Genogram Paper

Family Dynamics My genogram consists of me, my mom Karyn, my dad Joseph, my maternal grandmother Clairene, my maternal grandfather James, and my paternal grandparents, Helena and Harry. The only mark I have in my circle is the blue corner, indicating depression because I was diagnosed with depression two years ago. My mother doesn’t have any marks in her circle, she is very happy and healthy. My dad has the black rectangle at the bottom of his square indicating past alcohol and drug abuse. He also has an outline of blue around his square indicating that he is an alcoholic but has since recovered from his drug abuse, I think, but I don’t know for sure. My father and mother have many marks, one being the two slashes, indicating that they are divorced. Within their relationship, they have the black line with red slashes throughout it, meaning distrust because my father cheated on my mother. There is also the double red dotted/dashed line indicating discord/conflict, because of the arguments and conflict they had before they got divorced because of my dad’s unfaithfulness and because of his drug abuse. There is also a red line between them with an x in the middle, indicating that my dad was manipulative to my mom. I also put a blue jagged line from my dad to my mom, because he was emotionally abusive to her in many ways. Between me and my parents, there is a double green line with slashes between my mother and I, indicating that we have a very close relationship and we are best friends. With my dad, there is a dotted black line indicating that our relationship is distant and poor, because he currently lives in Florida, so I don’t get to see him very often. But I also put a straight green line indicating harmony because I’ve forgiven him for his past actions and I still love him because he is my dad, and he loves me as well. For my mother’s parents, Clairene and James, there is an x behind their circles because they have both passed on. In my grandmother’s circle, there is a pink corner, indicating that she had cancer. There is also a purple one because she also had diabetes. My grandpa James has a pink corner as well because he had kidney cancer. There is a line with two circles overlapping, indicating that my grandma and grandpa were in love. But I also put a red line with a x inside a square going from my grandpa to my grandpa because he was controlling to her, and I put the same line from my grandpa to my mom because he was controlling to her as well. I put a green double line with slashes from my mother to my grandmother, because they were very close before she passed away, and they always have been since my mom was a child. For my dad’s parents, my paternal grandparents, Harry and Helena, there is an x behind my grandpa Harry’s square because he passed on before I was born. My grandma however, is 93 and still alive, but she has arthritis, shown by the grayish blue corner in her square. My grandfather has a red corner because he had heart disease and died of a heart attack. I put a black line from my dad to his dad, because I think their relationship was just normal but I’m not sure because my dad didn’t talk about him much. But I put a green double line from him to his mom because I know that they are close now because she lives in Florida close by my dad. Cohesion and Flexibility I would say my family is flexibly connected, if we are just talking about me and my mother. We don’t depend on each other emotionally, but I would say for right now I do depend on my mom financially, as I am only a teen. But my mom allows me to make my own decisions and trusts me. We are very close, although. We see each other pretty much every day and are around each other every day. I probably hang out with my mom more than I hang out with my friends, which kind of makes me sound like a loser but oh well. But we are okay without each other as well, like she goes out and hangs with her boyfriend or friends or whatever often and I’m not dependent on her or anything. I don’t know if my dad really has any classification but he and I might just be chaotically disengaged. We are very independent of each other and don’t have any rules set, but I don’t know if any of that counts because we don’t live together. My mom and her siblings’ family when they were younger, and their parents were alive I would say was rigidly connected. Her father was strict to her and her sisters. But they were still a family and loved each other, did things together often. My dad would set odd rules like they weren’t allowed to use curling irons or light candles because he was a fireman and had a bit of anxiety or ptsd I guess you could say. My dad’s family when he was younger was probably chaotically separated. My dad had six sisters and one brother, so his mother wasn’t exactly always looking after them and making sure they were always doing what they were supposed to. I can imagine it would be hard to take care of eight children, especially back then. Boundaries My immediate family probably has a balance between open and closed. With my mother, it leans towards being more open, since we are together most of the time and our problems and feelings coincide. With my dad, it’s more closed boundaries. I don’t talk to him much, but when I do it’s on the phone or over text and it’s about very shallow things and on the surface. My mother’s family had very open boundaries because she has two sisters and they would often bicker, and still today her sisters are close and tell each other almost everything. I’m not exactly sure about my dad’s family, but I think that it was probably open with his siblings, but more closed with his parents. Since his parents weren’t very close with him often, he would hang around his sisters and brother more, so they were probably close and told each other a lot about themselves. Couple Communication Style My mom thinks her and my dad were probably a non-regulated couple, specifically criticism and contempt. I also think there could be defensiveness too. My dad would often blame my mom for things that were not her fault, and judge and criticize her for many things. He would more passively aggressively though and would act like he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was very manipulative, so he made my mom believe these things he was telling her, even if they weren’t true, which they weren’t almost all of the time. When my mother was young, she said that her parents were a non-regulated couple, but they eventually got better over time. My grandma would often criticize my grandma for different things and control her and my grandma was often unhappy because of that. My mom believes that they still loved each other though, despite of that. I’m not sure what my dad’s parents couple communication style was like because I’m not really comfortable with asking my dad about that and I never got to meet my grandpa on my dad’s side to know for myself how they were together. Functional and Dysfunctional Patterns Obviously, my parents had mostly dysfunctional patterns of pretty much all that was listed. Abuse (emotionally), divorce, substance use from my dad (drugs and alcohol), my dad would often minimize my mother’s problems against his own, acting like he was the only one who mattered, and aggressive behavior, referring to the multiple times I would hear them fighting as a kid. But now, there is mostly functional patterns from my mother to me. We are very caring, loving, and honest with each other. My mother’s parents had some dysfunctional patterns as well such as controlling from my grandpa towards my grandma, mom, and her siblings. But they also had a lot of functional patterns too, like they were very caring and loving of each other. My grandpa would always try to make sure his kids were safe, even if it meant going to extreme measures like not letting them date until they were 18, which I don’t particularly agree with, but in his mind, it was the right thing to do to make sure his daughters were safe. Even when my mom got older and divorced my dad, my grandpa was still very protective of her and would disapprove of a lot of the guys that she dated after my dad. I’m not exactly sure of all the functional and dysfunctional patterns of my dad’s parents but I know that there was probably some neglect coming from his mom and dad to him because of how many kids they had to manage. They wouldn’t care and nurture my dad as much as they should have and disregarding him and many of the others. Much of my dad’s childhood consisted of him being raised by his older sisters a lot of the time. Parenting Styles I would say my mom’s parenting style is permissive indulgent but also authoritative. She has some rules and guidelines, but she is not strict at all and she seems more like a friend to me most times. But I’m not a rebellious daughter or anything in the first place so she’s never really had any reason to put in any strict rules or anything like that. I would say my mother’s parent’s parenting style was authoritarian, at least for her dad. My grandma kind of just went along with whatever he thought was right because that’s just how controlling he was. He wouldn’t really let my grandma make any decisions in the house, he was kind of like the dictator. My dad’s parents parenting style was permissive neglectful. They would often not pay as much attention to him, or to his siblings and focused on other things. Communication Strategies My mom’s communication style varies. She sometimes is the ‘the faker’ where she acts like she is listening, but she really isn’t. Or sometimes she’ll just be doing something else like on her phone and will completely just not hear anything I have to say. But most of the time she is supportive and listens actively and attentively. She uses “I messages” often and she also has respect and consideration. I would say that she usually is more of a positive communicator rather than negative or poor and destructive. My dad’s communication strategy when we talk on the phone is often persuasive and directive. My dad is very narcissistic and loves to talk about himself. So, he’ll often ask me questions just so he can talk about himself and what is happening in his life. He rambles on about himself for a while. But I can say that he also has good constructive strategies of communicating as well, like using humor, he often tries to make me laugh. My grandma on my mother’s side was usually positive, not as much constructive though. Even in her old age, she was very good at remembering things so she would often bring up things in conversation, so I think that she was good at reflective listening. My mom said that when she was a kid this was true as well, she was very good at listening and making sure she remembered detail. My grandpa however, would have more destructive communication. He would blame my mom and her sisters, and nothing was ever his fault. And he ALWAYS needed to be right. His opinion was always right, and no one could ever change his mind about it. I think my aunt Julie, my mom’s oldest sister, inherited this trait from their dad. She is the same way, she always must be right and everyone else is always wrong. My grandpa would also use the “judge and jury” poor listening style. He would often judge other people for what they say and think that their opinion was wrong often. My aunt Julie inherited this trait from him too, she does the same exact thing. I’m not 100% sure on my paternal grandpa’s communication style because my dad never talked about him much in the past or never talks about him today either. I suspect that maybe it was a little bit of withdrawal, since my dad didn’t really know much about his father, I assume that he just didn’t tell him about his feelings that much. I think that he probably didn’t have the time though, he would work often and had to take care of a lot of kids. I’m assuming this is how my grandmother was as well, but I know it was very hard to persuade her.