8 Common Characteristics of a Dysfunctional Family 

I hate when parents don't realize that they're emotionally abusive and blame you not talking to them or getting pissed at them on you and try to guilt trip you for it.

Your kid shouldn’t be relieved to know you are not home. Your kid shouldn’t think “here comes the screaming” or brace themselves for the worse when you are in a bad mood. Your kid shouldn’t run to their room and close the door the moment you get home from work because they are afraid that you will yell at them due to you being stressed about work. Your kid shouldn’t have to double lock their journals up because they are scared you might read it? Your kid shouldn’t feel more comfortable staying over a friend’s house or being outdoors than being home with you. Your kid shouldn’t feel nervous when being near you because they are scared that you might hurt them. Your kid shouldn’t be scared of you. Your kid shouldn’t be scared of the thought of you. Edit: I decided to watch this video again, and WHOA! So many notes and likes!! I’m glad my message was relatable and comforting to some of you. Those of us who survived living with abusive parents are strong af!!

It's so weird to me to think that people actually talk to their parents for emotional support. Or to think that people's parents actually taught them to indulge in their emotions. Mine just taught me that anger is for immature people, crying is what attention whores use, and sadness shouldn't be openly expressed. Oh but of course if my father was angry it was always okay.

"What methods have you tried to bring the family back together?" Me: *laughs*

If I showed my mother this she's just scream at me and throw me out.

I enjoy the plant on the child's head.

I gave up on my family. They don’t listen, and if I need emotional help I can’t go to them because I’ll most likely get in trouble for over reacting

No way fix my corrupt family. Better to build my own perfect family.

"What methods have you tried to bring the family back together?" Well, my method involves getting a job with a stable income, leaving and not communicating with them ever again At least with my parents

I agree. My family needed its own tv show.

I think the worst part is, by the time you realise you're family aren't always looking out for you or love you the way you love them, you're already shattered into a million pieces.

Now it's clear why people just drop everything and disappear into oblivion to start over. Wish I'd done it years ago.

For those who don't know, just because someone is related (aka having similar DNA) to you it doesn't mean you're obligated or have to put up with whatever attitude they throw at you. It's ok to cut off your own family when you're able to, you can always make the family you deserve whether it is of friends, adopted kids, etc. The honest truth is that many dysfunctional families may not change even after moving away from them.

Way too many parents have kids so they can have someone around to "look after them when they're old." Horrible thing to burden a child with from birth, esp. if they resent you, yet feel obligated to do so. My parents tend to guilt trip me and say stuff like, "I brought you into this world, therefore you HAVE to look after me and buy me a house etc because I'm your mother" I'm not saying to disrespect your parents but respect is earned and goes both ways. I don't owe you anything because YOU decided to give birth to me, if I love you then I'll do it out of love, not obligation and resentment.

*8 common characteristics of a dysfunctional family:* 1. Addition 2. Perfectionism 3. Abuse 4. Unpredictable and Fear 5. Conditional Love 6. Lack of Boundaries 7. Lack of Intimacy 8. Poor Communication You're welcome

If you’re under 18 and you have to live with a toxic family, please hang in there! When I moved out it got SO much better. Life is worth living! I used to be suicidal because my family was toxic like in the video. Now that I have moved out I’ve seen that life is definitely worth living. It helps in the meantime to find someone outside the family like a close friend to lean on for emotional support

God, literally everyone in my family pulls that conditional love crap. The second you piss them off, they cut off all communication until A) you apologize or B) they need help. Oh, but don’t expect any help back unless that family member gets something out of it. Can’t wait til I can find a job, move out, and never talk to my family again. Edit: Lack of intimacy and poor communication are definitely major problems in my family.

Unfortunately, millions of people who should not have a child, make lots of them. Modern families are trying to teach these values to their children "how to be more selfish", "you have to do anything to get money/position and if requirements to get a position/money are not acceptable from society, satisfy these requirements secretly", "follow a certain life pattern, never try to be an individual because if you fail you will be cast out from society", "do not care anything except by yourself", "we are living in a wild jungle you need to survive at all cost" etc. These principles lead us to the generation of today. The core of the society is family. Individualism, consumerism, the increased appetite, and arrogance of humanity destroy this core. Source of all the problems in societies comes from the core. In order to develop and improve ourselves, we need to make mistakes. I can understand this but corrupting and destroying everything around us is a big mistake. Every individual should note that "to have a child also means have a huge responsibility".

everytime my family argues I always like feel the need to escape into my music with my headphones in because I don't have anywhere to go. then, my mom sees that as a "phone addiction" or whatever and always tries to take it from me. then when that happens, I don't have anything else to do except cry and listen to her yelling...

i had two emotionally unavailable parents that were dysfunctional on a whole new level. Incompetent, lazy, violent, impoverished, verbally abusive, and just plain toxic

My mom is extremely controlling and verbally abusive she acts nice but the minute i do something "wrong" she flips her lid.

When my family go nuts sometimes because of an argument or fighting over something I (maybe not a good idea) most of the time go to my bedroom and act like I'm busy and put on my headphones and act like I didn't hear them when they ask me who is right and who is wrong

My mom is always yelling and arguing. Now, I know I'm not perfect but she makes an argument out of everything. When I walk home from the bus stop I hope that my mom isn't home so I don't have to deal with all of her anger. Sometimes I just like to be alone but she forces me to spend time with the family. It's not that I don't like my family it's just that I have to see and listen to them argue all day. It's tiring. My mom never listens to anything I say and never believes me. She always forgets that I'm a human being with an opinion. I don't really talk to her about personal things and she gets upset about it. It's just so hard to talk to her. She always thinks I have an attitude even when I don't...Also, is it normal for your mom to go through your phone and look at everything?

MOST PEOPLE HAVE FAMILIES THAT HAVE ISSUES IF THE FATHER AND THE. MOTHER CAME FROM A PROBLEMATIC HOME THEY CARRY IT TO THEIR OWN HOUSEHOLD!.

My only problem is that my parents don't think I am capable of doing things.

I hope this gets lost in the comments. I grew up with a toxic, manipulative sociopath in my house at nearly all times. I would walk home by myself, speed up when I got to our road just to be dragged down by the sight of his car in the drive. I heard him screaming almost every day about the smallest things my brother did wrong, to the point where I'm not sure if it got physical. I was too young to understand, but I have faded memories of hiding alone under my bed whenever that happened. I was so afraid of him that at school, I would call him Mr Hyde, just because of his violent mood swings and constant abuse. What made it worse was that I would be woken up by the sound of my brother crying in the middle of the night, and couldn't do anything about it. I hate even the thought of emotionally opening up to anyone I know. It seems like an alien concept, and it seems strange to me that people actually have proper conversations with their parents. Most people I know either have separated parents, one or both have alcohol addictions, their parents are abusive or they have helicopter parents. It seems like this generation has more toxic parents than decent ones, huh.

The worst part about it is that your parents' friends usually see their bright side and tell you that there's something wrong with you

"Does your family identify with any of these characteristics?" *"All of them"*

Personally, whenever I’m proud of who I am, my dad says “yeah, I brought you up like that” and shit. He always acts like HE deserves credit for everything I do, and acts like I’m just like him. It sucks. I don’t even know who I am.

My family is included in almost all of these... Now I wonder if my family really is a guide to my future instead of an obstacle.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes..... Also....my mother would claim you are heartless for telling her “love is earned,not conditional”.

Wow I have all 8. Finally moved out and trying to heal from all these wounds. The past still kills me and trying to move forward but just difficult.

My parents raise me in an overly-religious household, and do not let me have my own freedom or beliefs. They also don't really pay much attention to me, and I just have to pretend that everything is ok. Currently, I'm scared sh*tless because they're starting to catch on to the fact that I'm lgbt. I can't wait until I'm an adult and can move out if the house...

I sometimes feel uncomfortable around my family. I really don't know what happened wrong. My parents were supportive, didn't abuse me or anything like that. I just don't feel that kind of bond to them. Especially to my father, which always makes me feel bad. I just know, that I never wanted to let my feelings out in front of my family. Sometimes I'm annoyed by my father, because he often acts like he was dumb and still does it now. I know he wanted to be funny, when I was a child and sometimes it was, but now it's exhausting to react to. I also know that I am very introverted so I feel uncomfortable eating around my family or when they try to do smalltalk with me. Afterwards I feel bad as always. Now the question: Am I just ungrateful, or is there an unseen problem?

My family is dysfunctional, but I ain’t letting it make my life miserable, I’m thankful for what I have and I’m almost always positive. Be thankful if you have a normal family, I’d love it if my family was normal.

I left home because my family is like this, starting a new life with my partner, I feel free of the shackles of my family, I can sleep peacefully now and be at ease.

Every family has some kind of issue. It may stem from one of these. Thanks for making this video, once again, guys

What if you don't have any family? Like if all your family members passed away when you were a teenager, who came from a dysfunctional family?

Being the oldest child, my parents have failed me greatly. All I hear is “it’s your responsibility” or “you are like the second parent” despite having 2 parents around. I seriously want to be done with my life because it is not even mine to own in the beginning

My dad physically and mentally abused me. Once when my dad was beating me i was crying and shouting loud out of physical and mental pain, police came and questioned him. He lied to them that i had betrayed my family by having relationship with a boy but the true reason was i gathered up the courage to ask my dad why was he beating my mom with his belt.

when i saw this video i cried a little . because i felt like if you knew me and you were talking to me Directly about issues like Perfectionism, Unpredictability and fear, Conditional love, Lack of Boundaries, and Poor Communication . my family identifies with those problems . as of right now (June 1st, 2018) the last problem (Poor Communication) happened; because i simply wanted to ask my mom something that's completely normal like switching schools but she started asking me (WHY!? DID THEY KICK YOU OUT OF SCHOOL!? ARE YOU FAILING!? AM I GOING TO TAKEN TO COURT!? Even though the last one is completely false since me and my mother never have gone to a court. ) and then she started assuming things, and i yelled at her " OMG MOM I JUST WANTED TO ASK IF I CAN SIMPLY CHANGE SCHOOLS BECAUSE I WANT TO TRY SOMETHING NEW!!!." and them i went back to my room

Yeah, I can relate to 5. My mom only ever treats me with proper kindness if I get good grades and do chores. She doesn't ask that much of me chorewise, but at the same time it makes me feel like a tool. If I don't do those chores she'll just guilt trip me....saying that I don't love her because I can't study and do chores.

3:49 this is exactly why I’m an introvert

I can relate to this analysis. My father never see me as a useful person. He only sees me as a burden. The fact that I am his flesh and blood, he never sees me as his son. He only cares about his work and has no time for me. The same goes for my mother. When I try to share my problems with my family, they scold and shout at me and I have learned to adjust with that. And it has been going on with me since childhood.

Lack of intimacy? Interesting. There were multiple abuses in my family, but this gives a new perspective on my mother always saying she didn't want kids, didn't want a family, we could always leave and she'd sign papers to give us up, pawning me off on other relatives for weeks at a time, telling me repeatedly that she would have aborted me if she could, and other stuff. Oddly, I thought we grew up with unconditional love, but then I also excuse a particularly egregious physical assault on me that I should have seen it coming.

5 out of 8 for me. I know my family is dysfunctional. My sister has autism, tourette's, anxiety, etc etc. I have hashimotos, depression, anxiety, social anxiety, etc etc. I grew up with a dad and mom for 4 years, but he ended up doing TERRIBLE things, so then until I was 10, it was just me, my mom, and my sister. My mom struggled with cigarettes and drinking. I ended up getting severe (and I mean severe) separation anxiety. I had to be with my mom at all times. That ended in about 4th grade, thankfully. But we met my stepdad and then he sadly passed away. Every since we all fight and I try to be away as much as possible.

actually... There's a person, well, my mom's boyfriend who I'm not going to name. He and my mom get in horrible fights and my dad doesn't help, he can't give me the emotional support I need even when he tries. Besides, they fight too, so... Anyways, when they get into fights I usually rank them in a sort of chart from 1 to 10, 10 being okay (like a small disagreement that causes lots of yelling) and a 1 being the worst possible fight between them (like my mom getting hurt and me crying for hours then sleeping for around 23 - 25 hours because my brain literally partially shuts down...). This has given me horrible ptsd, major depressive disorder, anxiety, etc. When they fight I sometimes try to focus it on me, even though I know it's not healthy, it makes them think about something else for a few minutes. I always feel like I have no one..and sometimes end up repeating that to myself for hours. I mostly feel like it's my fault..that if I wasn't born maybe things would be better. My friends always just brush it off when I give hints or say "..I want to die.." like it's a joke, and I eventually just think do they really need all of my stupid problems? No, they don't... Now I just make jokes to cope with things and watch you-tubers like Mark and Jack because it makes me feel like...important? My dad keeps calling me names to, like the verbal abuse you mentioned in another video. Anyways, I eventually just tried to shut myself off because..i'm tired of being hurt. I did cut myself for reasons I will not say, I stopped after my mom and dad noticed..but that doesn't mean I got any better. I know I could still do it, but I don't even see the point in that anymore. Once there was this fight between my mom and her boyfriend that caused my mom to have dark bruises all over her and a deep cut along his back. We were still...THEY were still living in his Grandmother's house. She died and I didn't know for a while, my mom thought she was protecting me. I mean his grandmother was nice but...I still had to extremely exaggerate my emotions. This isn't the only death in the family though, two other people died. Anyways, These fights went one for 4 years, and haven stopped yet. It started around the time my dad, my grandmother and my grandfather who are married moved out of our old house. I was heart broken, to start all over again...but it didn't stop there, my mom and her boyfriend moved a total of 2 times resulting in me going first to Elmwood elementary (where I started school), then to Evendale elementary (where horrible bullying started), then to sharonville elementary (where bullying continued, I finally made 3 friends in total), Then finally where I am now, Princeton community middle school or pcms for short. Bullying continued though out the school year but I still secretly, even though I said I wanted, didn't want school to end. I gave me something to get away from...you know, and I got to talk to my friends. I lied about having a good life at school and lied that I was doing okay in school. When my dad saw mt actually grades at first he cussed at me quietly, it eventually got worse over time until he would be yelling and cussing at me. I had to agree with him, with everything he said, ...for my own good. He sometimes takes his own problems out on me...usually with a light smack to the head (witch hurts, because I always have a pounding headache.) or yelling for hours. My dad also says he understands me, even though it's clear that he doesn't. He and my mom were also together, but never married...they try to act like friends in front of me...but I can see strait though their lies. They lie to me all the time..and it's starting to seem like everyone else does, so I don't really know what to believe anymore, speaking of witch, I also whisper that to myself for hours. Sometimes I just seem to stare off into space with a smile on my face (that sort of rhymes), but that doesn't mean i'm happy. Of course I may play it off as daydreaming, but it's actually my entire body and part of my brain shutting down due to emotional trauma. I feel like i'm taking on everybody I meet because...I seem so nice and people just open up to me. I remember things very well...so I try to fill my mind with all types of knowledge most of witch is "useless" according to my dad. I always remember to note everyone in the room, to know their expressions and learn from them....but I still act stupid because if I don't people say "you need to act your age, you're just a child!" or "stop trying to act like an adult!" ...This along with not knowing if anything's real or not, has given me a shattered personality. I can't decide who I am, so I avoid people... When somebody walks up to me though, I put up a 'fake personality' and after years of doing so...I've gotten good at it. It's not something i'm proud of though...because now I have to act different in front of different people. When these people meet other people, this can cause chaos. Anyways, I feel like there's this war inside of my head...I don't know what their fighting for, what their goal is, or who's good, bad, or both. Honestly that starting to matter much less and less..and I running out of reason to live. The things that used to help me aren't really helping anymore..and I have nobody I can talk to. The psychiatrists that my mom and dad tried (now much closer to in desperation for answers) don't help...nobody does. Also, this is all a big understatement...so I might as well keep going with this pointless comment that most likely nobody will read because how long it is. So my dad...I should start with him and my mom. First, my mom was sexually abused, her father was (and still is) controlling, her mother died but was a known alcoholic and drug user, she used to do drugs, she used to drink and she...is delusional. My dad he has love problems, his father is a narcissist, he barely hangs out with his friend (mostly because of me and my mom) and he used to drink and do drugs. I don't know anything before I was born of even until I had the brain capacity to really think about things..because like I said I...don't know what to believe anymore. From what I heard though, my mom asked my dad to... (...do it rough..) and he did but it reminded her of her sexual abuser who will go unnamed. She asked him to stop and he did...apparently she and him also got into fights, witch unlike a lot of things I actually know because I was there for some of them. After awhile, my mom got pregnant. When she had me, my dad and her fought a lot in front of me. My mom wanted me to herself, and my dad...backed away. When I was younger, I didn't really want anything to do with my mom...my first words (again, supposedly) were "da-da!" ..he made a mistake and backed away from me so that my mom would be happy. I was honestly oblivious and confused. I was around 5 when I started figuring it out...I knew what was going on but blew it off and acted like again, nothing was wrong. I seemed depressed and tried to talk about it...but unfortunately that didn't work out. My mom and dad tried to stay together for my sake, but that didn't work out either..they broke up after a very bad fight. I heard it all..every insult....every voice trying to break it apart...but I acted like I didn't hear a thing. After a while of torture, things just kept going downhill until...here I am. People who used to know me told me I was always so selfless, sweet, kind and frankly...always trying to help anybody I could. The bad thing is...I don't truly know who I was anymore...and it haunts me at night...every second of every minute, every minute of every hour, every hour of every day, every day of every week, every week of every month, every month of every year and so on. Again, I don't forget easily...so I remember. I know I may seem fine, I know I may seem like I have a good life, I know it seems like I shouldn't complain because I have a bunch of stuff, I know I may seem emotionally stable...but that's all a lie. I might have been truly happy once, I might have even been emotionally stable...but I will never know the truth. Another sad thing, this is just the tip of the iceberg...there's so much more. I'm really sorry by the way....I hope you have a wonderful day........ whoever you are... goodbye

Whenever I try to talk to my family, they yell "OK WE HEARD YOU!" Or lecture me about nor letting them talk. And my family is that type of family who thinks verbal threats and mental jabs is how they get you to stop doing something they don't like. Trust me I've had many times where I was told to go walk the dog or have my computer tossed acrossed the street or thrown out.

my parents can bother eachother and me and my parents tend to get on eachother’s nerves, but we all still love each other, and practice communication. Thankful and glad i don’t have any of these! (to those who do have families with these traits: I hope your family treats you better, and you will be healthy both physically and mentally, one day. I love you and believe in you.)

Surely everyone has experienced at least one of these, if not, please enlighten us as to what life is like being 'functional'

My mother is all of them. No wonder I have minimal contact with her. I have to heal 😪.

" Families are supposed to be the people you can lean on during tough time " Lol. Not mine. They would just bring me down deeper😕

Majority of these characteristics can apply to my family tbh. Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in this never-ending expectation where I'm supposed to be the perfect one... My parents also seem to think I have to go to college and university once I finish high school... And it really sucks man. I feel like my life has been half predetermined and I can barely ever confront anyone in the family, especially not my parents ;3; so um yeah, I can relate to quite a few of these... Good job on the video :)

Lack of intimacy 😐 I don’t like my siblings I feel like they fake and hypocrites, I can’t trust them.

I almost cried when she started talking about perfectionism. That's literally my family. What sucks the most is that im 13, so i cant move out for a few more years. As soon as I turn 18, im not gonna talk to my family for a few years, I'll need to heal.

I moved out earlier this year and now live with a friend. This is the first time in my life I haven’t felt anxious almost to the point of nausea at just being at home.

This is making me worry. Even though I already knew my family is really disfunctional

I had to escape my family in order to stay out of the mental hospital and be able to work/function in life. Anytime Ive become i volved with them again I suffer great losses.

"Being able to be together because you want to, not because you have to" -- dear gods, that was a punch to the heart. That's my parents: perfectionistic, narcissitic, co-dependent enforcers of the Happy Perfect Loving Family. Our family has to do everything together, and god help you if you want anything different, or just want to be alone, or (gasp) you spend any time with your spouse's family. You just put a name to all the lifelong shitty patterns that my parents enforced on us, even after we're grown, married, and out of the house.

‘Fulfill my dreams!’ I’m sorry but... your dream not your child’s.

2,3,4,7,and 8 I really want to get out of the house and I have my senior year then I'll go off to college, as long as I'm able to pay for it, cause I'm not emvetting any help

My family is highly dysfunctional :(

That sad moment when you're using this video to drown the screaming in the other room bc your parents keep urguing bc your dad screams for every single thing that happens😗✌

I come from a family who the members who are unproductive and create drama get attention and the overachievers are hated....used....or ignored. They are addicted to proverty and they discourage progress. MY SOLUTION: I stay in contact, but I'm distant. I want to grow and stay positive

I grew up in a family with sick parents, so as a kid I was forced upon with responsibilities. I can relate to last 3 very much, and little bit to others. my mother was always helpful tho. I'm thankful for her being supportive thru all the problems. The thing I hate the most which is also my biggest problem I face when dealing with people, is high expectations, it is so irritating that I feel happy locked in a room than go out, it is the reason why I became a misanthrope

She understood all the damage she've done only at the gates of death. Now because she is a walking corpse she doesnt hit me nor manipulate me anymore. It can be dangerous indeed but I stood up to her as I was growing up and end up showing who I was and how I wanted to live my life. But the issues are still there; living locked up and without trusting anybody, doing all by myself.

Everytime i see my friends parents they always seem nice and i would always feel like they we're my parents but arent and i have to face the fact that i have to live with my toxic family for half of my life. Idk how much longer i can wait :(

I had hold so many grudges and now I just can't shut up when they're calling me off, quarantine has destroyed me even more being locked down in a household where you have to be positive and all happy when they're yelling, using words that hurt you.

My family, especially my guardians, are all these. Because of that, I ran away and I have never felt so relieved and be able to express myself.

I'm the only one that sees this stuff in my family, it's normal to the rest of them so they wouldn't understand even if it was explained to them. That and narcissists have a hard time criticising themselves. :/

I really love that you're taking the time to do this sort of list. It would be really, truly useful, if you were suggest techniques for mending such relationships. I think a lot of good people could benefit from such general advice

i've never thought of my family as dysfunctional before since i've always thought that dysfunctional family means abuse and addiction is running in the household. now that i know there's subtle and deceiving characteristics to a dysfunctional family, i finally had the answer to why i don't feel very happy in this family anymore. i still have love for my parents but it's an on and off thing. one day I'll feel love when they're nice to me but then when my mom starts yelling and starts belittling me about my mental instability, i don't feel much love for her anymore. it sucks, honestly. i want to talk to my parents about what's happening to me and why i feel what i feel but i know they're not gonna understand. i haven't tried to talk to my dad since we aren't that close to each other but i've tried bringing up my mental health in a conversation with my mom since she noticed that i'm always crying and feeling like a worthless piece of shit. but instead of comfort and understanding, i got mockery. at this point i don't know what to do anymore. it's bad enough that i'm only 17 and can't do much for myself, so i'm just looking forward to moving out for uni and perhaps see them less.

#1: one half is capitalist, the other half is communist

As much as I know that my family has most of these...and no matter how much I want to change things...I know that it won't really change but I know the the past and experiences make us who we are...I know I feel so much guilt for making others stressed and I thought that they would be better without me even a live...but I realized that they might still miss me so bad...and I just felt trapped...I still think no matter what I do I will not please them...and tried to but then realized it wasn't good enough...so I eventually gave up...but their past wasn't the best my mom's was absolutely terrible and my dad had just made stupid dicisions when he was younger...but...no one is perfect...and even though I know that...I still want to just feel like I am right...just once...I could win the arguments with my dad but it just seems unlikely. I am getting distracted again. The point is parents are humans they are not perfect they are the people they are due to past experience. And it might not be good but it can help us learn from our mistakes and be better then they were

In my child-teenage years my mom was so emotionally disconnected and distanced. She expected me to be independent whilst her reason being "if I die, you have to know how to take care of yourself“. She never allowed me to socialize when I was in primary school. Now in present time, I struggle with anxiety, depression, trust issues, selfdestructive behavior and at an adult age I am unable to take care of myself. It’s like I wanna relive my years, where I was supposed to receive that love and attention from parents and that carefreeness, due to someone taking care of me. It’s just sad. I am on a healing journey. Yet, I don’t want to even think about having kids. I am not going to put them through the same trauma that my parents brought me to.

I'm left in a condition where I don't feel loved by anyone at all from a really long time.

Ooops, my family perfectly fits into perfectionism (my mother, grandma and my father to an extent), unpredictability and fear (my father is highly unstable and shouts at mom and me a lot), lack of boundaries (my mother, though I guess it's not as bad as in the video; and my grandma who sees me as a trophy) and lack of intimacy (both my father and mother)

What made me realize that I was being abused was when I realized that not only my father was an alcoholic bipolar verbal abuser, my mother was also a manipulative, condependant and selfish abuser.

Oh, yes - very accurately describes my family! I now realize that I was so frequently in trouble with my mother was that she was so insecure about her image, and was furious with me when I did anything that she felt reflected badly on her. Once I was hit by a water balloon and came rushing home sobbing - my mother took one look at me and started yelling “I don’t know why these things only happen to MY kids!” She yelled, and told me to go dry myself off, obviously offering no sympathy, comfort or love whatsoever. I can well remember wondering what on earth I’d done to deserve her yelling, but now of course I understand: it was of utmost importance to her to be SEEN as a good mother, completely unimportant for her to actually BE one, which I think pretty well describes narcissistic mothers in general. Thank you so much for these videos, saw a therapist for years who never got this at all.

When I finally left the dysfunctional side of my family for the normal side I was told I was going here to be spoilt and lazy because this side cares that's what they consider spoilt. It's crazy how I see it all now I'm away from it!

Great video as always)

When your family has like 3 of these symptons. Rip :')

My parents growing up were and still are pretty abusive emotionally and physically and my brother growing up took all of it out on me, so now I suffer from anxiety and depression and my family says I'm just dramatic and overreacting so this channel is amazing for showing other people what it's like to be abused and the long lasting effects it can have even after you leave your toxic home. So👍and A+.

This is so painful for me. I’m crying while I watch this informative video. All I ever wanted was to have a safe person to call when i have a bad day, to be loved unconditionally (and not based on what I have to give), and to be supported during events in life. More or less, the Christmas card family.

My family’s is dysfunctional It’s hopeless trying to bring people together, felt loved and not constantly humiliated in front of people so you have break the cycle so the next generation feel loved and won’t be hurted, move on with your life.

7/8 apply to me. So sad.

My family is a lot like this. Addiction is the main problem in my family. A loss of a family member really pushed my family on the edge recently. Thank you for making this video.

I know these are such terrible things to express, but I think this might be just the right place to do it: When my father died I felt so relieved, as though it was the first day of my life. When at 40 I learnt to not pay heed to my mother’s judgements and orders, things started going well for me. When my mother dies, I will not be sad. I am so grateful that I got to spend time with my wonderful granny, we loved each other so much. My siblings were not so lucky, and they are paying dearly for it. I’ve tried helping them, but they treat me as a problematic person and a disgrace, which I am not in the least. I am treating my daughter the way my granny treated me. Thanks for this video.

Yeah... my family displays quite a few of those characteristics. How did I try to fix it? I didn't. When I tried, I only received more abuse. My solution? I pretty much 'found my tribe' and we adopted each other as family. Family of the heart, I have discovered, can ultimately be just as nurturing and secure as an 'ideal' blood family. Probably even more so. Having discovered this, I honestly don't understand the societal emphasis on the 'nuclear family'. The nuclear family is people who 'have to' be loving and supportive, as opposed to 'found families' who actually have stuff in common with each other and WANT to be with each other. Perhaps a video on the subject of found families might be helpful to some people? It certainly would have been for me had such a thing existed at the time I started dissociating from my blood family, and the loneliness of it cam close to killing me. This would be especially helpful for the LGBT community, for whom 'found families' are often their only option.

good video!

because I'm an observer it's not a surprise to me. I always knew my family be toxic as hell

My parents fight a lot and always have. The worse part is they expect me to be and a student and get perfect grades. They don’t understand how stressful it is in school when I come home to yelling

My parents are divorced. I live with my mom. Perfectionism and lack of intimacy is my mom. Maybe even communication issues. We talk, but we never say anything. My dad, however, is all of these except addiction, so living with my mom was the best choice.

Hi to the Notification Squad!

I love your channel this is really needed in life. Thx for being there.

Whenever I try to express my feelings my mom would always make me feel like shit and make me regret ever expressing my opinion and feelings, then complains when I’m distant

My parents have the perfectionism issue they set too high expectations for my brother and I and ever since I've closed myself off from them because I don't think I'm good enough because I can't meet their expectations I have ADHD so it's hard to for me to focus in class which sometimes I can't exactly score high on tests and it's just so hard because I can't talk to them about it either because they'll just shut me down and push me further :/ my mother also has what I think is a lack of boundaries issue she's always trying to be in control and always saying what I should and shouldn't do just so I can be like her

I wanna know how fo recover from this. It’s ruining all my relationships, I feel confused how to properly socialize with people. I either attract toxic people or become the toxic one.

I grew up in a family where my parents didn't show any interest in me. I felt like they never cared about me but i always cared so much about them. They both dealt with trauma and when we had converstations it would always be about that topic. I would say that i was their therapist instead of their child. I lived with my dad almost my whole life..wich sucked (also caused me trauma). He drank a lot and overworked himself so he was always exausted. Me and my brother where left home alone a lot and had many fights out of boredom or frustration. I missed my mom so much but when i hung out with her she would only talk about her trauma's. I often went home really sad and stressed. I never felt like i matterd by either of my parents, actually they made me feel worse about myself. I now struggle A LOT in life..lot's of anxiety and depression. Still trying my best to have faith in myself!

Family dynamics play a crucial role in a child's development and shaping his/her mind and values.