Do you live with an excessively dependent or entitled person and find yourself alone, cut off from your friends and extended family due to the demands of your loved one? Or maybe you sustain friendships but remain silent about the verbal aggression and threats of violence that you experience with your loved one?
Does your loved one expect that keeping family problems an unspoken secret is imperative? Are the big secrets usually about their problematic behaviors for which they take no responsibility, sometimes asserting that "it's all your fault"?
The more you comply with demands for isolation and secrecy, the more reclusive and volatile your loved one becomes. Before you know it, your home is a degenerative shelter where you can no longer let your guard down and relax.
Support Networks
The concept of sharing information with others about your family's dysfunction may be frightening or even repulsive. It goes against the grain of our culture and our society. You may have lots of evidence and explanations for why it won't help. Others may have said or done stupid things in the past; they don't understand and don't care, or maybe your loved one has already alienated every friend and family member you have.
Consider this: If a therapist sees your loved one for just ONE HOUR PER WEEK, adherent DBT requires the therapist to meet weekly with a whole team of trained DBT therapists to explore personal vulnerabilities, share clinical doubts, and get feedback and support without judgment. Assuming you spend far more than one hour per week with your loved one, you need a lot more support than a trained and experienced DBT therapist!
You need a network of trustworthy supporters who can help you STOP believing the criticism, acquiescing to the insistent demands, and colluding with the degenerative shelter. A support network is necessary to keep you, your loved one, and your whole family steadily moving toward health, wellness, and recovery.
Strength in Numbers
One (or even two) family members cannot succeed in resisting the crushing burden of verbal aggression and violent threats of a loved one. Without a support network, it is nearly impossible to be proactive instead of reactive, plan and implement goals supporting recovery, and not accommodate/reinforce emotional and behavioral dysregulation. Parents or spouses who try to cope alone and respond appropriately to their loved ones are often too weak and vulnerable to do it effectively. The lack of a social support system is directly related to the establishment of degeneration and dysfunction.
You may have some of the common objections to this proposal: the belief that family problems are nobody else's business, the shame of family dysfunction, and the fear that disclosure could be traumatic. Buying into these objections block you from improving your home life and moving your loved ones toward recovery. Once you have rallied support, your life and the life of your loved one will never be the same.
Parents and spouses often attribute their social avoidance to their loved one's problematic behaviors. They want to reduce hostility and correct the problem by appeasing loved ones and staying close to home. Families are also embarrassed. Isolating for these reasons is understandable, but it works both ways. Isolation is not just a result of dysfunction; it is a cause of dysfunction. Rallying a support network is a big step forward. A support network gives parents and spouses the strength and legitimization to overcome fear and despair and break free of oppressive patterns.
Who are the supporters and what do they do?
A support network is a group of relatives, friends, and may also include professionals who meet and learn to support the caretakers (usually parents or a spouse). Supporters may need orientation to the problem, to your goals, and to a few skills such as nonjudgmentalness and validation.
Supporters can reach out with compassion. They can connect with the child, adolescent, adult-child, or spouse who suffers emotional and interpersonal dysregulation in various ways, each with a different actionable role, including:
· Maintain a good relationship with the loved one
· Invite the loved one to get together for pleasant activities
· Listen and validate the loved one
· Serve as a mentor or sounding board
· Send regular text messages
Supporters can directly help the parents or spouse by
· Validate the care-takers fears and vulnerabilities
· Help the care-taker with responsibilities when a loved one is in crisis
· Be on-call to be present in the home at a time when violence occurs or is expected
· Make or receive phone calls with parents or a spouse to help reduce violence
· Ring the doorbell if excessive noise comes from the house
· Stay overnight or occupy the house for a few days
Support can also come from peer groups, such as Moving Forward, NAMI, Alanon, CRAFT, and other peer support groups, as well as churches, schools, and other institutions.
Breaking the secrecy taboo by involving supporters usually arouses considerable anger. The immediate result may be that the loved one temporarily boycotts the parents or spouse and some supporters. "How dare you talk to strangers about me?" The response hinges on two concepts: 1) Society waives the right to privacy if it is used in destructive ways, such as domestic violence, self-destructive activities, or suicide threats; and 2) I did not talk about you, I talked about me. For example, "I care too much about your life and health to keep my experience a secret."
If you want to transform the degenerative shelter back into a safe and comfortable home, you need to change your behavior. You might decide to observe your personal limits, implement an extinction plan, or cease accommodating your loved one's dysfunction. Implementing any of these strategies will move you and your loved one toward recovery, but you need a support network even more that a DBT therapist needs a consultation team!
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