The Family Dysfunction Inside You

Hey guys!

Being human is tough, as you probably know. It’s kind of like you wake up every day and have to relearn some of the same things you’ve been learning your whole life. Over and over. Day after day. And let’s be real — it can be tiring. Same lessons, same work.

I’m stuck in this routine. I wake up every morning and I feel like shit. At night I’m forced to sleep on my back — I really don’t understand how anybody does this voluntarily. You guys are like a bunch of psycho vampires. But in order to do it, I take sleep medication. I tried Klonopin — that ended in a dumpster fire. Now I’m on a cocktail of other stuff that gives me a mega hangover. I wake up every morning and all of my fears, my worries, my character flaws are absolutely inflamed, screaming at me. And that’s where the work starts. Every morning.

Not to spank a dying horse or whatever that expression is — as most of you know, I do the meditation every day, with breathwork, and it’s how I sort through this shit every morning.

Lately I’ve been learning about some new stuff. And it’s been really helpful — it put language to what I’ve been experiencing. So bear with me, read it — it’s all connected in the end, I promise.

There’s a framework in psychology called Internal Family Systems — IFS for short. The basic idea is this: you’re not one person. You’re a whole family living under one roof. And just like any family, some members are loud, some are hiding, some are screaming, and some haven’t been heard from in years.

There are the exiles. We all have these — they form when we’re growing up. They hold the pain from when something happened that was too much for us. Maybe you were neglected. Maybe you were shamed. Maybe something terrible happened and no one was there to help you pick up the pieces. You couldn’t handle it, so you locked these parts of yourself away — exiled. Unloved and neglected. Hidden away from CPS.

Then there are the managers. We develop these to make sure that wounded part of ourselves never gets triggered. They’re preventative. They come out and try to control — they plan, perform, people-please. If we do these things, then we won’t be hurt. We won’t ever have to deal with that child again. They scream at you to plan obsessively, try to control the future, make sure everything is okay. They come out and try to manage your shit. Usually unsuccessfully.

Then there are the firefighters, which kind of do the same job as the managers but they’re reactive. They show up when the house is already on fire. When you want to get outside of yourself, when you’re uncomfortable, when it’s just too overwhelming — the firefighter rushes in. Drugs. Alcohol. Bingeing. Anger. Dissociation. Buying shit on Amazon.

And then there’s you. The Self — the calm, compassionate, empathetic center. The part that loves yourself and everyone unconditionally. Ha. As if. But really, that’s what we’re working toward — the one who can bring everybody together at the dinner table. Figure out why the cops got called. Put out the garbage fire behind the house. IFS says Self isn’t something you build — it was always there, underneath all the noise. You just have to clear enough space for it to actually do its job.

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Because for me, on most mornings, it feels like there are three or four different family members screaming inside of me. Some children. Some alienated cousins. A drunk uncle. And they all have different attitudes, different wants, different needs. And a lot of the time, I don’t want to hear them. I just want to say shut the fuck up, sit at the table, and have a fucking breakfast.

But that’s not helpful. None of it ever was — not the ignoring, not the numbing, not the running offshore for weeks at a time just to avoid what was waiting on land. All I was ever doing was refusing to feed the kids at the table. And they just got louder.

So now I try to do my meditation and figure out what’s going on. Sit there in the house and see what the family’s up to.

There’s the neglected child. Unable to express himself. Not seen, not listened to. He’s broken and hurt — he’s the part of me that wants to be loved and chosen, that wants a shared future with somebody. To fill that fundamental part of being human. We all have the need for connection. And I suppose on top of all that, there’s a sadness about probably not being able to have children. That one sits heavy.

Then there’s the sulking, angsty, overly idealistic teenager. He’s annoying — upset with all the inequalities in life. He’s the part of me that feels like I should have the same life as a normal person. That it’s bullshit I’m not farther along, especially with all the work I’ve done — the discipline, the things I’ve learned and overcome, programming, building real things for real people and businesses, shipping code, landing clients. If this world was fair, I’d be twice as far by now. He’s the desire for things to be different than they are. More stable. More recognized. More perfect. He never stops comparing and judging.

And then there’s the drunk uncle. Just got out of rehab. Counting days. On a pink cloud. He’s terrified of regressing — things are starting to get better and he’s waiting for the next shoe to drop. He’s the part of me that remembers what it was like before I got out of the nursing home. Back in addiction. Back in total chaos. Back to hating myself — hating myself — and everything I did. Spending all my money and being ashamed.

The neglected child, the teenager, the drunk uncle — in IFS, they’re all exiles. Parts that got locked away because the pain was too much. And the drill sergeant? He’s been standing guard the whole time, convinced that if he relaxes for a second, the whole house falls apart.

These aren’t flaws. They’re family members. And nobody’s been feeding them.

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There’s another concept that connected everything for me. It’s called reparenting.

I love my parents. They’re fantastic. They gave me everything they could. But — and there’s always a but with parents, let’s be realistic here — I inherited some things that maybe aren’t so great. And growing up, maybe I didn’t have the tools to manage the family. That’s where reparenting comes in. Your parents aren’t gonna fix what got broken. That’s up to you. They gave you everything they could.

So reparenting means you look at all of those parts — the drunk uncle, the angsty teenager, the neglected child — and you’re there for them. You see them. You listen to them. And you say:

Hey. You belong here. The door is always open. There will always be food for you. We’re going to do this together. What are you trying to tell me? What do I need to change? How can I listen to you more clearly? We’re in this together, and I’m not going to run from you anymore. We’re going to grow together.

That’s reparenting. Right there.

And by doing this, you can kind of stop hating your parents for not giving you what you needed at the time you needed it. Because shit, man — life’s tough for everyone. And ultimately, no one really knows what you need besides you. Probably half the reason we’re all so fucking stubborn.

We’re not reaching for the sky here. We’re just trying to get through the day. This isn’t a motivational speech. It’s sitting down at the table with the worst parts of your inner world and saying: I see you. I love you. You’re not going anywhere. Neither am I.

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Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed — when my inner world is chaos, all the voices screaming, everything out of order — I do a visualization meditation. Yeah, I know, more weird Taoist shit. But I return to a home in my mind. It’s nestled on a serene mountaintop next to a river. Birds are circling overhead, sky is blue, snow piling up on the peaks in the background. It’s a sanctuary. And inside it there’s my subconscious, my deeper self — quiet, steady, keeping things in order. That’s the Self. The one IFS says was always there underneath all the noise.

And now I invite the neglected child in. The teenager. Even the drunk uncle. And we sit together at the table and work on things. They’re not banging on the door anymore. They’re not screaming from the other room. They’re being fed. And it’s quiet enough — for the first time in a long time — to actually hear what they’ve been trying to say.

So if there’s a civil war happening inside your head — it’s okay. There’s one inside mine too. You’re not broken. You’re not insane. Well, maybe. But you just have a big family in there, and nobody’s been parenting them.

I’ll finish with a prayer I say:

Universe, help me show up for myself. Help illuminate the next step forward. I don’t need the whole map — I just need to know what to do next. Help me see all of these wounded parts inside me not as problems to solve, but as a family to love.

Be good to yourself this week. Sit at the table. Have breakfast.

Hey — while I have you here. I’m a full-stack web developer. I build things. If you need a simple portfolio site, a Squarespace or WordPress setup, an e-commerce store, or full-on business software for managing operations, invoicing, and client workflows — I do that. I also build AI/ML pipelines and AI-powered tools like sales agents, email automation, and custom integrations. Basically, if it lives on the internet and you need it to work, I can probably build it. Check out my work at matthewraynor.com/services or reach out directly. I’d love to help.