What You Need to Know if You’re Stuck in the House with Your Family! – Pandemic Week 2

Hi everyone, as I have been helping my clients navigate this difficult time, I thought that others might also benefit from my thoughts about staying at home during the coronavirus. What You Need to Know if You’re Stuck in the House with Your Family! As a family therapist, I’m all about understanding family dynamics. Each family has their own unique way of interacting. Usually, these patterns are repeated over and over and help shape us as we grow up. With our coronavirus confinement, I am hearing about many family dynamics and I thought I would share some information that might help during this crazy time!

• Ramped up angst. Very few families are used to 24/7 togetherness with no end in sight. Family interactions create angst, which is a low grade feeling of worry or annoyance or dread. This is normal because people are annoying and we continuously push each other’s buttons. (This is supposed to happen—it’s inherent in living together as a family!) Normally, this angst is at about a 10% level most of the time, and it is tolerable. With the dramatic changes in our lives, our baseline angst level is much higher to begin the day, maybe 30% or 40%, and then it rises from there in response to all that annoying stuff. So if you’re wondering why you aren’t yourself, maybe that’s why.
• Same people. So, you know how one family members is the needy one, and one is the dramatic one, or maybe one is easy going and one is high strung? There are infinite roles we learn in our families growing up and for most of us, those roles stay with us forever. So even with all the changes in your life right now, your family members are likely still in their roles. Understanding their behavior in terms of their family roles can help.
• Big changes. We create lives with a structure that keeps us engaged and our minds occupied with things that make us feel good about ourselves. For many that includes work, social engagements, volunteering, a class at the gym, lunch with a friend, shopping, or….I could go on and on, but you get it. Right now many of us are missing these activities or are trying to take care of our kids or our partners at the same time, which ruins the escape they normally provide. So what happens when we don’t have these opportunities? We sink into hamster wheel thinking, our thoughts forming a continuous loop of beating ourselves up, worrying about the future, critical thoughts about our loved ones, etc. This causes misery and suffering. This is especially true now when we’re cut off from our normal outlets.

So why is this helpful to know? Because, in my experience, understanding is the first step in relief from our suffering. We don’t have to change our circumstances, but we can change our thoughts and it will feel better. Our thoughts will change if we are compassionate with ourselves and acknowledge what we are feeling. This can be an internal dialogue like, “I am really scared about how I’m going to manage all of this going forward” or “I am so frustrated trying to homeschool my child, ” or “I am so sad that so many events have been canceled.” I know it sounds elementary, but it is rare that we talk to ourselves and acknowledge our feelings. Try it! If you’d like to learn more about family roles and how they shape us, listen to my podcast “What Drives You.” https://soundcloud.com/user-428308073