support guidE
for when
your family is complicated
Hello friend,
Maybe you are in the first days of starting to name and understand all the complexities of family relationships that have long been a part of your world. Or maybe you are starting to sense the beginnings of healing.
Wherever you are, I am so sorry this has happened to you. It is harder than anyone knows or can understand, because you’re the one who feels it from the inside. When you were young, you didn’t understand that your family had secrets, generational pain, mental illness, or whatever it is that has caused you pain. I am so sorry that loving people (and being loved by people) in your family was such a challenge. I am sorry that you have to do the hard work of untangling the lessons of survival that you were forced to learn.
Below you’ll find a small support guide of resources, language, and ideas to encourage you along the way, and remind you that you are not alone.
Sending you so much love,
Kate
a blessing for when your family disappoints you
God, I am angry and hurt and so incredibly sad.
The very people who were supposed to love me and know me best have let me down.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to let this go or find a way forward.
I am losing my sense of home.
And the reality of it all fills me with a kind of fear.
However big, however small, this pain always feels…. Unforgivable.
I know they are only human
(really, I know),
but their mistakes feel like they echo through me.
They strike a painful chord that rings on and on.
I feel convinced, all at once,
that I am not loved, not known, not safe.
I feel small, all over again.
So bless me, God, when tears prick at my eyes, and I feel lost to myself.
Bring me home.
Remind me of the places you’ve brought me,
the person I’ve become,
when I feel your light and peace.
Forgive them for me when I can’t
and send some grace for this moment,
to keep my heart from breaking
or my temper from rising
or any sentence from starting with “YOU ALWAYS…”
You remember me when I am a stranger to myself,
and an outsider at my own address.
.
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WATCH
Do you feel like you have been carrying a backpack full of rocks? But you never understood why you were carrying it. Psychologist Julia Samuel and Kate Bowler talk about how generational trauma can be a heavy burden, even if you didn’t realize you were carrying it.
You can listen to their conversation here.
WATCH
Writer Tara Westover was raised in a very complicated family. Tara speaks so honestly about why people aren’t always “doing their best” and why that fact restores some dignity.
Watch this clip if your inner child is trying to figure out what was happening in your family and what happened to you.
You can listen to their conversation here.
READ
Educated
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was raised isolated from society and uneducated. She was 17 years old before she ever stepped foot in a classroom.. As Tara asks the important questions of childhood, how much of ourselves do we give to those we love and how do we separate ourselves in order to grow up?
READ
Every Family Has a Story
When we feel overwhelmed by our own history, or our family histories, or the dysfunction of our families, psychologist Julia Samuels offers insights into how families can face these challenges together. Julia reveals forgiveness and learning amidst the trauma and hardships and offers compassion for what we inherit and how we can create the families we wish for.
READ
Acceptance (A Memoir)
The truth was complicated. Emi’s mom was a charming hoarder who had her put on antipsychotics but believed in her daughter’s brilliance. Emi’s other parent vanished shortly after coming out as trans, a situation few understood in the mid-2000s. Her own past was filled with secrets: mental health struggles, Adderall addiction, and the unbecoming desperation of a teenager fending for herself. And though Emi would go on to graduate from Harvard and become a software engineer at Google, she found that success didn’t necessarily mean safety.
READ
Hello Beautiful (A Novel)
An emotionally layered and engrossing story of a family that shows how grief and resentment can be handed down through generations. This novel asks the tough question: Can love heal a person who is broken?
READ
Far From The Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity
Andrew Solomon writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, multiple severe disabilities, with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal. In Solomon’s telling, these stories are everyone’s stories.
“I think the love can be there. But in some cases it gets interrupted by things like mental illness, alcoholism, radicalism. They can be in their own abusive relationships, as I think my mother is and be completely unable to help somebody else. The love can be there, but there can be other things that can be stronger.”
— From Kate’s conversation with Tara Westover on the Everything Happens Podcast
LISTEN
Sarah Polley:
Run Toward the Danger
Do you ever look back at your childhood and go… certainly that didn’t happen like that? Where were the adults? Academy Award winning director and childhood actress Sarah Polley describes what it was like to not be believed when she was afraid or when she wanted to stop or when she was in pain or when she was in danger.
LISTEN
Minka Kelly:
Clear Eyes, Full Heart
When you see Minka Kelly on the big screen, one might not realize the chaos that surrounded her childhood. Being raised by a single mom who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka had to learn how to take care of herself and the adults around her, and, eventually, to forgive her mom.
LISTEN
Jeff Chu:
Full Circle Faith
Jeff Chu is a writer, reporter, preacher, and teacher. Jeff explores how do you find grace for people who believe things very different from you? Jeff has discovered grace for himself and his family (and others who many have different versions of faithfulness).
LISTEN
Juliana Marguiles:
Getting Unstuck
Chaotic childhoods can leave us feeling stuck. Stuck in the roles and relationships and chaos that once felt familiar. Actress Julianna Margulies (best known for her roles in ER and The Good Wife) found incredible success, but nothing seemed to free her from living into past, traumatic dynamics.
LISTEN
Kwame Alexander:
To Be Loved Like That
Our most precious relationships are often our most complicated, aren’t they? Poet and bestselling author Kwame Alexander wrote an honest book of poems and essays that name the difficult and beautiful and heart-wrenching conversations we have (or should be having) with the people we love and with the ones who love us.
FREE DOWNLOAD
If you need a reminder to feel it all or you would like to pass this reminder along to someone you love, click on the image below. Then save, print, or set as your phone wallpaper.