Strong Families

I come from a very strong Catholic family. My dad converted to Catholicism right before he married my mom so that shows a huge committment to her. Both my parents made religion a big part of our family. We went to church every Sunday together as a family and then we would go to breakfast after. That is one of the hardest things to not have in college. My parents have been married for 17 years and I consider them to be a very strong couple. They make sure they spend time together whenever possible. They made a great example for my brother and I. One of the things that really stuck out to me in class when we talked about appreciation and affection is when I would leave the house my mom would say, "Love you, drive safe, watch out for the crazies," meaning the bad drivers. It was simple, but it really meant a lot to me and made me feel safer. I think that my family and I are lacking on the positive communication as a whole, but my dad and I have that down. We randomly stay up until 2 A.M. talking about life, God, and things that are hard to deal with. My dad and I both have really bad anxiety and panic attacks, so whenever I feel one coming on I call him and he drops everything for me. That gesture alone means so much to me and really helps me. I already said that we have a great connection with religion, but I think the real foundation of my family is the relationships that we have with eachother and God. My parents have taught us how to be individuals and have strong morals. They taught us to always know God, because without him, "everything sucks," as my mom would say. I also think one issue our family could deal with better is coping with stress. My mom's sister died a year ago of a brain tumor. She was diagnosed and then 6 months later she died. My mom still has not gotten over it. She has 11 brothers and sisters and out of all of them the one that died was the closest to her. She became really distant from our family and spent a lot of time alone. My dad and I made it a point of trying to get her to talk to us and be with us. I think she just needed some time to grieve. The point of this whole blog is to say that I think my past growing up in my home with all the things going on that I mentioned above gives me a very stong comparison to how other families might not be. I think that if I was working with families in the future I have a pretty good idea of what a strong family is. I think that I could help them get to that point by giving them examples and telling stories about my family. If my family hadn't been that way as I was growing up, I think it would be a lot harder to help families. This really pertains to what I want to do with my life, because I plan on being a Psychologist for abused children and their families. This whole class is a huge help to me. This strong families topic alone will help immensily when working with families of abuse. I hope that my background wtih my family will help other families in the future.