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It's time for me to shout out my next sponsor, which is Talkiatry. If you've ever tried to find a psychiatrist and you've been told that the waitlist is six months long, or you found yourself bouncing between online mental health sites trying to get medication support, Talkiatry was built for you. Talkiatry is a fully online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive psychiatric care, including evaluations, diagnoses and ongoing medication management for mental health conditions like adhd, anxiety, depression, insomnia and more. This is not a therapy app. With Talkit, you're seeing a licensed psychiatrist, a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medication when it's appropriate. Your care is personalized, evidence based and consistent, so you're not starting over with someone new every visit. Another huge plus, Talkiatry is in network with major insurers. Their team of more than 600 clinicians accept insurance, which makes high quality psychiatric care far more accessible. Getting started only takes a few minutes. You complete a short online assessment and get matched with clinicians who fit your needs and you can schedule your first visit, often within days. More than 300,000 patients have already used Tochiatry to access psychiatric care that fits into real life. If you are ready to explore psychiatric support that actually works with your schedule and your insurance, head to toe.comihaveadhd to complete the short assessment and get matched in minutes. That's talkiatry.com ihaveadhd this episode is sponsored by Marley Spoon. Every January, I tell myself, okay, this is the year that I'm gonna get better at meals. And every January, my ADHD brain is like, cool plan. Let's order takeout. Let's doordash again. Let's do it. Because meal planning has always, always, always been my downfall. I do want to eat well. I want to feed my family well. But in between work and kids and decision fatigue and just being tired and overwhelmed, it's just too much. It's just too much. And that's why Marley Spoon has genuinely been a game changer for me. About Marley Spoon is how ridiculously easy they make everything. They send you chef designed recipes, perfectly portioned ingredients, and you choose what works for your life that week. Some nights I cook, other nights I need dinner. Like yesterday, soon, fast. And Marley Spoon's prepared meals in that case are lifesavers. Delicious, ready in minutes and zero mental effort. And if I do have a little energy, they're 20 minute meals and tray baked dinners are my favorite hack. You literally throw everything on One tray. They even include the tray, y'. All. And boom, dinner is done. One of my recent favorites that I made this week was their everything nachos. Like they're loaded. Loaded nachos. Oh, my goodness. One of those meals. I look at it and I'm like, I made this. I made this. And the best part, I'm cooking at home more. I'm stressing less about food and eating out and all the money wasted when I doordash and I'm eating better than I have in a long time. It feels like hitting reset when without trying to become a whole new person, which is amazing. This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to Marley spoon.com offer/I have ADHD for up to 25 free meals. That's Marley spoon.com offer/ I have ADHD for up to 25 free Meals. Marley Spoon meals reimagined for real life. Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it's all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I'm your host, Kristen Carter, and I have adhd. Let's chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I'll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential and move from point A to point B. Hey, what's up? This is Kristen Carter and you've tuned in to the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. Welcome. Get in here, get cozy, get comfy. We've got a lot to talk about today. I've got a pretty heavy hitting episode for you. We're going to talk about signs of a dysfunctional family and why this is so common with people who come from ADHD families. And this is part of a two part series. This is part one. Next week we're going to talk about what does a healthy enough family look like and how can we get there. But today we're going to deep dive into naming exactly what dysfunction looks like. And this is going to be really, really important because so many of us ADHDers come from a dysfunctional family and we want to change the pattern. We wanna break the cycle. But how, how, how in the world do we do that? And we start, we start by naming what is true. We start by living in reality. We start by recognizing what dysfunction looks like. And that's what this episode is about. Today I have a just like a feeling in my spirit, in my gut that this episode is going to Be foundational, monumental, pivotal. All of the words, like, very, very important for our community. So I, I just, I recommend that you, you listen to it. And if it's kind of emotionally heavy for you, that's okay for you to press pause, take a break, regulate, get into nature, come back to it. But this is an episode that has the potential to impact generations. This is an episode that has the potential to reframe and rewire your immediate family, your dynamics with your partner, your kids, the generations that come after you. And so it was really important to me that we have this conversation. And I've got to tell you that the last couple weeks have been so tough for me. So emotionally heavy. There's a lot of extended family drama happening. It's distracting. It's overwhelming in a massive way. It's taking a lot of my brain power. I've got, like, muscle tension out the wazoo. I don't know if that's like, a phrase that we can still use, but, like, so much back pain, neck pain, jaw pain, headaches. All of this coming from the, like, ripple effect of dysfunction in my family. And do you know how I combat it? This is how Kristin Carter combats it. She talks about it. She gonna talk about it. I'm gonna talk about it openly. I'm gonna name it, I'm gonna bring it to the light. Not my own drama, necessarily, but just what does dysfunction look like in general? Okay. And my family's legacy, to be honest, it's quite dysfunctional. As you know, I'm writing a book to help ADHD people have healthier, more connected relationships. And I want you to know that I come by this work all honestly. I come by this work very honestly. I was recently at a doctor's appointment where we were reviewing my family tree. It was so uncomfortable. They like, printed out this graphic of my family tree. Both sides of my extended family. You know, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, then of course, my own parents and my siblings and me. And as I looked at the family tree, I started doing the trauma math, or maybe we could call it like dysfunction math. I was looking at it and I was like, oh, these people over here, they were abused. They were sexually abused. These people over here were verbally and physically abused. All of these people right here, they had unaddressed mental health issues. These people here are alcoholics. It's just like, it was very. I don't know, it was an uncomfortable experience, but it was a very, like, mind blowing experience to look at the family tree and notice the abuse, neglect, and dysfunction that's all over my own family tree. And I refuse to despise my lineage. I will not do that. But I also refuse to perpetuate the cycle. I won't continue this pattern. It's gonna stop with me. And so today we're talking about dysfunctional families and adhd because I know that mine is not the only family that is riddled with trauma, neglect, abuse, and dysfunctional patterns. At the very least, as discussed last week or a couple weeks ago with Lindsay Gibson, emotional immaturity is ever present in ADHD families. And I'm telling you, we've got to make a change. I'm begging you. We've got to do it differently we than the generations before us. We just have to, or it's just gonna continue and continue and continue. One of the hardest things that I personally like me on my own, I've had to learn is that you can't change the patterns of your family system while still trying to please that family system. I'm gonna say it again because it's so important. You can't change the patterns of your family system while still trying to please that family system. And so this episode is all about bringing the darkness to light and naming what is true for so many of us. This episode is about living in reality. It's not about blame or shame. It never is. It's never is never about blame or shame. It's about telling the truth, which is what I believe I was put here on the earth to do. So if you have adhd, there's a very high likelihood that the family system that you grew up in shaped you in ways that it's possible you're still living inside of, especially in your relationships, your emotional regulation and how safe it is for you to have needs. So this episode is going to help you to identify signs of a dysfunctional family. And if you had asked me five years ago if my family of origin was dysfunctional, I would have been like, no, absolutely not. Not at all. They're so loving, they're so godly. It's like a Christian family. I mean, sure, I feel guilt and obligation constantly, but no, my family is not dysfunctional. I mean, yeah, I've never gotten a phone call from my grandparents, but that doesn't make it dysfunctional, does it? I mean, I do prioritize my family's, my extended family's needs above the needs of my own children, but that's normal, right? Right, that's normal. So this episode is the wake up call that I needed, that I wish I had come across five years ago. It's. It's. It's the wake up call that I think so many of us need, and I really hope that it's helpful to you. And the next episode, like, this episode's gonna feel heavy. It will. There's no way around that this episode is gonna feel heavy. But in the next episode, we're gonna talk about what healthy enough families actually look like and how we can begin to move toward that. Okay. How we can change the cycle and break the pattern, whether it's in your family of origin or maybe just in your current family, if you have a partner and kids, et cetera. Okay. I've spent so much time coaching adults with ADHD. I've been doing it full time since 2020. I've coached thousands of people. I've spent thousands of hours having conversations with adults with adhd, and not one person that I have spoken to has described a childhood that was marked by consistent attunement, co regulation, emotional safety, understanding, acceptance, and peace at home. Not one. Not. Not even one. And additionally, because I was starting to develop this theory of, like, oh, my goodness, did we all come from dysfunction? Is that possible? I did a survey, and you might remember this, I did a survey of adults with ADHD about their relationships, and part of that was like talking about their families of origin. So 2,165 adults with ADHD completed the survey. Maybe you even participated in it. Here's what y' all told me, okay? 92% of survey responders reported that they didn't feel heard or valued as a child. 92%. 79% reported that they often or always felt misunderstood. Only 5% reported that their parents consistently made space for their emotions. 5% and just 2% said their parents helped them to learn how to regulate their emotions. 2% of survey responders said that their parents actually did help them to learn how to regulate their emotions. That means 98% of the 2,165 adults with ADHD that we surveyed did not have help learning to regulate their emotions. So we're on pause here because helping your children to regulate their emotions is a primary job of a parent. It's not extra credit. It's not optional. It's foundational. Okay? And when this is missing, consistently, dysfunction will always be present. Not because parents were bad or had bad intentions necessarily. It doesn't mean that love wasn't present, and it doesn't mean that physical needs weren't provided for. But it does mean that the system, the familial system did not know how to meet the needs of a child, not to mention a neurodivergent ADHD slash, perhaps autistic child. Okay, so we're gonna discuss today 10 signs of a dysfunctional family, so that we have clarity and understanding of what dysfunction looks like. Because we will repeat what we don't repair. Always without exception. We will repeat what we don't repair. You can swear you'll do it differently. You can intellectually know better. You can love your partner and kids with your whole. But if your nervous system learned silence instead of truth, shame instead of guidance, compliance instead of boundaries, you will default to those patterns under stress. Not because you're broken, not because something's wrong with you, not because you're a bad person, but because your brain learned them as survival strategies. Okay? This awareness is the first step of how we interrupt the cycle. And I know you're listening to this podcast because you wanna do things differently. You want to be someone whose family is marked by health and conn. I know that. That's why you're here. Right? I know that. So as we go through the 10 signs of a dysfunctional family, I want you to just kind of think through, okay, am I going to listen to this through the lens of my own childhood, my own family of origin, or am I going to listen to this kind of thinking through my current situation, my current immediate family, my own partner, my own kids? I would just encourage you to kind of choose a lens. You don't have to multitask. You don't have to, like, do both at the same time. You don't need to analyze everything. Just notice what lands and when you feel emotional. Not if, but when. Just pause, take a breather, take a little break, re regulate. Okay, that's gonna be an important piece here because if you're not able to do that, there's a high chance that you're going to want to just turn it off and say, I can't do. I can't do it. I can't deal with it. I don't want to think about it. That's understandable. But if you can, like, breathe and self regulate a little bit, maybe get out into nature, maybe go for a walk or a run, maybe, I don't know, co regulate with a safe nervous system, your partner, your puppy, that could be really helpful to support you as you listen to this episode. Okay, so here we go. Ten signs of a dysfunctional family. Number one, poor communication in dysfunctional families. Talking openly and honestly is prohibited. There's a Lot of triangulation instead of direct communication. Triangulation is when communication goes in a triangle. Instead of talking to the person who offended me, I call someone else and I say, this person really hurt my feelings. Can you talk to them about it? Okay, so instead of going directly to the source, I'm kind of talking around the issue. And in a dysfunctional family, conflict leads to yelling, shutdowns, or silence. Gaslighting is really common. That didn't happen. You're too sensitive. You're blowing it out of proportion. Or as my mom would say, you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Okay? Denial replaces accountability. So family members are not willing to hear your hurt, your experience. They're not willing to make changes. They're just going to shut you down and say, that didn't. That didn't happen. No, it's not like that. You're hearing it wrong, you're interpreting it wrong. That's not true. Okay? So this leads to confusion, secrets, family lore, passive aggressive comments, and nothing ever being resolved fully. Number two, in a dysfunctional family, there's a severe lack of empathy and emotional support. Everyone's emotions are minimized, but especially children's emotions are minimized and dismissed. Again, I'm going to reference episode 368 with Lindsay Gibson if you want more on this specifically, it's really important topic. But in a dysfunctional family, parents are going to completely dismiss the emotions of a child. And the parents needs are going to take priority. The parent's emotional experience is going to take priority. Children's emotional needs are seen as like, not a big deal, they're an inconvenience. They're not even something we need to think about or worry about. So many of you learned I should be able to handle this on my own. I shouldn't have to go to anyone with my emotional experience. My feelings are a problem. This is going to be an inconvenience. I feel guilty telling anyone how I'm feeling, okay? And that's most likely an outworking of emotional neglect. Emotional neglect occurs when caregivers fail to notice, respond to, validate, or help regulate a child's emotional world. Okay, There may have been food on the table. You may have gone to school and may have been told that you were loved, but still emotionally, you were alone. And emotional neglect can be really hard to identify because it isn't necessarily about what happened, like overt abuse. It's about what didn't happen. It's invisible. Okay? Because nothing is obviously bad, it's possible there were no traumatic abuse incidents. Your parents could have been trying their best. You may feel, like, guilty naming it. Okay, so many adults who were emotionally neglected as kiddos say, well, yeah, I think I had a good childhood. Nothing terrible happened. I don't have a reason to feel this way. And that confusion is part of emotional neglect because it isn't about what happened. Again, neglect. This is going to be really important for this entire episode. Neglect isn't about what happened. It's about what didn't happen. It's about the absence of care when care was needed. Okay? Emotional neglect is the of absence, absence of attunement and co regulation. All right, number three, sign of. Sign of dysfunctional family. Lack of boundaries. Lack of boundaries, no privacy, no real autonomy. No permission to say, no forced intimacy. Maybe you weren't seen as your own autonomous person, but more of like an extension of the family system. You. You are an extension of us. Therefore, you need to do X, Y, to kind of carry on the family system. You don't belong to yourself. You don't belong to yourself. You belong to the family. And here's a clue. If you're like, I'm not really sure. Here's a clue as an adult that you can kind of think through if you feel guilty when setting reasonable boundaries. Now, that guilt came from somewhere. That guilt was conditioned in you. Your nervous system learned that limits lead to rejection, limits lead to conflict. Limits lead to someone else feeling like you are stepping on their toes or you're rejecting them. Limits lead to a big explosion. So I just shouldn't have limits because it makes other people upset? Okay, number four, sign of a dysfunctional family. There's a lot of control and power imbalances. It's often that one or two people are going to dominate the emotional temperature of the room, so to speak. They're going to dominate emotionally, financially, and or psychologically. Okay? So the family is usually going to revolve around the most dysfunctional person in a dysfunctional family. The family will revolve around the most dysfunctional person or people. Okay? And everyone else learns to adapt because we want to keep the peace. We don't want there to be conflict. Conflict is never resolved anyway. So why bother? Have some sort of explosion? Why bother have some sort of conflict? We know it's not going to be repaired. We know it's not going to be, you know, healed. And there's not going to be like a lovely conversation where it leads to understanding and connection. That's not going to happen. So instead of, you know, making Waves and causing conflict. We're just gonna adapt. We're going to make the most dysfunctional people really, really comfortable so that they do not have a meltdown, so that they do not have a temper tantrum, so that they do not cause a big explosion in the family. So you're gonna hear things like, well, that's just your mom. You know how she is. Or, come on, just do the thing. Whatever it is that they're wanting you to do, just do it. It's going to be better for all of us. This is where a lot of triangulation comes in, right? So maybe. Maybe dad makes a request. You say no to the request. Then you get a call from Mom. Mom says, hey, Dad's really upset that you said no to the request. Instead of dad telling you directly, Mom's giving you a call and saying, hey, we're really, like, dad's really upset about that. You know how he is. You just. Just do the thing. It's not a big deal. It's gonna be better for all of us if you just do it. Okay? That's not closeness, y'. All. That's control. That's revolving around dysfunction instead of moving toward health. All right, Number five, sign of a dysfunctional family. There's a lot of enabling and codependency. Unhealthy behaviors are protected. Hear me again. Unhealthy patterns and behaviors are protected. They're not called out. People are not held accountable. This might be verbal, physical, emotional abuse or neglect, but it could also be addiction or other unhealthy patterns. Okay? Addiction is a really big one and a great example. But other unhealthy patterns, too. Again, like looking at my family tree. One side of my family carries a very strong propensity for morbid obesity. That side is also rife with sexual abuse between family members. This was never called out. No one moved the family toward health. No one said, this is unacceptable. We need to make a change. We need to set limits. There need to be boundaries. We need to do it a different way. Okay? The other side of the family, full of alcoholism. Again, these issues were not addressed. Instead, they're protected. And here's how we protect these, like, unhealthy patterns. We do it through rescuing, excusing, minimizing, avoiding, ignoring, pretended, pretending it didn't happen. Just like, pretending that it doesn't even exist. Like, we're just going to sweep it under the rug. We're going to pretend that it's not there. We're just going to say, like. Like, well, you know, the past is in the past. The past is in the. I don't want to live in the past. So we're not going to address these issues. We're just going to pretend it didn't happen. It also enabling and can also look like like toxic sacrifice of self to protect the unhealthy party. So we've talked before about like toxic self sacrifice. As a person of faith, I believe that self sacrifice in relationships is really, it's like a beautiful part of being in relationship when you're mutually submitting to each other, you're mutually sacrificing for each other. There's mutuality there, right? But toxic self sacrifice is when you are over giving, when it's a parasitic relationship where you are just like suffering on behalf of the dysfunctional and unhealthy party in order to protect their toxic patterns. Okay? And when this happens, growth is blocked because accountability again is threatening. And again this goes back to like, well, conflict is never resolved. It's not gonna matter anyway. I know there's just gonna be an explosion. I know that there is just gonna like lead to it being worse off for me. So I'm just gonna continue these unhealthy patterns of rescuing, excusing, minimizing, avoiding, ignoring, pretending it didn't happen and sacrificing myself to keep this dysfunctional person happy. All right, next, unresolved conflict and secrecy. This is a hallmark trait of a dysfunctional family. Unresolved conflict and secrecy. Problems are swept under the rug. Tension, super normal. Super normal. No one is actually enjoying each other. No one is actually connecting. No one is actually telling the truth, saying what they mean, having like an authentic experience of connection with each other. It's just so tense. Everything is super tense. And family loyalty is used to excuse harm. Blood is thicker than water. Forgive and move on. Turn the other cheek. Those are all used to dismiss and ignore harm. This is a classic sign of a dysfunctional family. And when you come from like a religious family, or maybe you, maybe you're not particularly religious yourself, but like generations before you were very religious. There's a lot of like spiritual manipulation here, right? Like Jesus forgave me, so you need to forgive me too. Well, Jesus forgives me, so why can't you forgive me? Meaning just, just give me a pass here. Just sweep it under the rock. Do not hold me accountable for my actions. Just forgive me and move on. Okay? Silence in these situations is going to replace safety. Nothing gets resolved. It's avoided, overlooked and ignored. Next up, we have a term that you may or may not be familiar with. It's something that I learned in therapy that has been extremely illuminating for me. And it is a term called parentification. And parentification is when children in the family take on adult roles. So children are providing emotional support for parents or grandparents or siblings. Okay. Children are taking on the role of mediator in the family. Children are doing not just like age appropriate chores, but like actually putting meals on the table for the family. And, you know, like, mom's in bed with a headache, so I'm gonna cook dinner for the entire family instead of the other parent or an other adult stepping in to take on this role. So parentification can come in a couple different forms. You can be emotionally parentified, which is when you're, you know, your mom's little best friend, meaning she's going to confide in you, she's going to tell you all of the secrets, you're going to provide emotional support for her. You're going to act as, you know, the therapist for the family. Parentification can also be physical. So you're taking on like the physical roles of the family. Maybe you're paying the bills for the family or you are, like I said, like cooking, cleaning. And again, doesn't mean don't give your child chores. Like, chores are very good for children. But parentification, when you're being physically parentified, it's beyond just like age appropriate chores. It's actually like helping to run the household in a way that's inappropriate for a child. So you learned responsibility before safety. And this is very, very, very disorienting for a kid because on one hand, the child who is parentified feels really important and special. You know, like my dad is telling me all of these things and I get to know stuff that nobody else knows. And that feels so connecting and so special and so good. But at the same time, it comes with so much anxiety and threat response because then the child doesn't get to be the child. The child understands that they are responsible to take care of the emotional needs of the parent. And that is so threatening to a child's nervous system. Instead of just being able to be a child and worry about kid stuff like Pokemon and Legos and Fortnite and Roblox, the child is instead worrying about mom and dad fighting and how can I mediate it? Or they're worried about, you know, mom is depressed today, so I need to make sure to be extra good and extra sweet and make her really happy. And I'm gonna put on a show and I'm gonna, like, be the family mascot to make everybody smile and because it's clear that there's tension in the air. Okay. That's very, very, very unsafe for a kiddo. All right. Are you doing okay? Should we take a break? We just went through seven signs of a dysfunctional family, and I am starting to sweat. So I wonder if you are too, like, how you doing? Are you good? Do we need to take like a little self regulation break? Maybe a deep breath, wiggle your toes, look around at the room that you're sitting in, maybe find a couple things that are green or blue and ground yourself and remind yourself you're not being chased by a tiger. You're also not a child anymore. You are very safe right now. In the moment that you're sitting or standing or walking or unloading the dishwasher, whatever it is that you're doing, you are safe right now. All right? So if you need to take some deep breaths, kind of re. Regulate, might be really supportive for you. Okay? You good? All right, let's move on. Number eight. These last three are pretty hard. I'm sorry, the last three are pretty hard. That's why we're, like, regulating first. Okay. The last three are, are. Are kind of sad. Actually. All of this is very sad. Number eight, sign of a dysfunctional family. Love is conditional. In a dysfunctional family, love is going to be conditional love and maybe tied to love. You can think it through. Maybe if you don't, if love doesn't resonate with you, you might want to replace love with the word acceptance. Love. And I'm actually going to do that. Let's say love and acceptance is conditional. It has to be earned. Your worth is performance based. Okay? So your mistakes feel very, very dangerous. And a lot of our perfectionism is born out of this because it's super unsafe to make a mistake. If I make a mistake, it's not just like, you know, I'll suffer a natural consequence or, you know, my parents have a boundary and I crossed it. So now I'm going to have a consequence for it, which is very normal and very healthy. But in a dysfunctional family, it's like your. Your worth and your value and your acceptance are at stake here. Okay? So if you make a mistake, it's not just that you experience a natural consequence for it. Instead, we don't like you anymore. You don't get our love. You don't get our love. I'm gonna give you the silent treatment. I'm gonna withhold my love and affection from you. Because you made a mistake that is extremely damaging and abusive. Okay? The silent treatment from a parent to a child, extremely abusive. Withholding love that will wreck a child's nervous system when love and acceptance is withheld. Again, do not hear me say that we can't have boundaries that we can't have, that we shouldn't inflict, you know, consequences, even punishments, whatever you want to call it, okay? Of course, of course, of course we do. But when we withhold love and acceptance and value from people because they crossed a line or they made a mistake, that's when it becomes very dysfunctional, okay? In these scenarios, you were valued for what you did, not who you were. So when you were being a good person, you know, quote, unquote good, when you were able to self regulate and follow the rules and do, do all the right things, okay, you're. You're in good with us. But of course, duh, like, we had adhd. We were so hard to parent. I know it. I know that we were. That we were wild and bouncy and talkative and very impulsive and just like kind of wild children, right? So in those scenarios, if love and acceptance were withheld from us, that is a clear sign of dysfunction. And I wonder, like, as an adult, is that happening currently in your current extended family system? Like, if you don't go to a holiday that is kind of like required, quote, unquote, does love and acceptance get withheld? Are you given the silent treatment for that? Are you told? You know, that you're wrong and not only that you're wrong, but that you're a bad person? Okay, that's very important to notice. If love is conditional in a dysfunctional family system, love will almost always be conditional. Everyone with ADHD knows what to do to improve their lives. You go to bed at a reasonable time, you wake up early, you make a list, you cross things off the list in order, blah, blah, blah, like, yeah, we know what to do. But ADHD is not a disorder of not knowing what to do. It's a disorder of knowing exactly what to do, but not being able to get yourself to do it. That's why I created focused. It's an ADHD coaching membership for adults with ADHD. I'm a life coach with multiple certifications, and since 2019, I've coached over 4,000 adults with ADHD from all over the world. I know what it takes to help an adult with ADHD go from hot mess express to grounded and thriving. I'll teach you how to understand your ADHD brain. Regulate your emotions and your behavior and accept yourself, flaws and all. And with this foundation, we'll build the skills to improve your life with adhd. And not only do you get skills and tools and focus, but you're surrounded by a huge community of adults with ADHD who are also doing the work of self development right alongside of you. Dr. Ned Hallowell says, healing happens in community, and I have absolutely found this to be true. So if you're an adult with ADHD who wants to figure out how to be motivated from the inside out and make sure real, lasting changes in your life, join hundreds of others from around the world in focused. Go to ihaveadhd.com focused to learn more. That's ihaveadhd.com focused to check it out. Okay, my friends, this, this, like, I guess maybe content warning here. We're going to talk about abuse. And in dysfunctional families, abuse is present and it can be easy to identify, but it also can be very covert. So we're going to talk about some abusive things that are a little bit more covert. Okay. Obviously, abuse is the presence of emotional, physical, verbal, or sexual harm. Okay. So many adults, like, when we think back on our childhoods, we kind of minimize things because it wasn't constant or extreme or it was very culturally accepted. Very, very culturally accepted. So, like grabbing, shaking, pushing, like pinching, restraining during emotional moments. Obviously not restraining for protection, but restraining for control. Not good. Throwing objects, Physical intimidation, like looming, cornering, blocking exits. Those kinds of things are more like covertly physically abusive. Verbal abuse is a really interesting one because so much of our own childhood experiences, I don't know that we would identify as verbally abusive, but I think many experts, therapists, psychologists would label it as such. So, like name calling, like, you're lazy, you're dramatic, you're selfish. Right? Or threats of abandonment. I'm gonna leave you. You. You make me regret having kids. I wish that, you know, you were never born. Like, those kinds of things. Mocking and sarcasm aimed at the child, yelling as a primary communication style. And I have to take, like, accountability for a lot of this in my own life. Actually, like so much of this I, you know, grew up in, it was very normalized. That doesn't make it okay. I see how, like, in the early years of my own family and like, parenting my own kids, these things to me were very normal. It's what I knew, it's what I grew up with. I just, I was just like, this is what I know. Okay, moving on. And I'm not Going to go into this a lot because it's probably not the place for it. But I did want to mention a couple, like, covert sexual boundary violations. So that would be like, lack of privacy around your body, bathing, changing inappropriate comments about your body or sexuality. Using a child as, like, an emotional. It's called emotional incest, which is so disgusting. And I'm sorry to say it, but using your kiddo as, like, a surrogate spouse. So, like, if maybe you were raised by a single parent, that is very, very common. Or if the two parents don't have a functional relationship, it's possible that, like, one or both parents would use the child as what's called a surrogate spouse. This doesn't have to do with touching. This is more like an emotional relationship that's inappropriate and, like, ignoring or dismissing a child's discomfort around touch. So, you know, a lot of us grew up in families that was like, you, like, go hug your uncle. He's your uncle. Go hug him. And you're like, I don't want to hug him. Right? So, like, even that. And now I know there's so much more awareness around this, and so many families are adapting and adjusting and understanding that a child gets to say no. If a child doesn't want to hug someone, they don't have to hug someone. Okay. So I just wanted to kind of highlight here. And again, I know it's so uncomfortable, it's so difficult to talk about, but it's important that, like, abuse does not necessarily require overt acts. Okay. Boundary violations count as well. And the last part, part of this that we're going to talk about in terms of abuse is psychological abuse that maybe, like, didn't seem that bad. And it's often internalized as, like, well, I deserved it. I was being bad. I was a bad kid, so, like, I deserved it. Right. But it's actually very damaging. So that would be chronic blaming for family stress or conflict, scapegoating one child as the problem in a dysfunctional family system. And I had it in my notes, and then I took it out. But, like, in a dysfunctional family system, there's often kind of these fixed roles that we fall into. So there's a golden child that can do no wrong and a scapegoat that can do no right, and a lost child or forgotten child that kind of just gets ignored and everybody forgets about. Okay? Those are three very, very common roles. Another one is like the family mascot. So the one that the child that was always relied upon to be funny and entertaining and kind of change the temperature of the room. Like, hey, we're all sad. Come entertain us. Okay, so those roles of golden child, scapegoat, lost child, and mascot are pretty common within dysfunctional families. But scapegoating is when a person, a child is chosen to kind of bear the sins of the family and they're seen as the problem child most of the time. Scapegoats are the truth tellers. Scapegoats are the ones that can't people please in the family systems. Scapegoats are the ones that are like, this is wrong, like, you guys are treating me unfairly. So the scapegoat often bears the brunt of like the criticism and punishment in the family. Unpredictable rules or punishments. This also falls under psychological abuse, withholding affection as punishment. I already mentioned the silent treatment. Psychological abuse, withholding affection as punishment, not. Okay, okay. So all of this creates fear based compliance, not safety. I know that was hard. That was like. That was a really hard one to talk about. The signs of like, covert abuse. And I'm very sorry that we had to say it. Maybe you fast forwarded it and that is fine. And the important thing to notice here is if these parts, if this conversation brings up like a tenderness, like a tender part in you, that's important to notice, right? If something I say just like strikes a nerve or maybe even makes you really angry, that's important for you to notice, right? If you have a response of like, no, that's not like you're wrong, that's important to notice, okay? Like a big emotional body response here that you might be having. It's important, all right? It's really important to see it as, as like crucial information, all right? So I encourage you to pay attention to it. Let's take a deep breath together before we get to the last one, which is also difficult, but maybe not quite as uncomfortable, or maybe it is, I don't know. You can decide, you can let me know. The last sign of a dysfunctional family is that it's going to have a lot of neglect in it. A lot of neglect, okay? And neglect is really important that we talk about because it's as damaging as abuse, but it's kind of the opposite of abuse. And here's what I mean by that. Neglect isn't about what happened, it's about what didn't happen. It's not about what was there, it's about what wasn't present, what you weren't given, what you weren't afforded within the family. Okay? And I do want to have a little caveat here, I want to say that I understand that neglect often happens because the family is in poverty or there's an extenuating circumstance. And this can often happen with mental illness as well. And that's absolutely valid. But neglect is still neglect, right? The sky is still blue, the grass is still green. No matter why it happens, neglect is still neglect. So we can have compassion for the why. And with all of this, with all of this, and I do, like, I can see the generations of, like, trauma, neglect, abuse in my own family, and I can have so much compassion. And I do, I have so much compassion. Undiagnosed and untreated mental health conditions. Like, so much compassion. So much compassion. But if we are going to do it differently, we do have to tell the truth about what took place, why it was harmful, and how we're going to make a change. Okay? And so this episode is all about what took place and why it was harmful. The next episode is all about how we're going to make a change, what we're going to aim for, okay? It's going to be much more fun. I promise you that episode is going to be much more fun. All right? So I'm going to name some examples of neglect for us here so that we can kind of get a feel for it. Because again, it's very confusing because it's not about what happened. So you might look back on your family story, the narrative of your childhood, and you might be like, yeah, my parents never hit me, I was never abused. Like, everything was great. I'm not sure why I'm so emotionally lonely. I'm not sure why I can't set a boundary without feeling extremely guilty. I'm not sure why I'm a people pleaser, but there's no overt abuse to point to. Okay? So if you're kind of in that confusion space of like, yeah, I have no overt abuse to point to, but I also feel like I'm not walking in true adulthood now. I don't have true autonomy. I don't feel a very firm sense of self. I don't have established self trust and agency and ability to make choices. This last category here of neglect might be illuminating for you, so let's find out. I'm going to do it in a couple of different categories. So physical neglect, here's some examples. Even when basic needs seem to be met. So this could be inconsistent. Access to food, being told that you were greedy or dramatic for being hungry. You don't need to eat, you don't need to eat, you're not hungry, you're not hungry, you don't need to eat. Okay. Or poor hygiene support. So not supporting or teaching or supervising. Bathing, dental care, menstrual care, clean clothing, those kinds of things. Chronic sleep deprivation due to lack of structure or supervision or safe routines. Being left alone too young, even if nothing bad happened, you were left to fend for yourself at a young age. Or lack of weather, appropriate clothing. So not having. I don't. I guess it's self explanatory. I don't need to explain it. Okay, so neglect doesn't require like, physical neglect, doesn't necessarily mean that you were starved or homeless, but it does include failure to reliably provide physical care. You doing okay? All right, we're going to move on to medical neglect, which is very common and highly, highly minimized. Many adults are shocked to learn that these kinds of things count as medical neglect. So ignoring or minimizing illness or pain. You're fine. Stop exaggerating. You're always complaining about it. I don't understand, like, never really being taken seriously for your ailments. Okay. Delaying or refusing medical care for injuries or mental health or chronic conditions. Not treating known conditions like adhd, asthma, anxiety, learning disabilities. Like, we know you have a learning disability. Enjoy. Go figure it out on your own. Okay? Using shame instead of care around sickness. You're always sick. You're such a baby. Or maybe, maybe you were given the silent treatment when you were sick because you were like disrupting the family. Okay, this is especially common. Not this specifically, but like, medical neglect is really common for ADHD kids whose symptoms were dismissed as behavioral. And listen, we've done this to our kids too. So I know there's like pain of like, oh, gosh, this was done to me and I think I probably did it to my kids. We all have. None of us are doing the parenting thing perfectly. None of us are consistently, perfectly meeting our kids needs. We can't. We can't. It's impossible. We can try our best, but like, life happens and it is impossible to consistently do it perfectly. That's. That's not what this is about. This is about just understanding what neglect is, how it was maybe done to us, how we may be participating in it right now in our own families so we can make a change, so we can have more support, so we can give our kids more support. Okay. Educational neglect is a big one. So you know, this can be dismissed like, well, like, I went to school. I went to school. I, like, I went to school. So it's not like I was educationally neglected. But if learning disabilities or mental health or like, ADHD was ignored despite clear signs that's an issue. Or failing to advocate for accommodations or avail evaluations, or like, protecting you within a classroom setting. So, like, maybe you had a teacher that was a real bully to you, but no one showed up to protect you in that. Okay, that's an issue. Chronic school absences without intervention, expecting children to manage school independently far too early. Or even like an ADHD kid being left to manage their own educational experience, you know, in high school, that's still inappropriate unless they show signs of being able to do it well. Okay, Punishing academic struggles instead of supporting. Again, not that limits shouldn't be held and consequences shouldn't be given, but that's different from, like, punishing you for doing a bad job and not providing necessary support for you to do a good job. Okay. Okay. One last aspect of neglect that we're going to talk about is neglect due to overexposure. So exposing children to adult conflicts. This, like, all of this is kind of going to go under the parentification umbrella. But exposing children to adult conflicts, finances or crises, expecting emotional support from a child over sharing adult problems without protecting the child, all of this is. It's not okay. It doesn't build maturity. It doesn't build resilience. It's a boundary failure. It is threatening to a child's nervous system. It is not good. So this, like, aspect of neglect can be really surprising for a lot of us because it was so common and it was just kind of like the way we were raised. This is just the way everyone did it. So, like, what's the big deal? But. But I think that we can look at a generation of, like, millennials and Gen Xers and, you know, boomers who are struggling so much, and we can say, okay, just because it was common, just because it was the way that everyone did it, Was it healthy? Was it supportive? Did it lead to growth? Did it lead to family connection? Like, probably not. Even though other families did the same things or no one intervened. That's. That's one of my things that. That I wrestle with when I think through my own childhood story is like, no one intervened, so it must not have been that bad. No one said anything. No one did. No other adults did anything about it. So maybe it wasn't that bad, or it could have been worse. How many of you have thought that or said that or been told that? Been told that, like, maybe you bring like, something that was hurtful to a family member, and you say, like, hey, this really hurt me. And they say, you had it so much better than I did. I don't know what you're complaining about. It could have been so much worse. And so instead of hearing your own pain, your own hurt, and being held accountable and making adjustments and having a repair conversation, instead, you're completely dismissed because it could have been worse. Okay. And obviously, I'm gonna. This is like a compassion sandwich. I hope. It's hard to identify things as neglectful when you know how much your parents struggled. And I get that. I totally get that. Or in your own family right now, like, with your own kids, it's hard to identify maybe your own actions as neglectful because you know how much you're struggling. And you're like, I don't even know how to make this better because I'm struggling so much. That is understandable, and I have compassion for that. But we still need to call the sky blue and the grass green. We're still gonna label neglect as neglect. We can have compassion. So much compassion, so much understanding, and still tell the truth. Okay? Because intent doesn't cancel impact. Intent doesn't cancel impact. The impact is still there. So whether or not the intent was good, it's kind of irrelevant. Not kind of. I used kind of. But that's. That's. It's not kind of irrelevant. It's irrelevant. Intent doesn't cancel impact. So when my kids come to me, which they have, and they say, hey, the way you treated me when I was five really made me upset, and it was really hurtful and damaging to me. I do not respond by saying, well, my ADHD was untreated at the time, and I had very little support. And I didn't know any better because this is how I was raised. And also, you have it way better than I did. So I don't know what you're complaining about. I don't say any of those things. Instead, I say, I am so sorry I treated you unfairly. Tell me more about your experience. What was that like for you? How did it feel for you? I want to know more about your memories, about, like, how it impacted you. And I want you to know that I'm never going to get tired of apologizing. So you can bring this up to me over and over and over. I'm never going to get tired of saying I'm sorry ever. I'm not going to get tired of it. It's not like it's not offensive to me. I don't see it as a threat. I'm so glad that you told me. Tell me more. How was it Hurtful? Why was it hurtful? What do you remember about that day? What do you remember about how you feel, how you felt at the time? What do you remember about me and how I treated you? Mm. I'm so sorry. It makes me so sad to hear that. But I don't need you to take care of me because I'm an adult. But I am gonna be sad about it because I love you and I hate that I treated you that way. And if there's anything that you ever want to tell me again, come to me. If you ever have a memory, like a flash of a memory of a time that I treated you unfairly or, you know, like, you felt really upset and I didn't listen to you, I want you to tell me. Tell me everything. Do you see how connecting that is? Instead of denial, dismissal, minimizing, If I say, like, tell me everything now, here's what that requires, and we're gonna talk about this in our next episode on, like, healthy enough families and what. What a healthy enough family looks like. What that requires is a shit ton of emotional regulation. And if we want to have healthy enough families, the foundation of them is emotional regulation. If I cannot regulate my own emotions, I cannot hear my child's pain. If I cannot regulate my own response, I cannot have my child come and tell me that I hurt them, because I will go in a spiral. I will feel so much shame, and I won't know what to do with it. So I just want to say, like, that's not necessarily what this episode is about. But if you are thinking, okay, give me one thing, Kristen. Like, I see this all over my extended family. I'm even seeing it in my immediate family. I hate that I want to stop the cycle. Want to make sure that I don't repeat this. How do I do it? The number one thing you can do is learn to regulate your emotions. Learn to be responsible for your own emotional experience, Whatever support, whatever coaching, whatever therapy, whatever free YouTube videos, whatever podcast episodes of mine, and I have many on emotional regulation, whatever, of those that you can take advantage of to learn how to regulate your emotions. Do it. That is the foundation here. Okay, I know this was hard. I know this was hard. I know this episode was not, like, sexy and fun, but I do see it as extremely important because the more and more and more and more work I do with adults with adhd, the deeper I get into My book and the research, the more that I see dysfunctional family patterns across the board for ADHD ERs, and the first step in being able to change it is being able to name it. We have to be willing to name harm as harm. We have to be willing to name abuse as abuse. We have to be willing to name neglect as neglect. Now, I am not saying call up your mom or your grandpa or your auntie and tell them. That's not what I'm saying. Put your phone down. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is for yourself, for your own agency, for your own autonomy, for your own inner world and your inner experience, being able to name those things is so important. And there is hope. There is absolutely hope these patterns can be changed. It does come at a cost. It does come at a cost. Sometimes that cost is, you know, people being happy or unhappy with you. Sometimes that's the cost. All right? So I'm not saying it doesn't come at a cost, but it does matter, and it is worth it, and it can change. I wanted to offer you a resource. One of the things that I did years ago, my sisters and I all took this. This. It's called the Toxic Family Test, and it's offered by Patrick Tien. He is a therapist. He's real big on YouTube and I highly recommend his stuff. He has an Instagram account as well. His last name is spelled T E A H A N Patrick Tehan. If you just do a quick Google of Patrick Tien Toxic Family Test, you'll come across this test that allows you to see, based on a seasoned therapist's opinion, how toxic your family may or may not be. We'll also put a link to it in the show notes. I will say that this is one of the few tests that I got an A plus on an A plus. Okay, so, like, I did not do great in school, but I did get an A on this test. So that that has got to count for something. Link in the show notes. Also, if you just feel like doing a quick Google, you can Google Patrick T and Toxic Family Test. It will, like, what is that predictive text? Like, it will just pop up for you. And if this episode hit way too close to home than you're comfortable with, I want you to know that it doesn't mean that you're doomed. It doesn't mean that your children and your children's children will be doomed. It doesn't mean that it's too late to make changes. Maybe your kids are already grown and flown. And you're like, God, I wish I could go back and do it differently. It's never too late to make changes. Okay? It also doesn't mean that your family was evil or necessarily had bad intentions. Some of them did. Some of your families did have bad intentions, but maybe not all of them, right? Not all of them. Some of your parents were just really trying their best. They really, genuinely had good intentions. And. And we can hold space for that. We can appreciate that. We can honor that. Okay? You can change the patterns. This awareness is just the beginning. It's not the end. It's just the beginning of it. Okay, so next week, we're going to talk about what a healthy, functional family actually looks like it's going to be. You're going to have. You're going to see more smiles. You're going to feel a little bit better about your life. Okay? We're going to have, like, a model. What is a healthy environment, a family system look like? What does a functional family look like? All right? And we're going to talk about how to move toward that. So I. If you made it through, let me know. I want to know if you made it through, because I know this is really heavy. I adore you. I am so glad that you hung in there for this podcast. I believe that this is extremely important for us and for generations to come. I can't wait to talk to you next week. I'll see you then. A few years ago, I went looking for help. I wanted to find someone to teach me how to feel better about myself and to help me improve my organization, productivity, time management, emotional regulation, you know, all the things that we adults with ADHD struggle with. I couldn't find anything, so I researched and I. I studied and I hired coaches and I figured it out. Then I created Focused for your. Focused is my monthly coaching membership where I teach educated professional adults how to accept their ADHD brain and hijack their ability to get stuff done. Hundreds of people from all over the world are already benefiting from this program, and I'm confident that you will, too. Go to ihaveadhd.com focused for all the details.