Growing up in a household characterized largely by avoidance is not an easy place for a sensitive, attuned, and empathic child to live. As I’ve worked through my thirties, I’ve come to learn how much my childhood informed the way I lived in my twenties, and the beliefs that led me forward and held me back.

Here is a breakdown of what our family system looked and felt like as a family of six. I wonder if it will resonate with you at all.

Our relationships were all surface level. Conversations were limited to small talk, unless it was a topic my father enjoyed discussing, in which case you could go a little deeper. But even then, no one could have an opinion that differed from his without emotional repercussions. In general, talk was limited to our activities, the weather, family plans, what was on TV, and similar things. Deep, emotional, or meaningful discussions were virtually nonexistent within the group.

It was an emotional desert. There was a clear lack of warmth, affection, and responsiveness. Emotional or verbal validation, physical affection, or general acts of appreciation, joy, or love were very rare. You were talked at, never with.

It was extremely low effort and low conflict, outside of sibling rivalry or bullying that went largely unresolved. Avoidance played a large role in this reality. Effort to truly know one another, to go out of your way for one another, or to be actively involved in each other’s lives with intention was nonexistent. Interpersonal problems were rarely addressed, as disagreements were swept under the rug. Or we were told to “just love each other”, with no clear modeling as to what that even looks like. Always in an effort to avoid confrontation or uncomfortable, honest conversations. I know this created quite a bit of unresolved resentment that is felt to this day.

Every single family member was hyper independent. There was no needing each other. It was an unspoken rule that it was every man for himself, especially the older you got. Everyone grew to be fiercely self sufficient and would not rely on each other for almost anything. Asking for help would be perceived as weak, needy, or burdensome by the group. And there would usually be gossip to that effect.

We were always “fine,” even if we were not. Despite being totally disconnected, we presented the facade of normalcy or being fine. I remember coming home from school and sometimes being asked how my day was, to which my only answer, every time, was “fine.” Nothing further was ever asked. This was the normal routine. It was as if my parents either thought my verbal shutdown was normal or they simply did not know what else to say.

When I was actively bullied in middle school to the point that school leaders finally involved my parents, only after I tried taking justice into my own hands, I remember my dad asking me why I did not tell him this was going on. What do you mean why, I wondered. We do not share vulnerably in this family. That is why.

We coexisted like distant roommates. We shared the same home, went to the same events, celebrated the same holidays together, yet there was never a sense of connection or intimacy. Everyone engaged in their own separate worlds while living alongside one another.

All of this leads to having a low knowledge of one another. It is no stretch to say that to this day none of us actually know much if anything concerning one another’s fears, desires, dreams, or even the daily happenings of our lives. The older we have gotten, the more clear it has become that I barely know my parents, and my siblings are as good as strangers to me.

It is actually quite sad to read this back to myself.

I should also add that so much of this reality is against my will! I have tried, in my own ways, over the last fifteen years to build a bond with my family that felt meaningful, honest and authentic and reciprocal. My efforts have been either rebuffed or ignored.

From what I have learned over the years, a family culture like this is built by parents who were themselves raised with avoidant behaviors and simply passed them on to the next generation. Their children are none the wiser until much later, if they choose to take a look under the hood, and may very well pass the same avoidance on to their own children if it’s never addressed. Parents like this often view emotional expression as childish, dramatic, or too much.

A family system like mine is also characterized as emotionally neglectful. It fails to provide the nurturing and emotional attunement children need to thrive in childhood and eventually adulthood. And whether the system knows it or not, it views closeness as a threat, danger, or loss of autonomy rather than a source of safety, which further fuels pushing each other away instead of drawing in close.

The results of this system can be that members grow up feeling lonely, isolated, unvalued, and unseen while living with their family. It is a dysfunctional dynamic where, despite being related and living under the same roof for many years, members operate as isolated individuals. They learn that emotional closeness is unsafe and that suppressing needs is the best way to deal with their feelings.

I can personally attest to these results being true in my life.

Then you add to that system an authoritarian, dogmatic, and theologically rigid father with a predisposition toward self absorption, and a passive mother who actively avoids conflict, lacks the ability to empathize or regulate her own emotions, and has a predisposition toward self absorption and enabling. It was an confusing, painful, difficult, and sadly common dynamic.

In my case, the system described above seemingly left each of us children feeling required to separate from the group and develop independently, yet just as equally required to suppress that formed identity and self expression so as to never offend or go against what our father found acceptable.

In a strictly religious household like ours, my father established himself as the family’s ultimate authority, often positioning his will as divinely inspired. My mother rarely, if ever, publicly questioned or pushed back on his all consuming authority, which told the children never to do so either. Any disagreement with him, to this day, feels akin to rebellion against God Himself.

We were silently cast into the various golden child and scapegoat roles as necessary, and ultimately succumbed to the division and infighting such roles create. To this day those roles exist to those still willing to play the game, and are only exchanged as it proves advantageous to the person quietly assigning them. At this point the adult siblings still engaging in this role playing are as responsible for the dysfunction as our parents in my view. To heal, I have fully opted out of all assigned roles. To opt out means I no longer engage relationally.

There is so much more I could say about the religious and control dynamics of my upbringing, but I think you get the general picture for now.

Then there is me.

In the midst of an avoidant household, there was me. Just about the most sensitive, creative, least avoidant person you could ever hope to meet. Someone who came out of the womb able to deeply feel, express emotions, passionately communicate, and source endless curiousity. A real INFJ. I lived permanently confused and desperately trying to make sense of the dysfunctional culture I lived in and my place within it, to no avail.

I needed to feel seen and known. I needed freedom, acceptance, and belonging. I needed justice, conversation, curiosity, engagement, and nurturing. Didn’t we all?

As time went by, I abandoned my creativity, suffocated my expressiveness, silenced my voice and gave up my personal identity in exchange for my father’s approval, group toleration, and my deep need for peace and safety.

Having distance from it all now, I see clearly how and why I became hyper vigilant, angry, hyper independent, struggled with trust, grew out of touch with my own needs and true personality, and wrestled with a deep sense of abandonment and neglect for most of my life. So many broken beliefs and bad habits to break.

I acted avoidant to fit in and survive my upbringing, but my true nature was not and is not avoidant. I wanted to deal with issues, talk about the hard things, find solutions, speak the truth, change, and grow. I hate avoidance. With everything in me, I hate it.

The way I coped with being forced to avoid until the age of nineteen was through anger, very intense anger, because I knew deep down that our family system was broken but felt powerless to change it. After age nineteen, I chose hyper spirituality and suppressed my anger and all feelings surrounding the way I was shaped. I ignored my past and threw myself into my faith wholeheartedly, something I don’t regret because Jesus was the best escapism I could have chosen and He always had a plan of bringing me full circle to a place of healing, no matter how long I took to get there. I succeeded at avoiding the truths I had to face until pain and grace had done their work and blocked my ability to run any further at thirty years old.

When I turned thirty, it was as if everything hit me at once. It took me the next five years to pick through it all and make sense of my story. I realized that I had been running from my family since I was old enough to drive. I left as often as I had money and fuel, and as soon as I could get on a plane, even better. The further I went, the longer I stayed.

From Europe to Asia, from living on the East Coast to the West Coast, ultimately spending the last six years in New Zealand. There is no doubt I was a runner. Always unconsiously searching for my tribe, my place of belonging. But at least the last six years have not been about running from truth or from myself, but rather running toward something. I have run into admission, into deep pain, acknowledgment, and soul aching grief, into honesty, healing, and clarity.

They have been the hardest years of my life and yet the most necessary. I moved through cathartic anger and bleak brokenness to arrive at a hard earned place of quiet acceptance. The place we all must reach when we cannot change the past.

It happened. It is over. It does not define me.

My parents may not have done their actual best, but they did what they had the capacity to do as the people they were while raising me. My siblings may not be doing their best, but they are doing what they can with the knowledge and capacity they have right now. I may have chosen the path of self abandonment for most of my life, but that was what seemed safest at the time. And knowing more now, I am making better choices. Imperfect, but better.

This is what I accept.

What I will no longer accept is for another day.

Of course, it was not all bad. My parents were hard workers and always provided what was needed when it came to food and shelter. And even if it was fraught at times, they ultimately were the first to introduce me to Christ and endeavored to raise us in a Christian home. For that I will always be grateful. My father imparted to me a mostly healthy suspicion of government and an interest in holistic living, things I still embody today. My mother imparted her love for Christmas and much of the baby talk I now bestow upon my own baby. As with any relationship, even with avoidant people, there are happy moments and good memories. It was not all anger and depression. But it was hollow. Life lacked zest and joy. It lacked eyes that see and ears that hear who I really was. The house felt heavy and empty at the same time.

I lived with a perpetual sinking feeling that something was missing or not right but could never quite identify what it was. I could never quite make the dissatisfaction and longing for more go away, no matter how much I contorted myself to gain others’ approval. I never felt that I belonged in the very family I was born into. Intimacy and closeness has never arrived, whether I acquiesced or fought.

It matters to see how you grew up and the impact it had on you if you have any desire to grow, change, and evolve. If you do not have that desire, then avoid the deep dive into the past by all means. I, however, was haunted by mine. And I craved understanding and evolution more than I feared uncomfortable truths. So I went where everyone in my family told me not to go. Where the Bible was twisted and manipulated to try to get me to stop looking back, lest I turn to salt like Lot’s wife and other improperly used passages.

But I persevered. I went there. I did the work alongside the Lord. I gained the clarity, and I am reaching healing within true acceptance.

I did it because I deserve a life no longer haunted. I deserve to be exactly who I am, exactly the woman God made me before avoidance tried to suppress and crush me. I deserve emotional wholeness. And my son deserves the same vitality, to be seen, known, and understood by parents who can bear difficult conversations and emotional volatility.

I do not want him to suppress himself to make me more comfortable. I want him to be wild, wacky, powerful, and uninhibited in all his shades of self expression, transition, and divine design. I want to nurture his God given identity and delight in the privilege of parenting. I hope to have the capacity to never stop learning, never stop growing, and always hold space for myself and those I love as we move through life figuring it out along the way.

And I want to build a family so close and so safe that maybe one day we can bring the lonely into it and offer a form of healthy family to those who never knew one, as written in Psalm 68:6.

I have not arrived. I have not finished my race or been perfected. I am still healing, still learning, still accepting painful realities. But I made a stand with the Lord in 2018 that the brokenness of my bloodline would stop with me, and I intend, by His grace, to keep my word.

You cannot change what you will not admit, and you cannot admit what you cannot see. Don’t be afraid to look at it. Seek truth and you shall find it. It might be ugly, painful, scary at times…the cost of freedom usually is…but it will be worth it.

I may have been raised in avoidance, but I will live in the Truth.

-Rachel

“And you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” -John 8:32