9 Signs You Grew Up in a Dysfunctional Family

Have you ever felt like the adult in your own childhood? Or found yourself constantly fixing everyone else’s emotions — even now?

In this episode, we explore 9 subtle but powerful signs you may have grown up in a dysfunctional family. We’ll talk about parentification, emotional neglect, codependency, and the quiet ways childhood trauma can follow us into adulthood.

Whether you’re a cycle-breaker, an adult child of alcoholics, or simply someone learning to trust their own emotions — this is for you.

🕊️ You’re not broken. You’re a canary. And your sensitivity? It’s your superpower.

New episodes drop every Monday at 6AM!

For free resources and healing tools, watch YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@canariesinthecoalmines

Transcript

1:54

Hey, I'm Shannon Fellow. Feel everything drama survivor. Recovering party girl and boundary setter in this. This is canaries in the coal mine. If you've ever been called too sensitive, too dramatic, too emotional, when really you were just the first to feel that something was off, you are not broken. You are not crazy. You. Are just the canary and around here. That's not a weakness, that's a survival skill. This podcast is for the sensitive ones, the cycle breakers, the empaths, the recovering good girls, the people pleasers, the one who made everything okay for everyone else by pretending that they were fine. Every week, I'm gonna bring you real talk, practical healing tools. And permission to trust your instincts even when the world tells you not to. We are gonna talk about healthy boundaries, drama recovery, family dysfunction, how to stop gaslighting yourself and all the things. No sugarcoated, bs, no woowoo nonsense, just truth and a little bit of dry humor to keep it realsies. So whether you're hiding on your bathroom floor right now or finally sitting down with something, woo. Warm in your hands. I'm so glad you're here. You are not alone. You are not too much. You are just the canary in your sensitivity. It's your superpower. Let's in. Have you ever looked around at your life or relationships, your reactions, your patterns, and thought, wait a minute, this can't be normal, right? If so, you are in the right place. This video is for the cycle breakers, the ones Googling. Why do I feel responsible for everyone's emotions at like 2:00 AM and the ones who grew up surviving what they couldn't name? So let's name it. Today we are walking through nine signs that you grew up in a dysfunctional home. And spoiler alert, this doesn't mean your childhood was all bad. Just means that your emotional needs. Probably took a backseat to someone else's chaos, addiction control, or pain naming, this is not about blame. It is about freedom, because when you understand the emotional environment that you grew up in, you can stop internalizing the damage and start healing it. You were the grownup in the room. Did you feel like the parent in your house, like the one who had to keep the peace, read the room, or pick up the emotional slack? This is a hallmark of parentification when a child takes on adult responsibilities or emotions too soon you. Might have been praised for this, for being so, so mature for your age, but that wasn't maturity, that was hypervigilance, dressed up as helpfulness. Did you know parentified children often grow into adults with chronic anxiety and guilt. Author Pete Walker calls this the emotional flashback zone. The truth was a threat. In a healthy family, the truth is welcomed in a dysfunctional one, the truth is a threat. Maybe you were punished for pointing out what was obviously happening. Maybe you said something like, mom's been drinking and then got told, don't be so disrespectful. Or you asked, why does dad yell like that? And then heard something like. Stop causing drama. You weren't crazy. You were just the truth teller in a system built on denial, author, melody Beaty, rights in dysfunctional families. Denial is not just a behavior, it's a rule. You didn't learn what you were for, only what you were supposed to fix when you grow up in dysfunction. Your identity gets tangled up in survival. You become the fixer, the pleaser, the quiet one, the achiever, the lost child, but no one asked you who you were, what lit you up, what made you feel safe or creative or curious. Gabor Mate says. Children will often choose attachment over authenticity because to be yourself in a chaotic home can feel unsafe. You confuse chaos with normal. If calm makes you feel uncomfortable, and chaos feels more like home. That's not just a quirk that's conditioning. Did you know. Adults from chaotic homes are more likely to seek out or stay in high conflict environments, not because they wanna suffer, but because their nervous system has adapted to high stress as its baseline. This doesn't mean you're dramatic. It means your body learned that crisis equals connection. You feel responsible for other people's feelings. If someone's mad, you assume it's your fault. If someone's sad, you have to rush in and fix it. You might even feel anxious when other people are happy because deep down you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's like living with emotional Velcro, like everything sticks to you even when it's not yours. You were taught to minimize or dismiss your pain. Other people have it worse. That didn't really happen like that. You are being too sensitive. Sound familiar? These messages are gaslighting in disguise and they teach you to mistrust your own memory, your own experience, and your own pain. Brene Brown says quote, we cannot selectively numb emotions. We numb the dark, we also numb the light. You feel like a ghost in your own life. This one's hard to explain, but you know it when you feel it. It's the emotional dissociation, the numbness, the fog, the sense that you're performing life instead of living it. Dr. Bruce Perry explains when we're in survival mode, parts of the brain that allow connection, curiosity, and joy, they go offline. That's not failure. That's your nervous system trying to protect you. You were rewarded for abandoning yourself. Where you praise for being the easy one. The one who never caused trouble. Never needed anything. You had to silence your truth to be acceptable. You had to shapeshift to keep that peace. Now, you might feel like your worth depends on staying agreeable, capable, or invisible, but your presence is enough even when you're messy. Unsure. Have needs you. Mistake, numbness for peace. If you say, I'm fine, but feel flat, disconnected, or zoned out, that's not peace. That's frozen mode. Dr. Bessel, Vander rights, right? Traumatized people, chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies. The good news, it's reversible with time movement and safe connection. Your aliveness can come back. Before we close, I just wanna offer you a deep breath and a little bit of truth. You didn't imagine it, you didn't make it up, and it was not your fault. You adapted to survive things that should have never been your responsibility. Healing is not about becoming someone new. It's about coming home to who you've always been. Reach out if you need support. There's a CA. There's Al-Anon, there's online therapy, there's in-person therapy. There's so many books and podcasts, animals rest. You are not meant to heal alone. And just so you know, I'm not a licensed therapist. I'm just someone who has spent over a decade in recovery learning, unlearning, journaling, crying. Laughing, messing up, healing, and I'm just sharing what's helped. You are not too much. You just were never given enough. You are not broken. You are a canary in your sensitivity. It's your superpower.