It's Okay to Have Issues

This week I want to take some time to address the fact that all families have problems, both good and bad, and I’ll get to why they’re good in a moment. All families go through periods in which they are under stress and I want us to be on the same page here so I’m going to define the words stress and distress. Stress according to google means “a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances” while distress means “extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain” according to the same source. Something that I have learned recently is that not all stress leads to distress, that is something very important to understand.

There are definitely a number of circumstances that cause families distress. I’m sure you’ve seen quite a bit of them in your own personal life. I’ve had a few friends who’ve dealt with miscarriages, that is emotionally exhausting, especially for a woman. Other families deal with abuse, financial instability, mental or physical illness, a strain in a relationship, substance abuse and the list goes on and on. My family is currently going through some financial struggles and that has been extremely difficult for our family to deal with. Some families let their problems tear them apart while others are brought together through those tough times. I’ve known a number of families who have reconnected and strengthened their relationships through the death of another family member like a parent or grandparent. People meet and catch up with each other at the funeral, tears are shed, hearts are softened, it is amazing. When we go back and take a look at the meaning of the word stress and focus on the mental or emotional strain, stress all of a sudden becomes something that is necessary and healthy. Without strain in life, without something to push us, we can never learn and grow. We must learn to be grateful in our circumstances and may I suggest to we be grateful when we have challenges and look at them as an opportunity to become better and to come together.

As I said, families can either allow their challenges to break them apart or to bring them together. There are certainly different ways in which families cope with things which ultimately leads to one of those two results. I’m going to give some examples of how not to cope. First is to be in denial, to pretend that a problem doesn’t exist. If a family never acknowledges that they have a problem then the problem may only get bigger until it gets so big and becomes so obvious that you can no longer deny it. A second way is to avoid the problem meaning that you know the problem is there, but you never address it therefore it never gets resolved. I personally feel like denial is a prerequisite to avoidance, but sometimes denial gets bypassed altogether. Avoidance can lead to the same results as denial. The last one I’ll bring up is scapegoating. It’s one thing to avoid a problem, but it is, in my opinion, so much worse to push your issues onto someone else, letting someone else take the blame or just flat-out putting the blame on them. One must be able to hold themselves accountable for an issue in their own family, especially if the issue is caused by them. Putting the blame on someone else means avoiding taking responsibility for what is happening, while the person being blamed inherits all of the responsibility. In any of these cases, the problems don’t get solved.

It is very important for families to learn to effectively communicate with each other, to work out their problems whether it be with someone inside or outside the family. Share the load, share the responsibility and work together to come out on top of your issues.