"Family will never fail you." Perhaps you have heard it said, you have thought about it, you have commented on it, or this message resonates with you. But it is evident that this sentence is not true. And when the family fails us, emotional discomfort, conflicts, frustration appear... Why is it so difficult to manage the bond with the family?
“There is an ambivalence on this issue. On the one hand, we have the biological need to be faithful and defend our family, because it is the place where we grew up. But on the other hand, sometimes we feel that they hurt us, we feel incomprehension, we feel that they judge us. And that ambivalence is very difficult to maintain for many people, because we need the family to cover our emotional needs,” explains Isabel Reoyo, integrative health psychologist on the Somos Estupendas platform, on RAC1.cat.
From this ambivalence, we tend to avoid or dissociate everything negative that happens within the family. “We prefer to stay with 'I have to defend my family', because we feel disloyalty if we speak badly of our own family unit. In addition to disloyalty, we feel unprotected if we do not have our own. As humans, we need to grow in a safe environment, and if we don't have it, it is very difficult for us to detach ourselves from this idea,” explains Reoyo.
Family is not always there, and realizing it is difficult. “That is why boundaries are so important because they function as boundaries that allow us to build our own safe physical and emotional space. Although we cannot choose the family, it does not mean that we cannot decide how we relate to it,” this platform of psychologists explains on their networks.
There are some red flags or signals that can put us on alert. "They are comments or ways of doing things that do not have to be welcome, they can be hurtful and cause discomfort," says the specialist. "If we detect them, we can set limits, stop them."
In the family, as Reoyo explains, “there must be a basis of protection parallel to freedom. The choices we make must be validated, not questioned, our emotions must be taken into account, and we must be able to think critically.”
She gives the example, the expert advises on situations that sometimes occur at meals or family gatherings. “There are often comments about our physique, how we eat, whether or not we have a partner, about our studies or a job change. Sometimes we are questioned about how we are and what we do, and it is necessary to know how to set limits,” she says. As? Maybe simply with a “I don't want you to comment on it because it hurts me.”
Often, behind authoritarian or offensive messages from the family, there is a lack of acceptance of our person as we are, for not meeting the expectations that have been made of us.
This article was originally published on the RAC1 website
