This is something I have been curious about for a while. I know there must be nurses out there who come from dysfunctional families...
What I mean by "dysfunctional" is the following: growing up in a household where you have been neglected or abused by your immediate family and/or were raised in a family where drug addiction, mental illness were common. Here is an abbreviated synopsis of my experience: my mother has suffered from clinical depression since she was a teenager, my father has a gambling addiction and has caused my family to declare bankruptcy, my brother is a drug addict (heroin) who lives with my parents who enable him, and my sister also suffers from clinical depression and anxiety-she tried to commit suicide last year.
I moved away from my family years ago. I have been depression and med free for a number of years now.
I have often wondered: how many people out there in nursing, a profession where your job is to care for other people, and often to empower patients/clients with the ability to care for themselves- have come from backgrounds where they did not receive adequate care, encouragement from their families? Where you had to largely teach yourself how to properly care for and nurture yourself?
If you experienced an abusive/ neglected upbringing- do you feel it influenced you to become a nurse?
Do you think your experiences have helped or hindered you?
Do you often have to check yourself because there is a fine line between caregiving and caretaking ?
At this point, I am a student, and I am leaning towards psychiatric nursing as a speciality. I know that this is because of my personal experiences with my family, and my own struggles with mental illness. I already know more about meds, diagnoses, and treatments than the average person! (Ha ha)
I remember reading an article on this subject. It stated that there was a large percentange of nurses who grew up in dydfunctional families. It dealt mainly with OR nurses but the gist was that when you grow up in an unstable environment, you tend to be good in a crisis and able to think on the fly. The bad side of it is that nurses exhibit a lot of codependent behavior especially where docs are concerned. You say stuff like "he/she didn't mean to treat me like that" etc. I grew up in a family where my mom was depressed much of the time and my dad has an alcohol problem. I forgave them both long ago because they are basically good people and they always let us know we were loved, they tried their best. I look at it as my early life experiences made me stronger and made me good at what I do. I just try to stick up for myself and not let someone suck me into their drama, be it doctor or coworker.
Hi, Jennifer, this IS an old thread, I bet you didn't think it would continue like this. But since it has popped up, I thought I'd respond, also, and say yes, I am also from a dysfunctional family. Ever since I can remember, I have very few childhood memories that are good.
My mother was/still is, a very domineering person, esp. towards me when I got married, and had a baby. Couldn't do anything to please her.
There's not anything left in my life for her to boss me over, so we actually get along better now, than we ever have, but I wish that we could have gotten along better when I was young/married/having a baby, instead of her being so domineering and jealous.
My mother has said some of the most hateful and mean things to me. I have tried to forgive and forget, but it's HARD, when that is all you get...mean/hateful remarks, instead of love and nurturing from a mother like any child should get. I've asked her about some of it, but she will either deny it, ignore me, or if I get anything close to an admission of guilt she will just say, "I don't know why I did that." No apology or anything to try and help me understand or to finally get thru and lay it to rest.
There are many other issues, also, in my family, not just between my mother and I. Too much to go into. But I feel, for me, that my relationship with my mother has been the hardest part of it all. If we could have had a better relationship I probably could have dealt with the other issues in the family that bothered me. If I'd just felt like she was ever on my side, but I had none of that.
So, yes, I come from a very dysfunctional family, sad to say.
This is something I have been curious about for a while. I know there must be nurses out there who come from dysfunctional families...
What I mean by "dysfunctional" is the following: growing up in a household where you have been neglected or abused by your immediate family and/or were raised in a family where drug addiction, mental illness were common. Here is an abbreviated synopsis of my experience: my mother has suffered from clinical depression since she was a teenager, my father has a gambling addiction and has caused my family to declare bankruptcy, my brother is a drug addict (heroin) who lives with my parents who enable him, and my sister also suffers from clinical depression and anxiety-she tried to commit suicide last year.
I moved away from my family years ago. I have been depression and med free for a number of years now.
I have often wondered: how many people out there in nursing, a profession where your job is to care for other people, and often to empower patients/clients with the ability to care for themselves- have come from backgrounds where they did not receive adequate care, encouragement from their families? Where you had to largely teach yourself how to properly care for and nurture yourself?
If you experienced an abusive/ neglected upbringing- do you feel it influenced you to become a nurse?
Do you think your experiences have helped or hindered you?
Do you often have to check yourself because there is a fine line between caregiving and caretaking ?
At this point, I am a student, and I am leaning towards psychiatric nursing as a speciality. I know that this is because of my personal experiences with my family, and my own struggles with mental illness. I already know more about meds, diagnoses, and treatments than the average person! (Ha ha)
Any feedback would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Jennifer
Jennifer - in one work ABSOLUTELY!!!
Caretakers are almost always from some type of dysfunctional family. I am beginning to wonder if there are any NORMAL families on the face of this earth. I suppose they are few and far between. Trust me! I also come from a family where my father drank to excess (functional alcoholic) mother who was a complete enabler, a sister who is a "user" as in taking from others but seldom giving, and a half brother who is obsessed with making money (work-a-holic, BIG TIME!) I myself am the youngest. My father was married 5 times, until he found my mother, who he stayed married to for 35 years until his death, but should NOT have! Again, TRUST ME! I took care of myself, learned too much responsibility TOO SOON, picked my father out of the street one day when he passed out drunk after slipping in snow after he parked the car... I spent one year in therapy after his death. He even went so far as to leave me in a car, alone, when I was 3 or 4 to go into a bar to drink! I have been a nurse about 15 years, have loved almost every minute of it, and truly have found many nurses who I became very close to, that literally made my life look like a CAKE WALK!
Good luck to you and yours. Be sure to take care of yourself. And don't forget to love yourself MORE than anyone or anything on the face of this Earth.
yes, count my vote as part of a dysfunctional family. i come from a long line of alcoholic fathers. my dad was never home growing up when he was he was raging drunk or passed out on the couch and we had to tip toe around as not to wake the beast. my mom, an over protective should be sainted, woman. she put up with a lot of bs that other women would have walked out on. she is where i get my strength.
the alcoholism has stopped with my family i married a man that came from an alcoholic father family and refused to have his children subject to that abuse and neglect.
I have noticed my own situation over here and I hate to say that my own family now is as much or more dysfunctional than the family I came from.
My mother was always hypercritical and ready to lash out at anyone who dared cross her (so I was constantly bracing myself for the next tongue lashing). Now, with my dad gone she is a whiney hypochondriac who wants to be like a child and be taken care of. My dad would come home from work and spend the evening out walking the neighborhood smoking cigarettes, even though he knew it was killing him. He wanted as little to do with me and my younger sister as he had to. We had financial support from him but that was it. I don't hate him, he wasn't a bad person, he was depressed and I guess that is where I get my melancholy from.
Then, I jumped from the frying pan into the fire when I got with this old man. He see's and magnify everyone's faults except his own. He came from the definition of dysfunctional. I'm not perfect, I'm moody and withdrawn ansd depressed and have missed out on a lot of things with my children as a result.
I guess I can join this club as well. I had a very rough childhood like many of the posters here. Alchohol was a huge issue in my household. I have since gotten counseling and the first thing they asked was is there any alcoholism in your family and I was in such denial that I said no there wasn't. This still blows my mind today as I watch my stepfather pound back endless amount of alcohol, to this day. My brother, although he holds a great job, has much anger to this day and I feel very sad because I think he suffered far more than I did. I never thought that nursing was a way to heal but I guess it really is for me. I think that for me, one of the main ways to help heal was to make a promise that I would never treat my kids the way I was treated.
After reading some of these threads, I am sooo blessed to have come from the family that I did. My dad was regular Army and my mom was a German war bride. I have one older sister and had a real June and Ward Clever childhood. I never wanted for anything. My dad was my biggest fan and hero. He passed away 17 years ago and I still miss him so much. I am the first person in my family to graduate from college but since then, several others have also graduated, namely my two beautiful daughters. I guess I have taken for granted my childhood and never really gave thanks for all that was done for me. Never to late to learn and say thank you to my momma.
I guess I can join this club as well. I had a very rough childhood like many of the posters here. Alchohol was a huge issue in my household. I have since gotten counseling and the first thing they asked was is there any alcoholism in your family and I was in such denial that I said no there wasn't. This still blows my mind today as I watch my stepfather pound back endless amount of alcohol, to this day. My brother, although he holds a great job, has much anger to this day and I feel very sad because I think he suffered far more than I did. I never thought that nursing was a way to heal but I guess it really is for me. I think that for me, one of the main ways to help heal was to make a promise that I would never treat my kids the way I was treated.
I too made the promise not to make the mistakes my parents did in raising my daughter. I went to counseling a few times, but the biggest impact was a statement from a Jewish psychologist who told me "You are not Jesus Christ, You can't save everyone, so stop trying" What an eye opener. I know for a fact that I am still too hard on my daughter, but I hold her to a higher standard, not as HIGH as my father held me, as he drank daily, but I have had two counselors tell me I am too tough on her. She however is a GREAT KID and will never, EVER go through what I have in my life. I have encouraged her to seek more than I have, and to PLEASE not make the mistakes I have. I hope the rest of you can hand the torch to your offspring without them growing up saying THEY ARE FROM A DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY, or at least one generation removed. AMEN God Bless all of you nurses, any may you find strength to overcome the obstacles in your past that have brought you where you are, a wonderful, caring person.
Personally, I think we all come from dysfunctional families (some more than others, of course). Being human and imperfect means there can be no perfect upbringing. There is a difference between dysfunction and serious abuse, and my heart goes out those who were raised in abusive situations. It seems most nurses were/are the caretakers of the family. We put our own needs aside in order to try and help everyone else, often to our own detriment. In this regard, we are also dysfunctional. The majority of my childhood memories are wonderful. I had the kind of upbringing most kids dream of. Our neighborhood was filled with kids who got along (for the most part) and we spent our time staring up at the clouds determining what they looked like, racing our big wheels around, rollerskating, etc. It was very much like the show, The Wonder Years.
Having said all this, I have never spoken to or met my dad. I'm not sure he knows I exist. I was raised by my mom and aunt, who were both very loving, so I never felt like I missed out on him (although I realize it has affected me). My mom began drinking nightly when I was in high school, and this affected me profoundly. Although she wasn't mean when drinking, her personality did change, and she loved to lecture me... on and on... It was crazy making. It was difficult being the only child and having both of them working full time. They had to do more work in the evenings (the life of teachers!), so I remember feeling lonely growing up. The thing is, all of our experiences, both good and bad, make us the people we are today. If you want to read a great memoir about a very dysfunctional family and how these experiences shaped the author's life it's called, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. It's quite an amazing journey she takes you on.
To be honest, my life seems more dysfunctional now. My family lives with my aunt (the one who raised me) in order for me to stay home with my young children. As much as I love her, she drives me nuts at times. There is a lot of conflict between us. Hubby and I have no privacy, as she is always around. She's not the kind of person who has an active social life, so we spend many hours in the same house. I was just telling hubby that he and I can't even have a private marital discussion, because our house is small and she is always here! It's very frustrating, and I've been depressed about it for awhile now. It's a blessing to be home with my children, but there is a big negative side that goes with it.
Anyway... that's pretty much my story in a nutshell! :)
ortess1971
528 Posts
I remember reading an article on this subject. It stated that there was a large percentange of nurses who grew up in dydfunctional families. It dealt mainly with OR nurses but the gist was that when you grow up in an unstable environment, you tend to be good in a crisis and able to think on the fly. The bad side of it is that nurses exhibit a lot of codependent behavior especially where docs are concerned. You say stuff like "he/she didn't mean to treat me like that" etc. I grew up in a family where my mom was depressed much of the time and my dad has an alcohol problem. I forgave them both long ago because they are basically good people and they always let us know we were loved, they tried their best. I look at it as my early life experiences made me stronger and made me good at what I do. I just try to stick up for myself and not let someone suck me into their drama, be it doctor or coworker.