Recently, I have had some serious family issues come up. I always have family issues because my family is severely dysfunctional all of the time and downright abusive a lot of the time. During the past month, things have been coming up a lot with them. At some point, I will have to deal with it all but right now, I don’t have the extra energy it will require. In the meantime, it is taking an emotional toll and making my regular every-day activities harder to perform. Therefore, I have had to apologize to quite a few people recently for flaking out on them. When I offer an explanation of the current problems I am trying to deal with, they inevitably try to give me advice on how to deal with the situation.
Frequently, when we give advice, we fail to see the intimate nature of the issue. Additionally, most issues people find themselves dealing with are complex. There are no simple solutions. For example, I am working on a project for a client that is now five days late. I told him I am having family issues and he asked for more details. I told him that my mother is telling lies about me that make me look bad. This is an extremely simplified version of the situation. Yet, he now feels he knows enough to offer me advice. He says I should go to see my mother as soon as possible, let her know how much I love her and everything will be fine again. As if.
It amazes me how everyone tries to offer such simple solutions to me. It also amazes me that they try to tell me it is no big deal and I shouldn’t let it bother me. Well, then, what is a big deal? What should I let bother me?
As I contemplate this, I begin to wonder if it is possible that most people just have not encountered a person as crazy as my mother. Maybe everyone just thinks it’s so simple because they were not raised surrounded by insane people. This is very difficult for me to understand. My upbringing and the key, influential people in my childhood have led me to believe that most of the population is dysfunctional. Before, I assumed that if people were offering simple solutions it was because they were dysfunctional themselves and were uncomfortable confronting dysfunctionality in others. I still think this is probably true in a lot of cases. But I’m also beginning to see that maybe they haven’t ever had a close relationship with a truly crazy person and therefore have absolutely no idea what I’m up against. Shockingly, they may actually think the simple solutions they are offering me will prove successful.
I spent almost every single day of the first nineteen years of my life with my mother. I know crazy very well. It colors my perception of the world. So, I find it hard to believe that dysfunctional people are not the norm. And since I cannot yet discern between dysfunctional people and people who just haven’t experienced crazy, I think I will err on the side of caution and continue to consider everyone dysfunctional, including myself.