There are many types and degrees of dysfunction in families, but psychotherapist  Sharon Martin says they tend to be unpredictable, chaotic, and sometimes frightening.

"Quite simply, dysfunctional families don’t know how to deal with feelings in healthy ways," she writes.

"Parents who are dealing with their own problems or are taking care of (often enabling) an addicted or dysfunctional partner, don’t have the time, energy, or emotional intelligence to pay attention to, value, and support their children’s feelings."

As Claudia Black said in her book It Will Never Happen to Me, alcoholic—and dysfunctional—families follow three unspoken rules: don't talk, don't trust, don't feel.

According to the first one, you must act like everything is fine and make sure everyone else thinks you are a perfectly normal family.

This is often extremely confusing for children who sense that something is wrong, but no one acknowledges it. Because of that, children conclude that they are the problem.

Because no one is allowed to talk about the dysfunction, the family is full of secrets and shame. Children, in particular, feel alone, hopeless, and begin to think nobody else is going through what they're experiencing.

The don’t talk rule ensures that no one acknowledges the real issues.

And when the roots of the family’s problems are denied, they can never be solved.

Children depend on their parents or caregivers to keep them safe, but when they grow up in a dysfunctional family, they don’t feel they're adequately nurtured. Without that basic sense of safety, children feel anxious and have difficulty trusting not only their parents, but also the world.

"Children don’t develop a sense of trust and security in dysfunctional families because their caregivers are inconsistent and undependable," Martin explains. "They are neglectful, emotionally absent, break promises, and don’t fulfill their responsibilities."

"In addition, some dysfunctional parents expose their children to dangerous people and situations and fail to protect them from abuse. As a result, children learn that they can’t trust others, even their parents, to meet their needs and keep them safe (the most fundamental form of trust for a child)," the psychotherapist adds.

In addition to the don’t talk mandate, the don’t trust rule keeps the family isolated and perpetuates the fear that if you ask for help, something bad will happen.

Repressing painful or confusing emotions is a popular coping strategy within dysfunctional families. Children witness their parents numbing themselves with alcohol, drugs, food, pornography, and technology, and since true emotions often aren't expressed and dealt with in a healthy way, everyone learns that it's better to not feel.

Children quickly learn that expressing yourself will, at best, lead to being ignored and, at worst, result in violence, blame, and shame.

"Shame is pervasive in dysfunctional families," Martin adds. "It's the feeling you have when you think there’s something wrong with you, that you’re inferior or unworthy. Shame is the result of family secrets and denial and being told you’re bad and deserve to be hurt or neglected."

Sometimes people get so hurt, they decide they would be better off without each other. In a 2023 study of parent and adult child estrangement published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, researchers looked at a list of people that included 8,495 mothers and 8,119 fathers, and found that 6% of people reported an estrangement from their mother, while 26% reported an estrangement from their father. The average age was 26 for an estrangement with a mother and 23 for an estrangement with a father.

These rates of estrangement also varied according to race, gender, and sexuality. For example, white adult sons were more likely to be estranged from their mothers than daughters, and black sons and daughters were both more likely to be estranged from their fathers but less likely to be estranged from their mothers than white adult children.

Additionally, 32% of gay or lesbian adult children and 36% of bisexual adult children reported estrangement from their fathers compared with 22% of their heterosexual peers.

The good thing is that of the adult children with a history of estrangement, 81% reconciled with their mother and 69% reconnected with their father.

Estrangement isn't necessarily forever.