Monday 11 February 2013

All Unhappy Families...

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

This is the opening line in the book Anna Karenina. One time when I was googling the quote I found a thread of someone who was asking about the meaning of the quote on yahoo answers. The reply he got was this:

"Happy families understand human nature, not in an abstract way, but in a practical way that allows the fulfilment of its members. Since happy families follow nature and are tuned with those natural needs they're all very much alike. Unhappy families march to the particular flaws of the individuals within it and therefore don't function according to nature or as a family. The unhappiness within each unhappy family is uniquely their own path."

I though this reply was pretty much spot on. However, I do see a common thread in "unhappy" (or dysfunctional) families. How else can I explain that I can relate so much to people who come from different backgrounds and have had a different family experience? How else can I explain that when I read certain books, or watch certain films, I feel like I have known the characters my whole life? That I deeply know and understand them.

Yesterday I watched "Rumble Fish". The first time I saw the film, in my late teens, I was completely drawn to this film in a way that I could not explain. After all, what did a Spanish girl from an average working family have in common with a guy (Rusty James) from Tulsa who was involved in gangs, and had an alcoholic father? But somehow at the time I felt like I knew this character and his brother so much. Watching the film yesterday I saw so much more than I did when I saw it the first time. I saw that the main character, Rusty James, is just desperate to be seen by his father and his brother. That he had been brought up being left entirely to his own devices and, while in his case this was very extreme, since the father is an alcoholic; I also, except for the basics, had  been brought up left to my own devices, with no one to give me guidance or direction of any kind. Brought up as if we were invisible, or at best, as a background prop to someone else's life. This disconnection seems to me to be the most common denominator in dysfunctional families.

There was another idea in the film that I also deeply related to. See what you think of this conversation between Rusty James and his father while they're discussing the older brother:

Father: Every now and then, a person comes along, has a different view of the world than does the usual person. It doesn't make them crazy. I mean... an acute perception, man... that doesn't, that doesn't make you crazy.
Rusty: Could you talk normal?
Father: However sometimes... it can drive you crazy, acute perception.
Rusty: I wish you'd talk normal 'cause I don't understand half the garbage you're saying. You know? You know what I mean?
Father: No, your mother... is not crazy. And neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother crazy. He's merely miscast in a play. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river... with the ability to be able to do anything that he wants to do and findin' nothin' that he wants to do. I mean nothing.

"A miscast in a play". That's how I feel in my FOO. As much as I see a lot of me in the struggles of Rusty James, I also see a lot of me in the character of the older brother. In the way he can see past the appearance of the things that surrounds him. 
This acute perception is that made us different from our FOO is also what could have driven us crazy. In my view, this "acute perception" is what causes depression. Depression as in being pressed down by a reality we are unable to change: the realisation that we've been born in the "wrong" family...
This film was based on a book of S.E. Hinton. I wondered what upbringing she'd had, to be able to describe these feelings so well. (You know that only one who has also been there could express them in that way.) And what do you know? There is not a lot of info on her upbringing, but I did find this:

" I still find it hard to comprehend how a girl could write
so insightfully about boys. Obviously girls have their own battles to go through, and they probably seem just as life-and-death, but the understanding she had of the boys’ world is still hard to comprehend.
Maybe it had something to do with her upbringing, which  apparently wasn’t easy. Ms. Hinton is still now a very private person, but she has described her mother as abusive: “when I was writing she’d come into my room, grab my hair and throw me in front of the TV, she’d say, ‘You’re part of this family – now act like it.’”
Whatever it was, she could identify with people who felt they didn’t fit in, and she was able to observe the young boys in her neighbourhood with their gangs, and family problems, and just the terrible struggles of growing up, and she was able to write about it as if she was one of them."
She was able to write as if she was one of them because she WAS one of them: another "motherless" child left to her own devices and being made to act as "part of a family" as a prop in the background. 

19 comments:

  1. I love the story about the author - imagine having to watch TV to be "part of this family" - a very accurate image of being a prop in the background of other peoples' lives! I wrote a post a while ago about Tolstoy's quote about happy and unhappy families - I really think that whether one is in a narcissistic family, a family parented by a mentally ill parent, or any combination thereof, we all look so much the same - details are different,,but the results seem depressingly similar. Yet in functional families, people get to be who they really are, which creates much more interesting (if less hysterical) dynamics. So I have to disagree with Tolstoy - imagine the gall!!!

    Thanks so much for this post - it made me think and laugh and wonder!

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    1. Hi Toto,
      You're welcome and thanks for the feedback too.
      Watching TV and dinner were the only times I was part of my FOO too, so I can identify with Hinton, although my mother wasn't as bad as her, if I went to my room to read or listen to music, my parents would just let me, they never came after me; being the ignoring type, I don't think they could care less. Sounds like Hinton's mother must have been an engulfing type.
      You're absolutely right, no matter what the reason for the dysfunction, the results seem to be the same, it seems so obvious now that I can't understand why this is not common knowledge yet. :P

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  2. With my in-laws, I often feel like a "place filler". Like,they would easily swap me out with some other "DIL image" and be just as fine. It's not a matter of me being an important person in my own right. I just play the DIL part in their play. I just fill the wife role in their son's life. I just hold a space in the family photos. I've tried to explain this to my DH, but he just can't get it. He can't see that they have no use for me as a person, that if I was gone, they wouldn't really miss me as a person (and in fact, often don't miss me if I'm not involved in a family thing), they would just notice the hole where someone, anyone, should be.
    With my FOO, I've always felt like I just didn't fit in. I mean, they are all crazy and I didn't think I was crazy :). And I often wondered how in the hell that happened. How did I get plunked down in the midst of this craziness and not become one of them.

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    1. Being a "place filler" is so de-humanising that no wonder our spirit rebels so much against it. I don't know how on earth I happened to be born among such "switched off" people and not become like them either. I guess maybe that's where having that acute perception comes in, maybe that's why we're so different to them...

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  3. Hi Kara,
    Oh, you used the Anna Karenina quote! I love, love, love that quote, as you know! And I also think the Yahoo answer is right on, too. But I agree with you, that dysfunction also has a common thread, which I think could be summarized as "not feeling heard." I mean, whatever form the dysfunction takes, the child is invalidated. That is certainly a commonality we all share.
    It's a good topic. Somebody should explore it further. :)

    I have never read any SE Hinton books, but I know the stories from the movies. I just watched "Tex" a couple of months ago and of course, there is The Outsiders. I have always been curious about her because not only was she female, I know she was also very young when she wrote these stories. I'm not surprised in the least to hear that she was abused. It makes perfect sense. What I do find amazing is that she was able to write novels in that environment. Can you imagine how tough that would be??

    She WAS one of them. Of course she was.

    This was really fun to read. I just love our talks about literature and movies/TV that relate to our struggle. We are halfway through the 2nd series of Lie To Me and still loving it.

    Kitty
    XX00

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    1. Thanks Kitty. "Not being heard", not being seen, being made feel like you don't matter, these are all common characteristics of how children from dysfunctional families feel. I do have an idea for a post exploring this further. Will do soon.
      I read "Rumble Fish" and "The Outsiders" in my teens, and I have seen both films made of the books. The film "Rumble Fish" makes a lot more sense if you've read the book, since there's more detail about their backgrounds, though the film is beautiful to wathc because of the black and white photography. I haven't seen "Tex" though, I'll have to add it to the DVD rental list.
      I love our talks about literature and movies too; glad you're enjoying "Lie to Me", have you spotted the scarf yet? ;)

      Kara XXOO

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    2. I have not spotted the scarf! I've seen him wearing a red and white scarf but not the blue one.

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    3. I think it was in a episode at the end of series 2, you might not have got to it yet ;) x

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  4. When I read The Outsiders I remember so much of that story sticking in my head. Standing out. We had to read it in class and I still remember how it made me feel. Thank you for sharing the info about the author. I didn't know that and she understood. The inner struggles we face can be told as a male or female. It is just a matter of outward expression at times. That is often what people see first. How could she have written about boys in gangs? She was telling a story that goes beyond the story of boys in gangs.
    Thank you for sharing this. xxoo T

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    1. Thank you for the feedback T. I liked the way you put this: "It is just a matter of outward expression at times. That is often what people see first." That's what I think too, that people see the "outside" of something and think is a different issue when the issues are the same but with a different "backdrop".
      Kara xxoo

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  5. "miscast in a play" in your FOO. How perfect. I once remarked to a friend that I truly believed that I was a "changeling." That somehow fate had borne me into the wrong family, with people who were alien to my spirit. It's true, that's how I've always felt. Completely alien to their spirits (except for kid sis, who's now become chief enabler of parental narc).
    If I didn't look so much like both parents (a trend that gets worse as I age), I'd truly wonder if I had their DNA. ps KITTY--I laughed when I saw your remark "it's a good topic. Somebody should explore it further." LOL

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    1. My husband always says that if it wasn't because I look like my father, he'd be convinced I was swapped at the hospital ;)

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  6. Hi Kara,
    Starting Season ONe of Lie to Me tonight! goodnight xo

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    1. let me know what you think :) xx

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    2. It will be fun to hear your thoughts, CS, on Lie To Me. I think Lightman is a fantastic character. It took a few episodes for him to grow on me. And to both of you: any thoughts on his body language? He's always slumping and slouching and cocking his head at weird angles. Is he just trying to make people uncomfortable, or what?

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    3. On the extras features on the dvd, it was explained that Tim Roth asked Paul Ekman about what body language he should have for his character and Paul Ekman said:" you can do anything you like, since nobody is looking at your expressions, you are not the one being examined, they are." I do think that Lightman does the slouching and slumping to make people uncomfortable, also to distract them from lying, apparently is really difficult to lie if you're distracted. Is similar to what Patrick Jane (in The Mentalist ) does. Have you noticed how he's always fiddling with something while the other agent interviews a suspect or a witness?

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    4. I have noticed that on The Mentalist and I think you're right. It makes sense that throwing people off guard would make it harder for them to lie.

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  7. I'm late to the party and people have probably all gone home BUT, my mother still says to me (and I'm sixty years old now): "CZ, we do NOT know where you came from!"

    I didn't feel 'misscast in a play' particularly until getting older and then I felt like my birth was a cosmic accident. How could a left-handed feminista with an extremely open mind, be born into a fundamentalist family? At this point, ya can't help but laugh about it!

    Love,
    CZ

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    1. Hi CZ,
      No worries, latecomers are always welcome ;)
      I wonder whether the problem is not so much that we are so different to them but their inability to accept that we are different to them; yes, we might as well laugh about it, I can't see their attitude changing any time soon :P
      Love,
      Kara

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