in a healthy way, how to express what we need or respect boundaries that people put up, how to rupture in a relationship, and then apologize and repair and attach securely. And sometimes that dysfunction still feels really normal and we just don't see it because it feels so normal. Now there was a research study that was done in the 1990s by Kaiser Permanente by researchers and Felida Felitti. And these were researchers who took a group of people who were on a health insurance plan and they just basically asked them about some things that they had experienced in childhood trauma. Had they ever seen their mother physically abused in the home, had they had a parent who was incarcerated? Had they experienced physical abuse or neglect themselves. It was just those kinds of major traumatic life events. And what they found was that a score of 4 or more, 4 or more adverse childhood experiences significantly reduced the, increased the risk, I'm sorry, it significantly increased the risk of physical disease like heart disease, stroke, also maladaptive coping like substance addiction and even suicide. And they found that it would even could lead to a shorter life expectancy. And that was the first time that there was really a research link between psychological trauma and sometimes physical trauma and long term health outcomes. And so that is important for us to look at when we see the patterns that we might have inherited.
What do we mean when we say generational trauma?
So let's start at the beginning. What do we mean when we say generational trauma? That's kind of a broad umbrella term, that's a catch all, but it basically just means to the effects that extend in your family when you were directly exposed to something tough in a previous generation. It just means how that impacts you negatively. And there's a lot of different contributing factors here. And some of it has to do with just being directly exposed to that negative thing. Some of it has to do with caregiving and your parenting patterns, how people took care of you, how they showed up for you, how they built attachment bonds like Dr. Rush talked about yesterday. And some of it is the family beliefs and narratives just kind of what we normalize. And, and some of you who have experienced, experienced negative things in a family, you might be in an adult and you're telling a story about something that happened in your childhood and you think it's funny and you tell this story like it's funny and all of a sudden you look around the table and everybody's jaws dropped. On the table, like, that's not normal. And that may be the first time that you realize, oh, that is not a common experience. And we're also learning more about genetic mechanisms, epigenetics in specifically, and how that can impact us. And so when we about think, think about what we talked about yesterday with Dr. Rush. We talked specifically about attachment. And attachment is something that God designed in babies to attach to their caregivers. Most of the time that's going to be the mom. And children learn through that attachment. Is the world generally safe? Is somebody going to come and respond to me when I need something? Are, my emotions welcome? Do I receive comfort? Is it safe to express when I have a fear or a need? Or do I have to take care of myself? Do I have to take care of everyone else? Does, does closeness feel safe? And it feels, feels good or it feels dangerous, like I don't want any part of that? What happens when there's conflict? And when you have a consistently responsive and emotionally available caregiver, you have a stronger foundation for security. But when that caregiving can be unpredictable, you just don't know, is it a good day, is it a bad day? Are you going to get a warm response or an angry outburst? Then children may develop adaptations for coping that help them survive their environment. Now. So a child who's learning to scan every adult's mood because their mood is going to affect my safety, they become hyper vigilant and they just look all the time. And a child whose emotions are ignored may just stop expressing them. They learn to suppress those emotions like, I don't have any emotional needs, I'm fine, everything's good. Or a child who's responsible for everybody else's feelings is just becomes a chronic people pleaser. And to adults, or a child who's constantly exposed to chaos and conflict may just avoid all disagreement. And maybe they're going to be the class clown, maybe they're going to be the family comedian, Maybe they're going to be the golden child. Anything to distract attention away from conflict. And so we want, as we talked about yesterday, secure attachment. But when we don't have that secure attachment, you can have an anxious attachment where you just, you're afraid of constantly being abandoned or rejected, and you're just constantly seeking reassurance. You're clingy, you're calling a million times, you're texting. Are you sure everything's okay? Are you sure? Have you told me. I know some of you out there relate to these behaviors, and I'm telling you that can come from a learned pattern of behavior or you're avoidant. Like, oh, there's emotion here. This is leading down an unsafe path. I don't want to explore that. So let's just shut this off. And, you know, why don't I do whatever I have to do to shut you down? Like, oh, this sounds like a you problem. No, we're not talking about that. And these impact our relationships and makes us have, distrust, or we don't feel safe, or we are afraid, or we people please, all these kinds of things. When we come back, I'm going to tell you a little bit about what the neuroscience says, what we know about that, and I'm going to talk about some specific roles and dysfunctional patterns that families can take on. And you may recognize those, even your own. But don't worry, if you do, there's help and there's hope. I'll be right back after this break.
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Heart of the Father by Ryan Ellis : Me and I've tasted, I've seen and nothing comes close. I've never known a love like yours. Jesus, your name is power expressing living water. And your spirit guides me to the heart of the Father. Let your praise ring louder every day and every hour. Cause your spirit guides me to the heart of the Father.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is Heart of the Father by Ryan Ellis. And that's really what we're talking about today, is the heart of our Father for families. And God created families and, and said it was good. But we live in a broken world. And yesterday I talked to Dr. Ryan Rush about attachment theory and what we're learning from psychology to back up what scripture has said all along. And if you're feeling discouraged because you have a family that is filled with a lot of problems, you are not alone. And when we look back through the pages of scripture, we see hope and help and healing for those things. And as Dr. Rush pointed out yesterday, that God blesses us a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. So if you are a chain breaker, if you are a cycle breaker, just know my heart sees you today. I'm praying for you. I'm cheering you on. And I'm fully confident in the redemptive work that God can do. It's messy, it's looping, it's back and forth, but it is redemptive and those seeds will bear fruit.
So today I'm talking a little bit about some kinds of generational dysfunction
So today I'm talking a little bit about some kinds of generational dysfunction. So maybe you can look at your family and those. Because it's not enough to just stop the negative influence. You gotta unlearn and relearn those maladaptive coping responses that you had to keep yourself safe. If you had something that was unpredictable, maybe you hid, maybe a fought. We see that trauma response where we fight or we flight, we run away, we freeze or we fawn. Sometimes that's the people pleaser, that's the overly people pleasing. Let me just try to keep everybody happy so I can keep myself safe.
There are certain predictable roles that families fall into when they have dysfunction
So let's talk a little bit about how dysfunction can feel normal when you don't know anything different. And children especially, they don't evaluate their family as outside observers. They really adapt to it. And when you have unspoken rules like, we don't talk about that. Everybody knows it. Yep, we all know it. We don't talk about it. Or don't make your mother upset or what happens in this family stays in this family. You're too sensitive. Just get over it. Nobody owes you an apology. We don't need counseling. We handle our own problems. You know how your father is. You just gotta deal with it. And if you loved me, you would fill in the blank. These are just examples of unwritten rules that sometimes can function in dysfunctional systems. And there are some specific predictable roles that families can fall into. When you have a dysfunctional family. So see if any of these resonate with you, because these are identities that have been pretty well established in research. You may have the hero, usually that's going to be the oldest. Let's just be honest that, person who excels, who achieves, who is doing everything they can to say, hey, look, the family's successful. You may have the caretaker, that's usually the middle child, somebody who is managing everybody's emotions and problems, putting their own needs last, like just trying to run around, put out fires, just take care of everything best they can. You may have a scapegoat, the black sheep of the family that's just the problem child. And they may be blamed for the family dysfunction. Like everything negative is just projected on that one person. Or sometimes they can just act out for attention, trying to say something is wrong here. There may be a lost or invisible Child. That child just stays quiet, avoids attention, just doesn't need much. I'm just, I'm here, but I'm not here. There can be the mascot or the peacemaker, the golden child. There's different words that have been used to describe this personality, but someone who uses humor or charm or distraction whenever there's tension. It's like, I'm going to step up and I'm going to make everybody laugh, even in the middle of a big fight. And that helps. That helps me feel safe. So I'm going to continue to do that. And then often you have an enabler, which often is a spouse of, somebody who is struggling with addiction or dysfunction. And that enabler protects others from the consequences of their behavior. They're the ones who are going to really drive a lot of the dysfunctional communications that happens. Now. These are adaptive roles. These are survival instincts. They're very human. They're not fixed personality types. And often when you work with somebody who has experienced childhood trauma and who is working to heal and overcome that, they may discover, hey, my personality is not at all what my family thinks it is. That was just an adaptive role that I took. Like, yeah, I. I was. Seemed like I was the golden child and the star of the family. But I actually don't like attention. I'm actually an introvert, and I like to stay home and read, and that's perfectly okay. But there's some communication patterns that are really common in dysfunctional families. One of those is secrecy. Like, we don't tell anybody about this. Like, it's just, we can't name our problems. We can't talk about it. There's a lot of denial that goes along, and usually that comes with, hey. If somebody says, hey, I really don't like this. Like, this is uncomfortable to me and this hurt my feelings. You just immediately deny, minimize. Nope, it wasn't that bad. That's a you problem. You, you're way overreacting. And a lot. Often emotional suppression. If you have strong feelings, those are often punished or mocked. So you learn to bury those babies down deep. Like, nope, it's not gonna come up. I just won't have any emotions because that is a dangerous thing. Triangulation is really common where conflict between two people is managed by somebody else. Often the enabler, like, you never talk to the person you're having conflict with. It's, you know, that person is going to talk to another person who's going to talk to another person who's going to talk to you. Well, you Know, your mom wanted me to talk to you because, you know, you really hurt her feelings and you need to go apologize and you need to do this. And there's never any direct communication. Sometimes there can be parentification where children just take on adult roles before they're really developmentally and emotionally ready. Some families get enmeshed and this is where the, the boundaries are all blurred. And it's the parent and child might be best friends or worst enemies. And all of your personal decisions are family decisions. Like you don't have a right to make any decisions on your own. Where you live, where you go to college, where you work, what you do, that's all our decision. When you have a baby, you know, whatever the boundary may be, and I'm laughing about it, but it's really not funny when you experience that. It's really a. And disrespect and not allowing kids to become adults and have their own lives. And anytime you, you disagree, you feel like you're disloyal. And guilt is used to maintain closeness. So after everything I've done for you and this is how you're going to repay me, you're going to move away, you're going to take this job, you're going to leave me here? That and the goal isn't detachment. The goal isn't separation. It's just healthy differentiation for God's design for family. And we see a generation that is trending towards cutting off relationships rather than repair them. And sometimes the first step in recovery is not necessarily changing anything. It's just being able to finally name what happened and say, you know what, that wasn't the healthiest thing that happened. And it did impact the way that I learned to function and see the world. And so often when we stop the behavior, we think, okay, when I grow up, I am not going to hit my kids. I am not going to do those things. But we haven't yet moved to unlearn those survival patterns and relearn healthy relationship connection patterns. So we saw past generations often focused on stopping the obvious.
Even if addiction is removed, the family still remains organized around dysfunction
As I said before then, we're, we're not using any substances. I am not violent. there is no infidelity, there's no screaming, you know, whatever it is. And we can celebrate that because those, those changes can absolutely be life saving. But the question that should come next is, okay, what relational system are we going to build to replace the old dysfunctional one? And if addiction is removed, but nobody learns to talk about their feelings or communicate directly or regulate their anger, ask for help or listen without being defensive or respect boundaries. And the family still remains organized around that same dysfunction, even though the addiction is removed. And sometimes that change doesn't feel like enough. And that's really hard because someone may make genuinely enormous changes, and they are nowhere near as destructive or dysfunctional as the family system that they grew up in. And from their perspective, the story is, hey, I am nothing like my parents. I am light years better. Why is that not enough? Your expectations are just completely unrealistic. And that can happen. And we just sometimes can be just blind to the dysfunction that can happen. We experience ourselves from the inside. We know our intentions. We know what we're thinking. We know what we're feeling. We know the sacrifices we've made for our family. We know the progress we've made. But our family experiences us from the outside. They don't often know our intentions. They only hear our words. They see our reactions. They experience our behavior. And when we say, hey, I'm nothing like my dad. I'm, nothing like my mom, that can be true. And it can also be true to say, I'm still learning to relate to my family in healthy ways. Those things can both be true. But shame plays a big part in this, because if you acknowledge that you caused somebody else's pain, it means I'm that bad person I swore I would never be. I, don't want to be anything like that. So defensiveness just becomes a form of self protection. And when we feel threatened, those learned patterns show up from childhood, those ways that are entrenched in our brain. Because conflict activates our nervous system, and it goes where it knows, and we reach for what we learned. So if peace depended on keeping everybody happy, my coping mechanism is I'm going to people, please. But in the meantime, I'm going to build up resentment that I'm doing everything for everyone else and nothing for me. And one day, that's going to bubble over. We see the. That the present can trigger the past without us even realizing it. Healthy conflict response requires a pause. It requires us to recognize, okay, I'm activated here. Like, all right, this is. This is activating a pathway in my brain. I don't want to go down. We gotta learn how to regulate and then choose a response rather than reacting. Dr. Rush and I talked about this yesterday. Choose to respond. And that's actually one of the habits that we talked about. You can go back and catch that on a Friday show where we talked about that. Rather than just automatically reacting and repeating that family pattern. And we resist seeing it, and we resist changing it, because it feels so normal to us. We don't question what we've experienced, especially when everyone around us behaved the same way. And our brains are protecting us with those automated survival instincts and responses. And when we want to change, it requires us to say, hey, I've been doing this all wrong, and that's a really scary and vulnerable place. And we just really tend to die on the hill of confusing intention with impact. So we think, I didn't mean to hurt you. Therefore, you're not allowed to be hurt. You can't experience hurt. Because I didn't mean to do that. That wasn't. I wasn't sitting here thinking in my mind that I wanted to hurt you. So how can you be hurt? And that's a reason not to listen to how we actually affected someone. And then that person's going to learn, okay, well, I can't come to you with my feelings. And we just see that familiar dysfunction feel safer than unfamiliar, healthy functioning. That's just the truth. And if we're going to change, then it requires humility. We. We can say, I may be doing better than the generation before me, but I still have things I'm working on. I am still a work in progress. And he who began a good work will be faithful to complete it. That is the hopeful part, because awareness of it doesn't produce shame. What happened to you is often not your fault at all, but how you heal from it. You have some agency there. You have some responsibility. You have some choice. And we often measure change the most dramatically by what we stopped doing rather than what we started doing. So I stopped drinking. I stopped letting my temper pop off. I stopped yelling at you. I stopped, you know, being physically intimidating. But I started connecting. I started apologizing when I'm wrong. I started trying to connect with you in a healthy way. And that is where owning your percent comes into play. Because we, whatever you may think, I only own 1% of that conflict, but you got to own 100% of your 1%. And you can think, I may have broken a generational cycle in significant ways, and I still may have caused pain that I cannot see. Both of those things can be true. You can be making progress. You may have broken a cycle, and you still caused pain. Those things can both be true and real. Recovery moves from, hey, look how different I am, look how much I've changed to, help me understand how my change has impacted you, and let's move forward together. And that requires humility so it means not just removing something destructive. It's building something that is constructive. And it's not quick and it's not easy. It definitely isn't. But let me. Let me tell you about what this can look like. Everyone in the family can know that dad drank too much. They just didn't call it drinking. They called it stress. His way of unwinding. They call it a rough season. And there were family rules. We don't talk about it. Don't embarrass dad. Don't tell people outside the family, for heaven's sake. And whatever happens at home, make sure nobody can tell. And if dad missed dinner, mom made an excuse. If he was angry, everybody stayed quiet. If he forgot something important, somebody covered for him. And then dad had another expectation. Hey, the family needs to look perfect. The kids need good grades. Mom needs to keep the house together. Nobody's allowed to talk about any of the brokenness that we have. Because if the family looks happy and successful and put together, then dad could tell himself, see, I'm not hurting anybody. My family's fine. But they weren't fine. And the children learned to watch Dad's face when he walks through the door. They learned when to talk and when to disappear. One became the overachiever. One's the peacekeeper. One's the problem child, because that's the child that's saying this isn't normal. And when somebody finally tries to confront dad, he doesn't see the years of fear and adaptation. He sees ingratitude. Do you have any idea how hard I've worked? I'm not like my dad. I don't beat you. I provide for this family. I've changed. And he had changed.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Changed.
Dr. Jessica Peck: He really had. But he couldn't yet see that stopping one destructive behavior didn't automatically teach the family how to feel safe. And he couldn't see that his children still walked on eggshells, that his wife still covered for him, that everyone was still afraid to tell the truth. They just spent years adapting. And now they had to learn something new. They can love dad without protecting his addiction. They can forgive him without pretending nothing happened. They can set boundaries with. Without abandoning him. And dad could learn that recovery isn't simply just putting down the bottle. It's learning how to listen and take responsibility and talk uncomfortable truth and rebuild trust. When we come back, I'll talk about how to do that and take those healthy steps forward. I'll see you on the other side of this break. During the Christmas season of 1976, I sat down one night to watch television.
: One man saw the battle coming. If we lose this cultural war, we're going to have a hedonistic, humanistic society. And he chose to stand and fight. If you will not respect our beliefs, then you will respect our money and we're spending with somebody else. Reverend Wildmon. Reverend Wildmon. The Reverend Donald Wildmon.
: Discover the story of the culture warrior, Don Wildmon and how, how he went head to head with Hollywood playboy, the homosexual agenda, and the Disney empire. Things were changing, and many people just sort of acclimated to it. and Don Wildmon didn't. They thought, I think, that they could just crush him.
: The movement Don started paved the way for Christians to boldly stand for truth and righteousness in a hostile culture.
Watch Culture Warrior today for free. Visit culturewarrior.movie
Watch Culture Warrior today for free. Visit culturewarrior.movie
What A God You Are by Andrea Olson: To me, when I'd had enough almost giving up in my weakness, the Lord held on me. What a God you are. You are strong and true. There is none more faithful and this there is none like you. What a God you are. Your presence is secure. Nothing is for certain. Your promises are sure. What a God you are.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is what a God you are. By Andrea Olson.
We're seeing a generational divide when we talk about family conflict
and I'm so grateful that we serve a God who is a loving father, who sees, who knows, who cares. And today I'm talking about generational dysfunction. And we know this is a tale as old as time. And when we look back in the Bible, all we see are examples of dysfunctional families. But God redeems and he renews and he restores. And even at the beginning, when I was talking about the dysfunction of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, these are the fathers of our faith. David was in fact called a man after God's own heart. We can be broken and we can be restored. And we serve a God who redeems and restores and renews and heals and makes all things new. And what we've been talking about today is a follow up to my conversation yesterday with Dr. Ryan Rush, who's pastor of Kingsland Baptist Church. He'll be preaching a series you can actually listen to online about Joseph, starting here in a couple of weeks. And you can find that at Kingsland Baptist Church, where he'll talk about family dysfunction. And we are learning something. And we're seeing a generational divide right now when we talk about family conflict. And we can have two realities that seem to conflict that are both true at the same time. The first reality is that younger generations, younger adults really have Trouble with healthy conflict resolution. Most of their interactions are happening online. They were largely impacted by Covid and social isolation. And they have these online forums, especially AI, that is making it increasingly attractive to communicate with something that is programmed to please them and to avoid conflict. And that is that a culture that sees immediate disengagement. So if this is not going, we're not tolerating any disagreement, you're cut off, you're ghosted, you're unfriended, you're bye bye. And it's hard sometimes for this generation to distinguish discomfort from danger. That is an important thing. If they have difficulty having difficult conversations, they often have trouble staying emotionally regulated. When somebody else sees something differently, can feel really scary and un, and just uncomfortable. They have difficulty repairing after relational rupture because they're doing it by text. And that's harder to understand. Tone of voice and eye contact. And it's harder to accept that healthy relationships do include conflict. That is true. What is also true is that this younger generation is recognizing genuinely harmful patterns that earlier generations normalized. And they are speaking more truthfully about that. So an older generation might say, hey, that's just how we were raised. But an adult child may have language for things like emotional abuse or addiction related chaos or parentification or untreated mental illness or violence or manipulation or neglect. The fact that a previous generation didn't have language for that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. And sometimes that did happen. And so these ruptures are very complex, so they can be true at the same time. And that's where we can come together, where older generations can say, you know what, there are some things that we could have done better. And you know what, there's some things that we see that you can learn from us, from our strength, our wisdom, our experience that will help you be tougher, be more resilient. And then the younger generation is saying, but there's things we know that can help make you more sensitive, more caring, more kind. And both of those things are good and godly, and that's important. And we see this trend talked about in the news that increasingly going towards no contact. I had Dr. Kathi Cook on, and I talked with her recently and she said she thinks that maybe that's being overblown in the news. We'll talk about that. You can watch for that. But no contact is not automatically healthy and reconciliation is not automatically healthy. There is a critical balance here. We don't need to shame people who need some distance for Healing. But we also don't need to present estrangement as the automatic answer to every painful relationship. So can some. Some things to consider, some questions to consider. Is there ongoing abuse or violence or coercion or stalking or credible danger? Obviously that needs really significant strong boundaries. Is there an active addiction that's creating unsafe circu circumstances? Is the other person unwilling to respect any boundaries that you put up? Is the conflict about disagreement or is about mistreatment? Those things can be really helpful. So an important boundary is whenever there is abuse or danger, safety takes priority. And reconciliation should never be demanded as a substitute for safety. That's, in place of safety. That's not okay.
Before going no contact, first assess safety, then seek professional help
So before going no contact, what, what is best really to things to consider? Just first assess safety. If there's safety, then you really need some professional help of some way. If that's law enforcement, if that's a lawyer, if that's a social worker, if that's a counselor, if there are safety concerns, you need outside help. And it's also true that it's not good to make a permanent decision in the middle of a temporary emotional crisis. So if it's possible, allow your emotions to settle down before you make those major decisions. And you don't just say, okay, oh, that's, that's it, they're cut off, I'm done. And it's important if you are considering going no contact with a relative, you really should talk with a qualified therapist and that you can find a, Christian counselor through the American association of Christian Counselors through Focus on the Family. There are lots of churches who will provide connection or even provide counseling themselves. And so there is a therapist that you can find to talk to to really talk about that. Because if it's that severe, again, you really need some outside help. It's also important to seek wise counsel from someone outside the family system. So go to a, trusted, spiritually mature pastor or a trusted mentor who is wise and you trust they're mature in their faith. And that can help you distinguish from okay, this is painful and I may need some boundaries to this is unsafe. And that is really important. Be honest about your own contribution. Even owning 1% of your hundred percent own that. Walk through that Again, outside help is going to be really helpful there if it is safe. Think about what those boundaries are. Communicate those boundaries clearly. Give the other person an opportunity to understand what needs to change. But you don't have to repeatedly explain yourself to someone who refuses to respect your boundary. And that is your, your right to make that decision. And we can't confuse forgiveness with unlimited access. Biblically, forgiveness doesn't require remaining in an unsafe situation or in a chronically destructive place. There may be some boundaries that come along with that, and reconciliation again requires two people. So I encourage you to, we can't look at no contact and completely cutting off every relationship as the go to the easiest thing to do. That's something that really takes a lot of thought and consideration and some outside help. Now, when a boundary is not a punishment, and often in unhealthy families, a boundary is perceived and interpreted as a punishment. And a boundary really says, here is what I will and will not participate in, and here's what will happen if this limit is crossed. That's different from, you know, you got to do this and this and this and this. It's just basically saying, this is, this is my boundary here and this is the consequences for crossing that. So some examples are, okay, I want to continue this conversation, but I will not continue it while you are yelling. So I'm going to step away and then I will come back and we'll try again. But I'm not going to continue the conversation while you're yelling or I love you and I'm not going to provide money to you right now that supports active substance abuse. I am willing to discuss this, this, and I won't discuss it if you name call and insult me. I want a relationship with you, and we need some help to do that. And here's, here's where I want you to, to go with me to counseling or whatever that may be. Those are some examples of some boundaries that can have. And we can break the cycle without breaking every relationship that starts with self awareness of what. How do I respond when I feel rejected, when I feel anxious, when I feel afraid? What happens inside me when someone disagrees with me? Am I shutting down? Am I attacking? Am I pursuing? Am I controlling? Am I avoiding them? Do I know how to apologize? Can I hear feedback without being defensive? Can I really be honest and, and look, at it? Do I expect other people to regulate my emotions? What patterns am I repeating that I never wanted to do? And what are the my family around me? what do they experience when there's conflict with me? What is that really like? So we start to look at ourselves, and then you own a hundred percent of your percent, even if your percent is only 1%. So that might sound like, hey, I was wrong to raise my voice. I wasn't wrong to be upset about this. I Wasn't wrong to have hurt feelings, but I was wrong to yell. I should have listened before I attacked and defended myself. I minimized your experience because that was painful for me to hear. I didn't know then what I know now. But I can see how my choice affected you. And, hey, my intention was not to hurt you, but I also see that I did anyway, and I'm sorry for that. What does repair look like? That's not the same thing as excuse. Hey, I was stressed. That's how I was raised. Well, you started it. You did it worse. We have to practice the biblical combination of truth, truth and love. Recovery is saying things like truth and love. That's I love you. And this behavior cannot continue and, and not, impact our relationship. I forgive you, and trust will be rebuilt over time. I want relationship, and I need a different pattern for that to happen. I can hear that you were hurt, and I also remember the event differently. Let's talk about that. That those are things. Can we try again? I'm so sorry. Because you can only control your response. You can't control the other person's response. And so when we're trying to take boundaries, name the pattern specifically. Not just, oh, our family's toxic and terrible, but just, hey, when we disagree. One thing I've noticed about our family is that we tend to yell. One thing I've noticed about our family is that, you know, everybody tends to isolate. We don't talk about it. We recruit other relatives into our family problems. We recruit. We talk to other people outside of our family, and we don't talk directly to each other. What is that specific pattern that is, important to recognize? And then we emotionally regulate. And this may be something that's really hard. You may need some professional help to learn how and when to. To do this.
If you are sincere and you work, healing is possible
How do we speak directly to the person in a therapeutic communication, communication way that is really important to do, and learning how to apologize. And a lot of these things I covered in Healthy habits in the communication sections. We covered every Friday for the first four weeks of the year. We did four core spiritual disciplines. We did family rhythms that you need, and then we talked about communication patterns. These things are done slowly over time. God will honor the effort that you put in. If you are sincere and you work and are diligent and make those small changes, healing is possible. It can happen. You may be the first person in your family to do something differently. You may be the first person to say, hey, we can talk about hard things. Like, I didn't Handle that way. The first grandparent who listens instead of defending the past. The first adult child who sets a boundary without being cruel. The first family member who actually goes to counseling. The first person who says, hey, we're not going to pretend anymore. I can honor our family history and look at the good things in it without repeating every pattern and accepting it blindly. And it's God's grace that creates new patterns. He can create truth where there was secrecy, confession where there was denial, repentance where there was used to be blame, humility when there was pride and healthy limits when there was chaos and wisdom where there was confusion or forgiveness where repentance opens a door to restoration, protection where there is safety needed and new life. Where destructive patterns once seemed to crush the heart and soul of your family. Maybe you can't go back and you can't change what happened in the generations before you. Maybe there are things that you did not choose and patterns that you did not create. But you, you can ask yourself, a different question today. Will it stop with me? What am I going to learn? What is the new pattern? By God's grace and with the help I need, that will begin with me. I encourage you if you to look at Celebrate Recovery. If that is a resource that is near to you, you can find it online. Many churches host Celebrate Recovery group. There's recovery from all kinds of things. From grief, from abuse, from shame, from, from addiction. There are, you don't have to do it alone. Celebrate Recovery is a Christ centered biblical recovery program that helps people find freedom from hurts and habits and hangups is what they call them. In a safe, supportive community. And whether you're facing addiction or anger or shame or grief or whatever it is, you can take a step toward healing. Your past may be part of your story, but it doesn't have to write your future. And if you don't take that those steps and you continue to carry the burden of past generational dysfunction as we saw in the Bible, as we see in families today, your children will pick up that burden and carry it for you. And I know that we all want to give our children a more hopeful future. If you're in the middle of family dysfunction, pray about it. Pray about it. Talk to somebody about it. You may need to seek out a professional counselor again. Check out the American association association of Christian Counselors who can connect you to a counselor. And as you do, I hope you know recovery is possible. God can make all things new. As you're thinking about these things, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. I'll see you right back here tomorrow.
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September is National Recovery Month, and Dr. Jessica Peck discusses family dysfunction
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: Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for healthy families here on family radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends, and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for healthy families. Happy Tuesday, everyone, and happy September 1st. It is already September, so even though you know, I live in Texas, it's still 117 degrees in the shade. It feels like I feel fall coming on. And I'm so excited about that. You know my regular listeners how much I will practice some self restraint by not mentioning the holidays. Okay, all right. That's it. That's all I'll say. I'll just say it's starting to glimmer on my horizon a little bit. And I was excited to see September, but September actually is something called National Recovery Month. Now you're probably wondering, what in the world is that? But it's something I want to talk about today and follow up to our show yesterday. Yesterday I interviewed Dr. Rhyen Rush, who's a pastor at Kingsland Baptist Church, just a little north of Houston, Texas. And he talked about his doctoral work, his dissertation, and looking at attachment theory and how that translates to the leadership style of pastors. Now, I'm really passionate about generational dysfunction and generational trauma. And I think yesterday we got a lot of great information and there were still some questions left unanswered. So I'm going to take some time today to talk about that. And it wasn't lost on me that this is the start of National Recovery Month. Now, this is a month that is observed to promote evidence based treatment and recovery practices from a number of things. There are all kinds of obstacles and traumas and trials and tragedies that we have in life that we need to recover from. But we want to celebrate people and families and communities and professionals supporting recovery. And I'll talk about Celebrate Recovery before we finish. But National Recovery Month is actually recognized by the National Council for Mintle well Being. And it really emphasizes the reality and possibility of recovery. Now, that's from a secular framework, but we have even more hope from a biblical framework. We have a biblical worldview because God's design for family is good. But. But every family, every single family is affected by life in a fallen world. There is no perfect family this side of heaven. There's some healthy families and I am so encouraged by those families. But there's no perfect family. And scripture honestly doesn't romanticize what families look like in a broken world. When we read through the pages of our Bible, it doesn't read like a social media scroll. The Bible contains betrayal and favoritism and deception and abandonment, abuse of power and grief and broken relationships, all within the context of family. Yet. Yet God repeatedly brings redemption into broken family stories, often when it's undeserved. And your family history may explain some of your patterns and it may help in your sanctification process because it doesn't have to determine your future. When we look at stories of family dysfunction in the Bible, there are so many. Look at Cain and Abel, sibling rivalry, jealousy and murder. We have Abraham and Sarah who had conflict and deception and family tension surrounding I don't trust God's plan. So here, take my maid. Remember that story, Isaac and Rebecca, all about parental favoritism, Jacob and his sons, favoritism, betrayal, jealousy, deception, selling a brother into slavery. David and his children, violence, conflict, estrangement, rebellion. Eli and his sons, parental failure, unchecked destructive behavior. We have Saul and Jonathan, who had a controlling, very volatile parent child relationship and created divided loyalties. There are so many stories there, and I want to drill down a little further on this and talk about generational patterns of dysfunction. Dr. Rush and I talked about that yesterday. But let's just look at this one example. Let's look at Abraham, who acted in deception out of fear, right? Abraham twice presented Sarah as his sister, not his wife, because he was afraid. He was afraid for his life. Now we see Isaac repeat that strategy. So Isaac tells Abimelech that Rebecca is his sister because he's afraid. And then we see Jacob, who used deception. He deceived Isaac to obtain Esau's blessing. He used disguise and manipulation. And then Jacob's son, the deceptions continued. Jacob's sons deceived him about Joseph's death. They used Joseph's bloodied robe to construct a false story of what happened. We have that continuing on through David, who used deception at several points, as most grievously, of course, was the story of attempting to conceal his sin. With Bathsheba and Uriah, we can see how these generational patterns of dysfunction can persist through a family tree and forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration and renewed access is not the same thing. Reconciliation requires the participation of more than one person. That reconciliation means we're both coming to the table. Sometimes you can forgive, you can drop that bitterness, drop that hurt, while still having healthy boundaries in a relationship. And generational healing does not mean, like we talked about yesterday, laying on the therapy couch and saying, well, it all started back with my mother, doesn't mean blaming our parents for everything that's wrong with us. It just means being humble enough to ask, what did I learn growing up? What did I normalize? What helped my family survive? What helped me survive emotionally, psychologically, physically? That may no longer be healthy in my life. What needs to stop with me now? This matters to me as a nurse practitioner because I care about holistic health. I believe God made us body, mind and spirit. And children live inside and dysfunctional family systems. And we know that even a child's physical health, even our own physical health as adults can be affected, by chronic conflict and by unstable relationships or things like addiction or abuse or neglect and stress impacts particularly developing children. It impacts adults for sure, but it has a particularly specific impact on brains that are still developing, brains that are at a particularly fragile place and are learning repeated patterns of behavior. And so that's important. So we're going to talk today about what does family dysfunction look like and what can we do about it once we know how it impacts us. Now, I, Today's conversation is educational. It is not diagnostic or therapeutic. I just want to make sure I'm clear about that. I'm not diagnosing you or your family because some of the language that I'll give you is clinical. But it's helpful when you hear this clinical language to know, oh, my goodness, I'm not alone. Like, this is a way that our bodies are designed to cope, and this is an unhealthy way. But we have some. We have some correction here. So I'm not providing individualized healthcare or mental health advice. I'm just sharing information to help you understand some of the things that we've learned about generational dysfunction and how you can consider your own perspective and recognize when you might need to reach out for some kind of support. And I'll tell you when and how and who that may be. But your individual circumstances are your own. And so I encourage, as I always do, to have a really good working relationship with a primary care provider you trust so you can talk about this. So looking at September as recovery month, we see that a lot of times in past generations, we focused on generational trauma that was really clearly identifiable. We looked at drinking, alcoholism, drug addiction, hitting or physical violence, infidelity or affairs, screaming during fights, losing your temper. And those things matter really enormously. But what happens after that behavior stops. And what we see and what I've seen is a generational trend to recognize, okay, some of those things that were just considered, hey, that's just part of life. You just deal with it. You move on. That's the family you have. You grow up. And then people will grow up and think, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not doing that in my family. And then what they didn't know, what we didn't know then, is that it's not just enough to say, I'm not gonna hit my kids. I'm not gonna drink. I'm not gonna use drugs. I'm not gonna cheat on. I'm. I'm not going to pursue a divorce. I'm going to do everything I can to keep my marriage intact. We still have to unlearn and relearn New ways to handle conflict. Because with all of those things come dysfunctional relationship patterns. We don't know how to regulate our emotions, how to build trust, trust in a healthy way, how to express what we need or respect boundaries that people put up, how to rupture in a relationship, and then apologize and repair and attach securely. And sometimes that dysfunction still feels really normal and we just don't see it because it feels so normal. Now there was a research study that was done in the 1990s by Kaiser Permanente by researchers and Felida Felitti. And these were researchers who took a group of people who were on a health insurance plan and they just basically asked them about some things that they had experienced in childhood trauma. Had they ever seen their mother physically abused in the home, had they had a parent who was incarcerated? Had they experienced physical abuse or neglect themselves. It was just those kinds of major traumatic life events. And what they found was that a score of 4 or more, 4 or more adverse childhood experiences significantly reduced the, increased the risk, I'm sorry, it significantly increased the risk of physical disease like heart disease, stroke, also maladaptive coping like substance addiction and even suicide. And they found that it would even could lead to a shorter life expectancy. And that was the first time that there was really a research link between psychological trauma and sometimes physical trauma and long term health outcomes. And so that is important for us to look at when we see the patterns that we might have inherited.
What do we mean when we say generational trauma?
So let's start at the beginning. What do we mean when we say generational trauma? That's kind of a broad umbrella term, that's a catch all, but it basically just means to the effects that extend in your family when you were directly exposed to something tough in a previous generation. It just means how that impacts you negatively. And there's a lot of different contributing factors here. And some of it has to do with just being directly exposed to that negative thing. Some of it has to do with caregiving and your parenting patterns, how people took care of you, how they showed up for you, how they built attachment bonds like Dr. Rush talked about yesterday. And some of it is the family beliefs and narratives just kind of what we normalize. And, and some of you who have experienced, experienced negative things in a family, you might be in an adult and you're telling a story about something that happened in your childhood and you think it's funny and you tell this story like it's funny and all of a sudden you look around the table and everybody's jaws dropped. On the table, like, that's not normal. And that may be the first time that you realize, oh, that is not a common experience. And we're also learning more about genetic mechanisms, epigenetics in specifically, and how that can impact us. And so when we about think, think about what we talked about yesterday with Dr. Rush. We talked specifically about attachment. And attachment is something that God designed in babies to attach to their caregivers. Most of the time that's going to be the mom. And children learn through that attachment. Is the world generally safe? Is somebody going to come and respond to me when I need something? Are, my emotions welcome? Do I receive comfort? Is it safe to express when I have a fear or a need? Or do I have to take care of myself? Do I have to take care of everyone else? Does, does closeness feel safe? And it feels, feels good or it feels dangerous, like I don't want any part of that? What happens when there's conflict? And when you have a consistently responsive and emotionally available caregiver, you have a stronger foundation for security. But when that caregiving can be unpredictable, you just don't know, is it a good day, is it a bad day? Are you going to get a warm response or an angry outburst? Then children may develop adaptations for coping that help them survive their environment. Now. So a child who's learning to scan every adult's mood because their mood is going to affect my safety, they become hyper vigilant and they just look all the time. And a child whose emotions are ignored may just stop expressing them. They learn to suppress those emotions like, I don't have any emotional needs, I'm fine, everything's good. Or a child who's responsible for everybody else's feelings is just becomes a chronic people pleaser. And to adults, or a child who's constantly exposed to chaos and conflict may just avoid all disagreement. And maybe they're going to be the class clown, maybe they're going to be the family comedian, Maybe they're going to be the golden child. Anything to distract attention away from conflict. And so we want, as we talked about yesterday, secure attachment. But when we don't have that secure attachment, you can have an anxious attachment where you just, you're afraid of constantly being abandoned or rejected, and you're just constantly seeking reassurance. You're clingy, you're calling a million times, you're texting. Are you sure everything's okay? Are you sure? Have you told me. I know some of you out there relate to these behaviors, and I'm telling you that can come from a learned pattern of behavior or you're avoidant. Like, oh, there's emotion here. This is leading down an unsafe path. I don't want to explore that. So let's just shut this off. And, you know, why don't I do whatever I have to do to shut you down? Like, oh, this sounds like a you problem. No, we're not talking about that. And these impact our relationships and makes us have, distrust, or we don't feel safe, or we are afraid, or we people please, all these kinds of things. When we come back, I'm going to tell you a little bit about what the neuroscience says, what we know about that, and I'm going to talk about some specific roles and dysfunctional patterns that families can take on. And you may recognize those, even your own. But don't worry, if you do, there's help and there's hope. I'll be right back after this break.
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Heart of the Father by Ryan Ellis : Me and I've tasted, I've seen and nothing comes close. I've never known a love like yours. Jesus, your name is power expressing living water. And your spirit guides me to the heart of the Father. Let your praise ring louder every day and every hour. Cause your spirit guides me to the heart of the Father.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is Heart of the Father by Ryan Ellis. And that's really what we're talking about today, is the heart of our Father for families. And God created families and, and said it was good. But we live in a broken world. And yesterday I talked to Dr. Ryan Rush about attachment theory and what we're learning from psychology to back up what scripture has said all along. And if you're feeling discouraged because you have a family that is filled with a lot of problems, you are not alone. And when we look back through the pages of scripture, we see hope and help and healing for those things. And as Dr. Rush pointed out yesterday, that God blesses us a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. So if you are a chain breaker, if you are a cycle breaker, just know my heart sees you today. I'm praying for you. I'm cheering you on. And I'm fully confident in the redemptive work that God can do. It's messy, it's looping, it's back and forth, but it is redemptive and those seeds will bear fruit.
So today I'm talking a little bit about some kinds of generational dysfunction
So today I'm talking a little bit about some kinds of generational dysfunction. So maybe you can look at your family and those. Because it's not enough to just stop the negative influence. You gotta unlearn and relearn those maladaptive coping responses that you had to keep yourself safe. If you had something that was unpredictable, maybe you hid, maybe a fought. We see that trauma response where we fight or we flight, we run away, we freeze or we fawn. Sometimes that's the people pleaser, that's the overly people pleasing. Let me just try to keep everybody happy so I can keep myself safe.
There are certain predictable roles that families fall into when they have dysfunction
So let's talk a little bit about how dysfunction can feel normal when you don't know anything different. And children especially, they don't evaluate their family as outside observers. They really adapt to it. And when you have unspoken rules like, we don't talk about that. Everybody knows it. Yep, we all know it. We don't talk about it. Or don't make your mother upset or what happens in this family stays in this family. You're too sensitive. Just get over it. Nobody owes you an apology. We don't need counseling. We handle our own problems. You know how your father is. You just gotta deal with it. And if you loved me, you would fill in the blank. These are just examples of unwritten rules that sometimes can function in dysfunctional systems. And there are some specific predictable roles that families can fall into. When you have a dysfunctional family. So see if any of these resonate with you, because these are identities that have been pretty well established in research. You may have the hero, usually that's going to be the oldest. Let's just be honest that, person who excels, who achieves, who is doing everything they can to say, hey, look, the family's successful. You may have the caretaker, that's usually the middle child, somebody who is managing everybody's emotions and problems, putting their own needs last, like just trying to run around, put out fires, just take care of everything best they can. You may have a scapegoat, the black sheep of the family that's just the problem child. And they may be blamed for the family dysfunction. Like everything negative is just projected on that one person. Or sometimes they can just act out for attention, trying to say something is wrong here. There may be a lost or invisible Child. That child just stays quiet, avoids attention, just doesn't need much. I'm just, I'm here, but I'm not here. There can be the mascot or the peacemaker, the golden child. There's different words that have been used to describe this personality, but someone who uses humor or charm or distraction whenever there's tension. It's like, I'm going to step up and I'm going to make everybody laugh, even in the middle of a big fight. And that helps. That helps me feel safe. So I'm going to continue to do that. And then often you have an enabler, which often is a spouse of, somebody who is struggling with addiction or dysfunction. And that enabler protects others from the consequences of their behavior. They're the ones who are going to really drive a lot of the dysfunctional communications that happens. Now. These are adaptive roles. These are survival instincts. They're very human. They're not fixed personality types. And often when you work with somebody who has experienced childhood trauma and who is working to heal and overcome that, they may discover, hey, my personality is not at all what my family thinks it is. That was just an adaptive role that I took. Like, yeah, I. I was. Seemed like I was the golden child and the star of the family. But I actually don't like attention. I'm actually an introvert, and I like to stay home and read, and that's perfectly okay. But there's some communication patterns that are really common in dysfunctional families. One of those is secrecy. Like, we don't tell anybody about this. Like, it's just, we can't name our problems. We can't talk about it. There's a lot of denial that goes along, and usually that comes with, hey. If somebody says, hey, I really don't like this. Like, this is uncomfortable to me and this hurt my feelings. You just immediately deny, minimize. Nope, it wasn't that bad. That's a you problem. You, you're way overreacting. And a lot. Often emotional suppression. If you have strong feelings, those are often punished or mocked. So you learn to bury those babies down deep. Like, nope, it's not gonna come up. I just won't have any emotions because that is a dangerous thing. Triangulation is really common where conflict between two people is managed by somebody else. Often the enabler, like, you never talk to the person you're having conflict with. It's, you know, that person is going to talk to another person who's going to talk to another person who's going to talk to you. Well, you Know, your mom wanted me to talk to you because, you know, you really hurt her feelings and you need to go apologize and you need to do this. And there's never any direct communication. Sometimes there can be parentification where children just take on adult roles before they're really developmentally and emotionally ready. Some families get enmeshed and this is where the, the boundaries are all blurred. And it's the parent and child might be best friends or worst enemies. And all of your personal decisions are family decisions. Like you don't have a right to make any decisions on your own. Where you live, where you go to college, where you work, what you do, that's all our decision. When you have a baby, you know, whatever the boundary may be, and I'm laughing about it, but it's really not funny when you experience that. It's really a. And disrespect and not allowing kids to become adults and have their own lives. And anytime you, you disagree, you feel like you're disloyal. And guilt is used to maintain closeness. So after everything I've done for you and this is how you're going to repay me, you're going to move away, you're going to take this job, you're going to leave me here? That and the goal isn't detachment. The goal isn't separation. It's just healthy differentiation for God's design for family. And we see a generation that is trending towards cutting off relationships rather than repair them. And sometimes the first step in recovery is not necessarily changing anything. It's just being able to finally name what happened and say, you know what, that wasn't the healthiest thing that happened. And it did impact the way that I learned to function and see the world. And so often when we stop the behavior, we think, okay, when I grow up, I am not going to hit my kids. I am not going to do those things. But we haven't yet moved to unlearn those survival patterns and relearn healthy relationship connection patterns. So we saw past generations often focused on stopping the obvious.
Even if addiction is removed, the family still remains organized around dysfunction
As I said before then, we're, we're not using any substances. I am not violent. there is no infidelity, there's no screaming, you know, whatever it is. And we can celebrate that because those, those changes can absolutely be life saving. But the question that should come next is, okay, what relational system are we going to build to replace the old dysfunctional one? And if addiction is removed, but nobody learns to talk about their feelings or communicate directly or regulate their anger, ask for help or listen without being defensive or respect boundaries. And the family still remains organized around that same dysfunction, even though the addiction is removed. And sometimes that change doesn't feel like enough. And that's really hard because someone may make genuinely enormous changes, and they are nowhere near as destructive or dysfunctional as the family system that they grew up in. And from their perspective, the story is, hey, I am nothing like my parents. I am light years better. Why is that not enough? Your expectations are just completely unrealistic. And that can happen. And we just sometimes can be just blind to the dysfunction that can happen. We experience ourselves from the inside. We know our intentions. We know what we're thinking. We know what we're feeling. We know the sacrifices we've made for our family. We know the progress we've made. But our family experiences us from the outside. They don't often know our intentions. They only hear our words. They see our reactions. They experience our behavior. And when we say, hey, I'm nothing like my dad. I'm, nothing like my mom, that can be true. And it can also be true to say, I'm still learning to relate to my family in healthy ways. Those things can both be true. But shame plays a big part in this, because if you acknowledge that you caused somebody else's pain, it means I'm that bad person I swore I would never be. I, don't want to be anything like that. So defensiveness just becomes a form of self protection. And when we feel threatened, those learned patterns show up from childhood, those ways that are entrenched in our brain. Because conflict activates our nervous system, and it goes where it knows, and we reach for what we learned. So if peace depended on keeping everybody happy, my coping mechanism is I'm going to people, please. But in the meantime, I'm going to build up resentment that I'm doing everything for everyone else and nothing for me. And one day, that's going to bubble over. We see the. That the present can trigger the past without us even realizing it. Healthy conflict response requires a pause. It requires us to recognize, okay, I'm activated here. Like, all right, this is. This is activating a pathway in my brain. I don't want to go down. We gotta learn how to regulate and then choose a response rather than reacting. Dr. Rush and I talked about this yesterday. Choose to respond. And that's actually one of the habits that we talked about. You can go back and catch that on a Friday show where we talked about that. Rather than just automatically reacting and repeating that family pattern. And we resist seeing it, and we resist changing it, because it feels so normal to us. We don't question what we've experienced, especially when everyone around us behaved the same way. And our brains are protecting us with those automated survival instincts and responses. And when we want to change, it requires us to say, hey, I've been doing this all wrong, and that's a really scary and vulnerable place. And we just really tend to die on the hill of confusing intention with impact. So we think, I didn't mean to hurt you. Therefore, you're not allowed to be hurt. You can't experience hurt. Because I didn't mean to do that. That wasn't. I wasn't sitting here thinking in my mind that I wanted to hurt you. So how can you be hurt? And that's a reason not to listen to how we actually affected someone. And then that person's going to learn, okay, well, I can't come to you with my feelings. And we just see that familiar dysfunction feel safer than unfamiliar, healthy functioning. That's just the truth. And if we're going to change, then it requires humility. We. We can say, I may be doing better than the generation before me, but I still have things I'm working on. I am still a work in progress. And he who began a good work will be faithful to complete it. That is the hopeful part, because awareness of it doesn't produce shame. What happened to you is often not your fault at all, but how you heal from it. You have some agency there. You have some responsibility. You have some choice. And we often measure change the most dramatically by what we stopped doing rather than what we started doing. So I stopped drinking. I stopped letting my temper pop off. I stopped yelling at you. I stopped, you know, being physically intimidating. But I started connecting. I started apologizing when I'm wrong. I started trying to connect with you in a healthy way. And that is where owning your percent comes into play. Because we, whatever you may think, I only own 1% of that conflict, but you got to own 100% of your 1%. And you can think, I may have broken a generational cycle in significant ways, and I still may have caused pain that I cannot see. Both of those things can be true. You can be making progress. You may have broken a cycle, and you still caused pain. Those things can both be true and real. Recovery moves from, hey, look how different I am, look how much I've changed to, help me understand how my change has impacted you, and let's move forward together. And that requires humility so it means not just removing something destructive. It's building something that is constructive. And it's not quick and it's not easy. It definitely isn't. But let me. Let me tell you about what this can look like. Everyone in the family can know that dad drank too much. They just didn't call it drinking. They called it stress. His way of unwinding. They call it a rough season. And there were family rules. We don't talk about it. Don't embarrass dad. Don't tell people outside the family, for heaven's sake. And whatever happens at home, make sure nobody can tell. And if dad missed dinner, mom made an excuse. If he was angry, everybody stayed quiet. If he forgot something important, somebody covered for him. And then dad had another expectation. Hey, the family needs to look perfect. The kids need good grades. Mom needs to keep the house together. Nobody's allowed to talk about any of the brokenness that we have. Because if the family looks happy and successful and put together, then dad could tell himself, see, I'm not hurting anybody. My family's fine. But they weren't fine. And the children learned to watch Dad's face when he walks through the door. They learned when to talk and when to disappear. One became the overachiever. One's the peacekeeper. One's the problem child, because that's the child that's saying this isn't normal. And when somebody finally tries to confront dad, he doesn't see the years of fear and adaptation. He sees ingratitude. Do you have any idea how hard I've worked? I'm not like my dad. I don't beat you. I provide for this family. I've changed. And he had changed.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Changed.
Dr. Jessica Peck: He really had. But he couldn't yet see that stopping one destructive behavior didn't automatically teach the family how to feel safe. And he couldn't see that his children still walked on eggshells, that his wife still covered for him, that everyone was still afraid to tell the truth. They just spent years adapting. And now they had to learn something new. They can love dad without protecting his addiction. They can forgive him without pretending nothing happened. They can set boundaries with. Without abandoning him. And dad could learn that recovery isn't simply just putting down the bottle. It's learning how to listen and take responsibility and talk uncomfortable truth and rebuild trust. When we come back, I'll talk about how to do that and take those healthy steps forward. I'll see you on the other side of this break. During the Christmas season of 1976, I sat down one night to watch television.
: One man saw the battle coming. If we lose this cultural war, we're going to have a hedonistic, humanistic society. And he chose to stand and fight. If you will not respect our beliefs, then you will respect our money and we're spending with somebody else. Reverend Wildmon. Reverend Wildmon. The Reverend Donald Wildmon.
: Discover the story of the culture warrior, Don Wildmon and how, how he went head to head with Hollywood playboy, the homosexual agenda, and the Disney empire. Things were changing, and many people just sort of acclimated to it. and Don Wildmon didn't. They thought, I think, that they could just crush him.
: The movement Don started paved the way for Christians to boldly stand for truth and righteousness in a hostile culture.
Watch Culture Warrior today for free. Visit culturewarrior.movie
Watch Culture Warrior today for free. Visit culturewarrior.movie
What A God You Are by Andrea Olson: To me, when I'd had enough almost giving up in my weakness, the Lord held on me. What a God you are. You are strong and true. There is none more faithful and this there is none like you. What a God you are. Your presence is secure. Nothing is for certain. Your promises are sure. What a God you are.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is what a God you are. By Andrea Olson.
We're seeing a generational divide when we talk about family conflict
and I'm so grateful that we serve a God who is a loving father, who sees, who knows, who cares. And today I'm talking about generational dysfunction. And we know this is a tale as old as time. And when we look back in the Bible, all we see are examples of dysfunctional families. But God redeems and he renews and he restores. And even at the beginning, when I was talking about the dysfunction of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, these are the fathers of our faith. David was in fact called a man after God's own heart. We can be broken and we can be restored. And we serve a God who redeems and restores and renews and heals and makes all things new. And what we've been talking about today is a follow up to my conversation yesterday with Dr. Ryan Rush, who's pastor of Kingsland Baptist Church. He'll be preaching a series you can actually listen to online about Joseph, starting here in a couple of weeks. And you can find that at Kingsland Baptist Church, where he'll talk about family dysfunction. And we are learning something. And we're seeing a generational divide right now when we talk about family conflict. And we can have two realities that seem to conflict that are both true at the same time. The first reality is that younger generations, younger adults really have Trouble with healthy conflict resolution. Most of their interactions are happening online. They were largely impacted by Covid and social isolation. And they have these online forums, especially AI, that is making it increasingly attractive to communicate with something that is programmed to please them and to avoid conflict. And that is that a culture that sees immediate disengagement. So if this is not going, we're not tolerating any disagreement, you're cut off, you're ghosted, you're unfriended, you're bye bye. And it's hard sometimes for this generation to distinguish discomfort from danger. That is an important thing. If they have difficulty having difficult conversations, they often have trouble staying emotionally regulated. When somebody else sees something differently, can feel really scary and un, and just uncomfortable. They have difficulty repairing after relational rupture because they're doing it by text. And that's harder to understand. Tone of voice and eye contact. And it's harder to accept that healthy relationships do include conflict. That is true. What is also true is that this younger generation is recognizing genuinely harmful patterns that earlier generations normalized. And they are speaking more truthfully about that. So an older generation might say, hey, that's just how we were raised. But an adult child may have language for things like emotional abuse or addiction related chaos or parentification or untreated mental illness or violence or manipulation or neglect. The fact that a previous generation didn't have language for that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. And sometimes that did happen. And so these ruptures are very complex, so they can be true at the same time. And that's where we can come together, where older generations can say, you know what, there are some things that we could have done better. And you know what, there's some things that we see that you can learn from us, from our strength, our wisdom, our experience that will help you be tougher, be more resilient. And then the younger generation is saying, but there's things we know that can help make you more sensitive, more caring, more kind. And both of those things are good and godly, and that's important. And we see this trend talked about in the news that increasingly going towards no contact. I had Dr. Kathi Cook on, and I talked with her recently and she said she thinks that maybe that's being overblown in the news. We'll talk about that. You can watch for that. But no contact is not automatically healthy and reconciliation is not automatically healthy. There is a critical balance here. We don't need to shame people who need some distance for Healing. But we also don't need to present estrangement as the automatic answer to every painful relationship. So can some. Some things to consider, some questions to consider. Is there ongoing abuse or violence or coercion or stalking or credible danger? Obviously that needs really significant strong boundaries. Is there an active addiction that's creating unsafe circu circumstances? Is the other person unwilling to respect any boundaries that you put up? Is the conflict about disagreement or is about mistreatment? Those things can be really helpful. So an important boundary is whenever there is abuse or danger, safety takes priority. And reconciliation should never be demanded as a substitute for safety. That's, in place of safety. That's not okay.
Before going no contact, first assess safety, then seek professional help
So before going no contact, what, what is best really to things to consider? Just first assess safety. If there's safety, then you really need some professional help of some way. If that's law enforcement, if that's a lawyer, if that's a social worker, if that's a counselor, if there are safety concerns, you need outside help. And it's also true that it's not good to make a permanent decision in the middle of a temporary emotional crisis. So if it's possible, allow your emotions to settle down before you make those major decisions. And you don't just say, okay, oh, that's, that's it, they're cut off, I'm done. And it's important if you are considering going no contact with a relative, you really should talk with a qualified therapist and that you can find a, Christian counselor through the American association of Christian Counselors through Focus on the Family. There are lots of churches who will provide connection or even provide counseling themselves. And so there is a therapist that you can find to talk to to really talk about that. Because if it's that severe, again, you really need some outside help. It's also important to seek wise counsel from someone outside the family system. So go to a, trusted, spiritually mature pastor or a trusted mentor who is wise and you trust they're mature in their faith. And that can help you distinguish from okay, this is painful and I may need some boundaries to this is unsafe. And that is really important. Be honest about your own contribution. Even owning 1% of your hundred percent own that. Walk through that Again, outside help is going to be really helpful there if it is safe. Think about what those boundaries are. Communicate those boundaries clearly. Give the other person an opportunity to understand what needs to change. But you don't have to repeatedly explain yourself to someone who refuses to respect your boundary. And that is your, your right to make that decision. And we can't confuse forgiveness with unlimited access. Biblically, forgiveness doesn't require remaining in an unsafe situation or in a chronically destructive place. There may be some boundaries that come along with that, and reconciliation again requires two people. So I encourage you to, we can't look at no contact and completely cutting off every relationship as the go to the easiest thing to do. That's something that really takes a lot of thought and consideration and some outside help. Now, when a boundary is not a punishment, and often in unhealthy families, a boundary is perceived and interpreted as a punishment. And a boundary really says, here is what I will and will not participate in, and here's what will happen if this limit is crossed. That's different from, you know, you got to do this and this and this and this. It's just basically saying, this is, this is my boundary here and this is the consequences for crossing that. So some examples are, okay, I want to continue this conversation, but I will not continue it while you are yelling. So I'm going to step away and then I will come back and we'll try again. But I'm not going to continue the conversation while you're yelling or I love you and I'm not going to provide money to you right now that supports active substance abuse. I am willing to discuss this, this, and I won't discuss it if you name call and insult me. I want a relationship with you, and we need some help to do that. And here's, here's where I want you to, to go with me to counseling or whatever that may be. Those are some examples of some boundaries that can have. And we can break the cycle without breaking every relationship that starts with self awareness of what. How do I respond when I feel rejected, when I feel anxious, when I feel afraid? What happens inside me when someone disagrees with me? Am I shutting down? Am I attacking? Am I pursuing? Am I controlling? Am I avoiding them? Do I know how to apologize? Can I hear feedback without being defensive? Can I really be honest and, and look, at it? Do I expect other people to regulate my emotions? What patterns am I repeating that I never wanted to do? And what are the my family around me? what do they experience when there's conflict with me? What is that really like? So we start to look at ourselves, and then you own a hundred percent of your percent, even if your percent is only 1%. So that might sound like, hey, I was wrong to raise my voice. I wasn't wrong to be upset about this. I Wasn't wrong to have hurt feelings, but I was wrong to yell. I should have listened before I attacked and defended myself. I minimized your experience because that was painful for me to hear. I didn't know then what I know now. But I can see how my choice affected you. And, hey, my intention was not to hurt you, but I also see that I did anyway, and I'm sorry for that. What does repair look like? That's not the same thing as excuse. Hey, I was stressed. That's how I was raised. Well, you started it. You did it worse. We have to practice the biblical combination of truth, truth and love. Recovery is saying things like truth and love. That's I love you. And this behavior cannot continue and, and not, impact our relationship. I forgive you, and trust will be rebuilt over time. I want relationship, and I need a different pattern for that to happen. I can hear that you were hurt, and I also remember the event differently. Let's talk about that. That those are things. Can we try again? I'm so sorry. Because you can only control your response. You can't control the other person's response. And so when we're trying to take boundaries, name the pattern specifically. Not just, oh, our family's toxic and terrible, but just, hey, when we disagree. One thing I've noticed about our family is that we tend to yell. One thing I've noticed about our family is that, you know, everybody tends to isolate. We don't talk about it. We recruit other relatives into our family problems. We recruit. We talk to other people outside of our family, and we don't talk directly to each other. What is that specific pattern that is, important to recognize? And then we emotionally regulate. And this may be something that's really hard. You may need some professional help to learn how and when to. To do this.
If you are sincere and you work, healing is possible
How do we speak directly to the person in a therapeutic communication, communication way that is really important to do, and learning how to apologize. And a lot of these things I covered in Healthy habits in the communication sections. We covered every Friday for the first four weeks of the year. We did four core spiritual disciplines. We did family rhythms that you need, and then we talked about communication patterns. These things are done slowly over time. God will honor the effort that you put in. If you are sincere and you work and are diligent and make those small changes, healing is possible. It can happen. You may be the first person in your family to do something differently. You may be the first person to say, hey, we can talk about hard things. Like, I didn't Handle that way. The first grandparent who listens instead of defending the past. The first adult child who sets a boundary without being cruel. The first family member who actually goes to counseling. The first person who says, hey, we're not going to pretend anymore. I can honor our family history and look at the good things in it without repeating every pattern and accepting it blindly. And it's God's grace that creates new patterns. He can create truth where there was secrecy, confession where there was denial, repentance where there was used to be blame, humility when there was pride and healthy limits when there was chaos and wisdom where there was confusion or forgiveness where repentance opens a door to restoration, protection where there is safety needed and new life. Where destructive patterns once seemed to crush the heart and soul of your family. Maybe you can't go back and you can't change what happened in the generations before you. Maybe there are things that you did not choose and patterns that you did not create. But you, you can ask yourself, a different question today. Will it stop with me? What am I going to learn? What is the new pattern? By God's grace and with the help I need, that will begin with me. I encourage you if you to look at Celebrate Recovery. If that is a resource that is near to you, you can find it online. Many churches host Celebrate Recovery group. There's recovery from all kinds of things. From grief, from abuse, from shame, from, from addiction. There are, you don't have to do it alone. Celebrate Recovery is a Christ centered biblical recovery program that helps people find freedom from hurts and habits and hangups is what they call them. In a safe, supportive community. And whether you're facing addiction or anger or shame or grief or whatever it is, you can take a step toward healing. Your past may be part of your story, but it doesn't have to write your future. And if you don't take that those steps and you continue to carry the burden of past generational dysfunction as we saw in the Bible, as we see in families today, your children will pick up that burden and carry it for you. And I know that we all want to give our children a more hopeful future. If you're in the middle of family dysfunction, pray about it. Pray about it. Talk to somebody about it. You may need to seek out a professional counselor again. Check out the American association association of Christian Counselors who can connect you to a counselor. And as you do, I hope you know recovery is possible. God can make all things new. As you're thinking about these things, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. I'll see you right back here tomorrow.
Preborn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion
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Jeff Chamblee: opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Jessica shares hope-filled information about recognizing generational patterns of dysfunction, breaking unhealthy cycles, and learning to build healthier families.
https://giving.preborn.com/preborn/checkout/afa?sc=43490GF2022&campaign=404750
Chapters:
(00:00) More than 80% of abortion vulnerable women choose life after seeing ultrasound
(01:47) September is National Recovery Month, and Dr. Jessica Peck discusses family dysfunction
(12:32) What do we mean when we say generational trauma?
(16:47) Without people like you, this podcast would not exist
(19:18) So today I'm talking a little bit about some kinds of generational dysfunction
(19:53) There are certain predictable roles that families fall into when they have dysfunction
(25:44) Even if addiction is removed, the family still remains organized around dysfunction
(35:05) Watch Culture Warrior today for free. Visit culturewarrior.movie
(36:27) We're seeing a generational divide when we talk about family conflict
(41:16) Before going no contact, first assess safety, then seek professional help
(47:36) If you are sincere and you work, healing is possible
(51:17) Preborn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion
Jessica shares hope-filled information about recognizing generational patterns of dysfunction, breaking unhealthy cycles, and learning to build healthier families.
https://giving.preborn.com/preborn/checkout/afa?sc=43490GF2022&campaign=404750
Chapters:
(00:00) More than 80% of abortion vulnerable women choose life after seeing ultrasound
(01:47) September is National Recovery Month, and Dr. Jessica Peck discusses family dysfunction
(12:32) What do we mean when we say generational trauma?
(16:47) Without people like you, this podcast would not exist
(19:18) So today I'm talking a little bit about some kinds of generational dysfunction
(19:53) There are certain predictable roles that families fall into when they have dysfunction
(25:44) Even if addiction is removed, the family still remains organized around dysfunction
(35:05) Watch Culture Warrior today for free. Visit culturewarrior.movie
(36:27) We're seeing a generational divide when we talk about family conflict
(41:16) Before going no contact, first assess safety, then seek professional help
(47:36) If you are sincere and you work, healing is possible
(51:17) Preborn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion
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