Is Family Everything?

There is no one who’s not familiar with the saying, “Family is everything.” When family members are loving, respectful, supportive, and nurturing people with a healthy sense of boundaries, family is, indeed, everything. To be part of a intimate self-enclosed island of individuals that uplifts you during times of trial and celebrates your accomplishments, no matter how small and trivial they may be, is one of the most precious things on this planet.

But what about those families where the people are damaged people who pass down their damage onto their offspring and siblings? Is family still everything?

I’ve been around long enough to see that not all families are created equal, and that there are some who demand blind loyalty, that’s based on shared genetics, without deserving such loyalty. I’m talking about the damaged folks who spout that family is everything out of one side of their mouths and then turn around to inflict more harm and damage on members of their own family.

What is especially tragic is when people grow up in toxic and dysfunctional families not knowing that what they’ve experienced growing up (and as adults) has actually been abuse. They may have grown up hearing their parents and siblings constantly say that theirs is a close family, that no one loves each other more than this family.

Yet their words never match up with their actions. And when people hear the same words being repeated over and over since infancy, they believe them. That’s how lies become the truth, and how abuse becomes something that every loving and close family does.

And these “loving” and “close” abusers use the phrase, “Family is everything,” in order to assure that their victims stick around.

Unfortunately, many do choose to stay close to their abusers because that is all they know, and because they haven’t gotten around to realizing what they’ve been experiencing all their lives is indeed abuse. They have wholeheartedly bought into the lie that shared genetics does indeed demand unfailing loyalty. And they will go to the grave never having had their eyes opened.

However, those who have made the realization have a long and interesting healing journey ahead of them.  And many may connect with likeminded folks who wind up becoming their soul family, which in that case is everything.