Dealing With a Family Crisis

A family crisis involves a turning point in the family. It usually changes the family structure or the family. A family crisis is not something that only affects one person. An example of an individual crisis is receiving a bad test score. For example, I just took my World Foundations exam and received a 79%. This makes me upset and sad with myself, but it doesn’t affect my mom, brothers or dad. An example of a family crisis would be an unstable relationship with my Sister in Law. That unstable and negative relationship not only affects me but my mom and dad and brother. This issue has been happening since I was 12 and is currently an ongoing problem. Recently she blocked me from Instagram, and that only affect me, but when she refuses to stay with my family when they come to Washington or doesn’t welcome us into her home, it affects all of us. A family crisis is when a family and not just an individual is impacted. A crisis mandates an unnecessary change in the system. A family functions in their own family function. Family function refers to the ability to manage issues.

A family crisis causes a stressor. A stressor is a strain on the family and relationships. An example of how a family could deal with a stressor would be blamed or in other words, scapegoating. This causes family members to start pulling away from each other. Shame is another common one where they start finding comfort in other people, places, things rather than on their family. Denial is choosing to not believe what is going on and avoidance is acknowledging there is a problem, but don’t deal with it.

Everyone has a different reaction to a family crisis. Some recover, some are never able to recover, and for some, it benefits them.

Here we see that A refers to the actual event. B refers to both the resources available and responses. C refers to cognitions to problems, meaning, how they think about the problem. X refers to the crisis or in other words the total experience. The ABCX is able to show how although people experience the same situation, people perceptions are different.

STRESS

The core reaction to a family crisis is stress which becomes a stressor.  Stress affects the brain.

Our Frontal lobe is the analytical part of the brain. The limbic system is the autopilot the part we use for emergencies and is emotionally oriented. In addition, the stem part of our brain is metabolic. The stem accounts for breathing, digestive system, heartbeat, blood pressure (for some it will go up, for most it will go down and elevating blood pressure increases reflexes; when blood pressure goes down you won’t bleed to death), sleepiness disappears; your body recognizes it’s not a good time to take a nap.

When a family crisis happens, stress causes us to use different parts of our brain or visa versa to not use part of our brain. It’s our perception not the reality of the danger that sets all of this up. It’s important to remember that anxiety is a natural normal healthy response to danger or a crisis. Depression is also a common way to respond to depression. It is important to receive help to deal with your depression and know how to deal with it.  It’s interesting to note that anxiety and depression are mainly common in the United States and Canada because it’s a cultural thing we have created. Prozac is the most popular drug in the United States. We are overpopulated with anxiety and depression. One way to help control your anxiety and depression is to use cognitive therapy. The overall point of cognitive therapy is the necessity to replace or check your thoughts with truth, also known as knowledge.