The thing about growing up in dysfunction is that everyone hands you a manual for surviving it, but no one tells you how to live once you’ve made it out alive. It’s like spending years learning to navigate a war zone, only to realize you never learned how to walk on stable ground. Here’s your guide to finding solid footing.
1. Accept That It Was Actually That Bad
Stop minimizing your experience. That little voice saying “Others had it worse” or “Maybe I’m being dramatic” is just your survival brain trying to protect you from painful truths. When you grow up in chaos, acknowledging how bad things were feels dangerous— because for a long time, it was. Your brain isn’t broken, it was doing exactly what it needed to do to survive.
2. Understand Your Nervous System Is Still at War
Your body doesn’t know the war is over. Those anxiety spikes when someone raises their voice? The constant need to check for exits? Your nervous system is still running emergency protocols from a threat that’s no longer there. It’s like having a really enthusiastic security system that goes off at shadows because it remembers when the shadows were actually dangerous. Learning to reset this system isn’t being “dramatic”—it’s literally rewiring your survival instincts.
3. Stop Being Your Own Abuser
The most insidious part of dysfunction is how we internalize it. You escaped the chaos but kept the critic who sounds suspiciously like your worst moments at home. You’ve become your own jailer, enforcing rules that were never about protection—they were about control. Every time you say “I don’t deserve better” or “This is just how it is,” you’re reading from a script you didn’t write.
5. Recognize Your Coping Mechanisms
Those habits you think are just “your personality”? A lot of them are survival skills you haven’t retired yet. Being the peacekeeper, the invisible one, the achiever, the rebel—these weren’t choices, they were armor. And just like you wouldn’t wear a bulletproof vest to bed, some of these defenses don’t serve you anymore.
6. Learn What Normal Actually Looks Like
Growing up in dysfunction warps your normal meter beyond recognition. Things that would horrify well-adjusted people might seem perfectly fine to you, while normal behaviors might set off your alarm bells. You might flinch at kindness and expect betrayal at every turn. Study healthy relationships like you’re learning a foreign language because, in many ways, you are. Watch how secure people handle conflict, express needs, and show love.
7. Break Your Trauma Bond Addiction
Chaos can become its own kind of comfort zone. You might find yourself recreating familiar dysfunction because it feels like home—dating people who hurt you, creating a crisis where there is none, and sabotaging peace when it arrives. That pull toward familiar pain isn’t love or destiny—it’s your brain trying to solve old problems with new people. Breaking this cycle feels like withdrawal because, neurologically speaking, it is.
8. Parent Your Inner Child
That scared kid inside you needs the parent they never had—and surprise, that parent has to be you. This isn’t some woo-woo fluff, it’s about literally rewiring your brain’s attachment system. Learn to self-soothe, validate your own feelings, and give yourself the unconditional love you deserved but didn’t get. It feels ridiculous at first, sitting there telling your inner child they’re safe and loved. Do it anyway.
9. Create Boundaries Like Your Life Depends On It
10. Forgive Yourself for Surviving
You did what you had to do to make it through. Maybe you lied, manipulated, or became someone you’re not proud of. Maybe you were the golden child who threw siblings under the bus, or the rebel who caused extra chaos. Stop punishing yourself for the strategies that kept you alive. Your survival methods weren’t character flaws—they were life rafts in a storm. Now you can learn new ways to stay afloat.
11. Stop Trying to Make Them Understand
They won’t. Not because they don’t love you, but because admitting how their actions hurt you would mean facing their own trauma, and they’re not ready. Stop writing those long emails explaining your feelings. Stop rehearsing the perfect speech that will finally make them get it. You’re speaking Arabic to people who only know English—they literally cannot understand the language of your healing.
12. Accept That Grieving Never Really Ends
You’re not grieving just what happened—you’re grieving what should have happened. Every milestone, every happy moment, every achievement comes with a shadow of what could have been. That’s normal. It’s okay to mourn the childhood you deserved while celebrating the life you’re building. Your grief isn’t a broken part of you, it’s proof you know you deserved better.
13. Find Your Chosen Family
Your blood family may have given you life, but they don’t get to decide what you do with it. Build connections with people who make you feel safe, seen, and supported. Look for friends who respect boundaries, who don’t use love as a weapon, and who make space for your healing. Create the family environment you always needed. And remember: DNA is not a binding contract to accept abuse.
14. Learn the Art of Self-Trust
Your dysfunction trained you to doubt your own reality, feelings, and memories. Every “that didn’t happen” or “you’re too sensitive” chipped away at your ability to trust yourself. Start small: validate your own feelings, believe your memories, and trust your gut when it says something’s wrong. Document your experiences if you need to. Your reality is valid, even if your family spent years trying to convince you otherwise.
15. Break the Achievement Addiction
Many survivors become high-functioning overachievers, thinking if they’re just successful enough, they’ll finally be worthy of love. You’re running on a treadmill that never ends. That degree, promotion, or accomplishment won’t heal your childhood wounds. Success is great, but it’s not therapy. Your worth isn’t measured by your productivity or bank account.
16. Practice Radical Self-Compassion
You learned to be your own harshest critic because it felt safer than letting others do it first. Now you need to learn self-compassion, not as a fluffy self-help concept but as a survival skill. Talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend who survived what you did. Would you tell them they’re broken? Unworthy? Too sensitive? Start treating yourself with the same compassion you give others.
17. Accept That Healing Isn’t Linear
Some days you’ll feel like a self-help guru who has it all figured out. Others, you’ll find yourself acting like your 12-year-old self in crisis mode. Both are normal. Healing isn’t a straight line, it’s more like a spiral. You’ll keep coming back to the same issues, but each time from a higher perspective, with better tools.
