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

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CONSIDER THIS

1. Everyone has a complicated family, because everyone’s family is human. Families are so complex and complicated, sometimes it is hard to keep it all straight. Maybe a first step is to write out your family tree. Start with your immediate family and grandparents. After you write their names, try to go a little deeper. Write down the things that you don’t normally find on a family tree. Who struggled with mental health, grief, miscarriages, marital problems, addiction, or medical complications? What are the family secrets, struggles, and the significant history that each branch of the tree holds? Taking a moment to write it down and see how complicated it is, is just one step towards reflecting on what you experienced as a part of this bigger family. 

2. Naming our feelings is a part of healing. Can you put words to how it felt when you were younger and how it feels now? Even if you don’t remember all of the details of the situation, how you remember feeling is valid. What do you remember happening? And when that feels overwhelming to think about or recall, remind yourself that you survived. You can handle more than you imagined (though you shouldn’t have had to). Be gentle with yourself. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to reach out to a trusted friend, licensed therapist, or your pastor as you work toward healing.

3. Everyone deserves a safe place to belong and feel loved, wanted, and appreciated. If your family of origin is not safe for you to be yourself, then perhaps you need to find an additional community and place of belonging. We don’t get to choose our family of origin, and sometimes we have to create a chosen family elsewhere. Here are some places you might find community and belonging: church, bible study groups, book clubs, al-anon groups, grief share groups, in your neighborhood, a hobby-related group, or with old friends. Where is somewhere you might begin reaching out to today? Perhaps it means putting yourself out there, inviting people over, or joining something new. We know it is not easy, but worth the work it takes to develop those deeper ties as we practice interdependence.