People are extremely bad at thinking objectively. Psychology shows this over and over again. To put it bluntly: If you’re still unsure today whether you should get pizza or pasta, tomorrow you’ll have five reasons why your choice – whatever it is – was the right one. The day after tomorrow he will probably have forgotten what he even ate.
In return, in ten years he can use false family photos to convince himself that he was in Rome as a three-year-old. On reflection, he remembers eating ice cream there – yes, raspberry ice cream with exactly three chocolate sprinkles and, yes, the sun blinded his left eye! – even if in reality he never set foot on Italian soil.
Given the subjectivity and changeability of human memories, marriage and family therapist Annie Wright is not surprised that many people are convinced that they grew up in perfect families. In reality, however, a significant portion of the population comes from dysfunctional families with “emotionally immature parents.”
“This usually becomes apparent in adulthood [im Umgang] with romantic partners, friends, colleagues and bosses,” Wright tells Business Insider. With practice, you can recognize whether you – and others – come from functional or dysfunctional families.
Anyone who is very hard on themselves has low self-esteem
Not all people from dysfunctional families developed into non-functioning members of society. Those that did work, however, often built up compensation mechanisms to cover up their shortcomings.
For example, anyone who is overly hard on themselves was often raised by an “overly critical parent”. Often such people only feel valuable when they achieve high levels of performance.
People with difficult childhoods are often not good at arguing
Furthermore, children in dysfunctional families did not learn how to argue properly. Instead, they received the impression that “conflict is not safe” and inevitably leads to poor outcomes.
This leads to those affected avoiding conflicts later. Problems are “swallowed to keep the peace.”
Healthy relationships take work
If you become aware of your difficult childhood, you can work through it step by step and change your behavior, says Wright.
A popular method of strengthening the relationship is the so-called “2-2-2 method”.