Casey - The good stuff from growing up in a dysfunctional family: how to survive and then thrive

Karen Casey captures the experience, strength, and hope that are essential to maintaining healthy relationships with each other and with ourselves.

WILLIAM C. MOYERS, author of Broken

You just can't go wrong with Karen Casey.

EARNIE LARSEN, author of Stage II Recovery and From Anger to Forgiveness

Karen Casey's honesty about detachment as a lifelong process brings comfort and encouragement. Thanks, Karen, for writing this book and for a lifetime of dedicated service that has made this world a better place.

MELODY BEATTIE, author of Codependent No More

Veteran self-help author Casey's gentle advice is anchored in a strong spiritual commitment... [She] recommends quieting the mind by letting go of your ego and looking for the lesson in every experience and encounter, whether positive or negative. Casey's voice is thoughtful and accessible.

Publishers Weekly

Codependence and the Power of Detachment should be required reading for all who seek to create healthy, balanced relationships in their lives.

CLAUDIA BLACK, PHD, author of It Will Never Happen to Me

Codependence and the Power of Detachment is a remarkable book written in easy-to-understand language with great honesty.

JERRY JAMPOLSKY, MD, founder of the International Center for Attitudinal Healing

Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow tells the truth and tells it well. I recommend it.

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, author of The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life

All We Have Is All We Need is a gem of a book! So much wisdom and peace in every paragraph and sentence. These inspirational, quotable thoughts constantly affirm the incredible fruits of simply shifting our perspectivethrough the uniquely human gift of choice.

STEPHEN R. COVEY, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Once again Karen Casey helps us know the difference between an honest energy-draining crisis and a wrinkle in the sheet. Through her personal life encounters, Casey illustrates the wisdom gained when one follows her spirit. What a model for those who seek to find and listen to their inner voice. Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow offers clear and simple life instructions. A must-read book!

MARILYN J. MASON, PHD, author of Igniting the Spirit at Work

The experience of hope, as Karen Casey so intelligently and gently explains, comes from success. However, most of us are not ready for huge, life-changing successes. But we can all succeed in small ways each day, if we know how to proceed. It is warm, wise, personal, and welcomingan invaluable tool for spiritual growth that I highly recommend.

HUGH PRATHER, author of How to Live in the World and Still Be Happy, Standing on My Head, and Shining Through

This is an absolutely wonderful, magical, and deeply transforming book. It is a small book that can have a big impact. It inspires, guides, and challenges as it provides a practical design for living. No matter where I opened the book, I seemed always to be on the right page. A must-read for anyone who seeks the kind of livable truths that can lead to serenity and a sense of life as a spiritual adventure.

TIAN DAYTON, PHD, author of Trauma and Addiction, The Magic of Forgiveness, and Forgiving and Moving On

First published in 2013 by Conari Press, an imprint of

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2013 by Karen Casey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Casey, Karen.

The good stuff from growing up in dysfunctional families : how to survive and then thrive / Karen Casey.

pages cm

Summary: Is there a silver lining to growing up in a dysfunctional family? Bestselling recovery author Karen Casey looks at stories of people who grew up in dysfunctional families and the good stuff that can come from the experience. Throughout my many decades in recovery rooms I have interacted with thousands of women and men whose journeys reveal, in detail, the harrowing history of dysfunction that has troubled their lives, says Casey. But what is also apparent in their stories is their eventual and quite triumphant survival, often against extreme odds. Casey interviewed more than 24 survivors of families rife with dysfunction; survivors who willingly shared their stories and came to realize they had, surprisingly, thrived as the result of their often harrowing experiences. In The Good Stuff from Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family, Casey shares the stories and the skills these survivors developed to live more creative and fulfilling livesProvided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-57324-596-8 (pbk.)

1. Adult children of dysfunctional familiesPsychology. 2. Dysfunctional familiesPsychological aspects. 3. Perseveration (Psychology) 4. Resilience (Personality trait) 5. Self-esteem. I. Title.

RC455.4.F3.C37 2013

616.89dc23

2013026798

Cover design by Jim Warner

Interior by Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Typeset in Bembo and Universe

Printed in the United States of America

MAL

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

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O ver the course of my many decades in recovery rooms, I've interacted with thousands of women and men whose journeys reveal, in detail, the harrowing history of dysfunction that has troubled their lives. Listening to their accounts, and being witness to these painful and difficult struggles, I've often been amazed by the speakers themselvesat their openness, resilience, sense of humor, courage, and most of all their eventual and quite triumphant survival, often against extreme odds. For many years I've been fascinated by the idea that when we grow up in a dysfunctional family, we have access to a host of benefits we otherwise might not be privy to. This is rarely spoken of or written about, I think partly because it seems strange for us to think of abuse and neglect offering any kind of potential value in our lives. But those of us who have grown up in dysfunctional families know that this upbringing has served us with special gifts, and that each challenge comes with new opportunities. The very dysfunction these people lived through taught themsometimes in reacting against it, sometimes in discovering the whys and wherefores of itsurvival skills for life beyond dysfunction. They found that there are, in fact, many silver linings, maybe even nuggets of gold.

In writing this book, I set out with this assignment, one I'm certain I have been called to do: to interview more than two dozen men and women, to listen deeply to their stories and tease out their unique traits and perspectives. Did you know that to interview means simply to see each other? I wanted to see these people clearly, and to share with you a detailed description of twelve positive characteristics that are ready to be born in you and then become honed, just as they were in the people from these dysfunctional families.