Hi everybody so this is the second video clip on family systems and what I was discussing is that family systems that have a lot of adverse childhood experiences that children have experienced will fit into this family systems model. And I mentioned that there were three strong rules. within the family which is there's a no talk, a no trust, and a no feel rule.
So when we look at family systems we can say there can be family systems that are dysfunctional versus functional and I really don't like those terms because I think that in every family there are there may be those things that are functional and maybe there may be some things that may not be so functional. you So what I would rather use the term is, I'd rather say, when we look at family systems that are functional, it's looking at the development and enhancement of self and others. Nurturing supportive systems that give children those basic communication skills, for example, that lays the foundation to connect to yourself so then you can be able to connect to others. Right.
When we look at family systems that have more problems, that are problematic, then what are the costs to self and what are the costs to others? That certainly doesn't mean that love doesn't coexist in the family. Of course it does. But there may be more troubling issues. And as a result of dealing with those troubling issues, there may be more effort.
not to address issues because individuals have not been given the skills. And that's an important thing when we look at patterns and family systems. There are generational patterns that pass down. For example, we can see that addiction, yes there's a biological, but there can be those environmental patterns that can be passed down. We can look at at a battering we can see that if those patterns don't change there it could be likely that it might be passed down again through different family structures and systems so that's a generational look at how the impact of environment and patterns that have not been changed then can reincur in other systems so in looking then at these communication skills skills.
One of the things that I had said in family systems where you have communication, you learn how to connect to yourself. And that's why I had you do that little exercise. What's going on inside of me?
How do I label it? And then how do I pull it out of myself? And in family structures where there's more problems, one of the rules is we just don't talk about those issues.
And we just don't feel those feelings. Because if we talk about issues and feel those feelings, then we would have to address that. And if you don't have the skills to address that, then of course that's going to be difficult then to change those patterns in one's life.
Let me give you two examples of a very strong no-talk rule. One is a good friend of mine who I met in college. And he didn't drive and doesn't drive even today.
And one day... I asked him why and he told me I don't want to talk about it. So that was fine. I dropped it.
Many years later he said you know I didn't tell you. Out of the blue this happened. I didn't tell you why I didn't drive but I'm going to tell you now. So he said that when he was 11 that his parents allowed him to warm up the car and then back the car out of the garage and one day his mother came down into the garage and he was warming up the car and she walked in front because there was a cabinet there and she was getting something and rather than reversing the car he put it in drive and he crushed his mother against that wall and then crushed her pelvis as well as broke her legs he was it was only him at home his brother was at school his father was at work and of course this was a horrible blue traumatic. incident for him.
He called his dad and his dad called the ambulance and they took her to the hospital and in those days you were in the hospital for a long time. So she was in the hospital about two months. What makes this a important story that illustrates the no-talk rule is that he was never then allowed to really talk about that issue.
And the reason for that was, is that the family never brought that issue up. The father, when he came home from the hospital, and when his mother was in the hospital for two months, they never spoke of that. The brother never spoke of that.
When the mother was released from the hospital, she never spoke of that. Now, maybe it was a protection, but he was terribly traumatized. So traumatized that...
he decided, I am never going to drive. And as I said, to this day, he doesn't drive. Claudia Black gives a very good illustration of one day when she was a young person living with her family up in one of the lumber states.
And their apartment door was open. Unlocked, actually, I should say. say and the entertainment for them her brother and her sister was to look out over a bay window and there was a bar across the street and so the Saturday night entertainment was to have fun and games board games and they'd look out the window and who was going in the bar and then who was coming out of the bar and with whom they were coming out of the bar and one day the door just flew open in comes this burly lumberjack and he said, Claudia, get me a can of deodorant.
So Claudia ran, got the can of deodorant. He sprayed himself underneath the arms and he turned around and he stumbled and he walked away. Now, the interesting thing about this story is that her boyfriend was there that evening.
It just wasn't her brother and her sister. She went back to the table close. the door, went back to the table to start to play the game, and the boyfriend said, Claudia, Claudia, don't you see what's happening?
And she told him to be quiet and not to speak about it. And that relationship, she said, did not last. That was a strong no-talk rule.
Now, when we look also at these aspects of don't feel. And don't feel is let's block emotions that we have. Because if we deal with those emotions, and some of those emotions can be very uncomfortable, anger, frustration, sadness, grief.
if you deal with those emotions because they are uncomfortable and there's nobody as a child to help you process those you learn to block those so you have a strong no talk rule you have a strong no feel rule and then you also have a strong no trust rule and that no trust rule means that sometimes you don't know what to expect a parent can come in they can be drunk can stumble in. They see that you're playing a game. Maybe it's a game of checkers. You're having a good time.
They just swap that off the board and they leave. Maybe they go watch TV and you're left in chaos. Why did this happen?
I can't trust what to expect. So there is that chaos within a family and sometimes family can be very rigid in its rules and its expectations for children. So we will continue with the third video clip. clip.