Week #8

This week we talked about crises I started realizing some things about my own family. When I started making a list of some crises that had occured in my family I could think of one thing. My family really hasn't had a lot of horrible things happen to us, but I know we have had difficulties beyond that. And as I tried to remember things that had happened in my family throughout my life, I began to realize a pattern. That was that when hard times occured, no one talked about it. It was something that we never talked about. I remember some things that had come up, such as my cousin getting excommunicated when I was about 14 years old or so, and I remember hearing about it when my mom was on the phone with her brother, his dad. I and I overheard part of the conversation. So I was able to catch that he had been excommunicated but that was it. I remember waiting for my parents to tell me about it, and they never did. So one day I asked my mom, and she blew it off, and said something along the line of, "you don't really need to know the details." So still to this day, I don't know anything about it. I also remember a similar experience when my bishop got excommunicated in the ward I grew up in when I was around twelve years old. I remember hearing about it through gossip from ward members. When I finally got up the courage to ask my parents about it, all they said was, "He just decided he was going to take a break from the church for a little bit" I mean I know I wasn't super old, but none of this was anything near what I was hearing as rumors. I didn't know what to believe. So, all throughout my life I just assumed everything was totally fine, and I grew this perception that you are not supposed to talk about personal things that are happening in your life, and you never tell anyone else, even family members about any crisis, or anything going wrong in your life. I am glad my parents never exaggerated stuff, or made a whol big drama out of some of the challenges our family faced, but I think in a way it was a little extreme that they choose never to tell us children anything about the dirty or the ugly stuff. Because, now that I am married, my husband had a totally different view. He grew up in a family where they told everyone about everything. So, as we have started facing some struggles and a crisis here and there, the first thing he does is tell his dad, and then everyone else knows. And I am still struggling with this, because I am thinking, "How could you abuse my trust. How could you reveal such personal things with your dad, who you know is going to share it with the rest of you family!" I mean I felt totally betrayed. I still am struggling with this, because he doesn't really understand my point of view because it is so forgien and opposite. So, I really have realized the effect this can have on family relations, and I am trying to still find a happy medium, and a healthy way to raise our family, and a healthy way of dealing with those crises we will face.