15 Signs You Come From A Dysfunctional Family

1. It’s been years since your parents slept in the same bed.

2. Family vacations were rarely enjoyable and always full of fighting. In fact, some of the worst fights your family ever had were during vacation.

3. You’ve said something, or multiple things, to someone in your family and in retrospect, you’re ashamed of how hurtful they were. You regret that you’ll never be able to fully take them back.

4. When people tell you that you’re like your mom or dad, you get upset and hope that it isn’t true. In many ways—and it makes you sad to admit it—they’re exactly what you don’t want to be like when you’re older.

5. You long to be in supportive, loving, and monogamous romantic relationships, perhaps to compensate for the stability you lacked growing up.

6. You related to others who had dysfunctional families—people with drug addicts in their families, divorced parents, etc.

7. You rarely brought friends to your house growing up, because of the fighting going on, the cleanliness of the house, etc.

8. To a degree, your close friends feel like your family. You love being in tight-knit social groups: your guy friends feeling like your brothers, your girl friends feeling like your sisters, etc.

9. You felt envious of the friends of yours that had “good” families in which their parents were kind, chill, and supportive.

10. You became introverted and shy because of the constant conflict around you.

11. You seem to want and enjoy sex more than the average person.

12. You don’t want to live in the same city you grew up in.

13. You tried to get out of your house as much as you could, often to do “bad” things that you know your parents would have disapproved of.

14. It was hard for you to do drugs growing up because getting too high would make you think about your family and how fucked up it was, which might give you an anxiety attack.

15. You often think about how you’re not going to make the mistakes of your parents, that you’re going to marry someone you truly love, and that you’re going to be a great mom or dad to your kids—if, not when, you end up having them.