Nadine Driver_Genogram Paper. (1)

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Genogram Paper Nadine Driver Clinical Social Work II 3/10/23 On my honor, I have neither received nor given any unauthorized assistance on this assignment. Signed by Nadine Driver

1 Although this was not my first time completing a genogram, I thought it was interesting to see how my personal genogram has changed over the last few years. McGoldrick reported that genograms were visual representations of a family’s composition (McGoldrick, Gerson, & Shellenberger, 1999) . My mother, who is now 57 years old, is the oldest of two girls. Her father passed away when she was 12 years old. While her mother, my maternal grandmother, is currently residing with my mother living with a diagnosis of early onset dementia. My father, who is the second child out of five children, was raised by his mother and father. Both paternal grandparents are alive and well. My mother married my father when she was 25 years old and together, they had my older sister and me. Additionally, my father had my other sister and brother from a prior marriage. In total, I have two older sisters and an older brother. My oldest sister is engaged to be married this Summer. My second oldest sister is married to two girls. My older brother is an officer in the Navy. While completing this assignment I was able to note several trends within my personal family genogram, however, I noticed that I had a difficult time identifying a positive trend for my family. I will discuss the following trends: Abuse, Infidelity, Emotional cut off, Prolonging beginning of a family, Mental health stigmatization, and Bullying. The most notable trend within my family was the pervasiveness of domestic violence and physical abuse throughout multiple generations within my family. My paternal grandfather married my paternal grandmother when he was nineteen years old and she was sixteen years old. I have had discussions with family members and learned of the abuse my paternal grandmother endured during their marriage. Additionally, I can remember early in my childhood when my own father was physically abusive toward my mother. I learned later that my father was also abusive towards his first wife, my older siblings’ mother. I also witnessed my father engaged in a mutually abusive relationship with his third wife.

2 I was aware of this trend of domestic violence within my family, specifically from my father’s side of the family, and I feel that it made me feel guarded against potentially becoming victimized in my own relationships. I experience severe symptoms of anxiety such as rapid heart rate, unsteady breathing, and dizziness when I found myself in verbal disagreements. If an argument turns physical, which could be something as minor as grabbing my hand, I become very triggered. This has been something I have had to discuss with my own partner. When I would witness domestic violence, a verbal altercation was almost always identified as the antecedent to the physical abuse. Research has reported that a child witnessing domestic violence within their household can cause the same traumatization as the child being directly abused (Papero, 2000) . Additionally, research has explained that having a parent with inherent violent tendencies are a direct risk factor for their own children (Nichols, 2009) . This concept is known as the multigenerational transmission process (Papero, 2000) . The multigenerational transmission process is intertwined with the concept of social learning, which carries the idea that new behaviors can be learned from observing or imitating others (Papero, 2000) . My father learned how to handle interpersonal conflict from observing his father. He witnessed his father, my paternal grandfather, physically abuse his mother, my paternal grandmother, for years. My father has expressed that he grew up in a home where he expressed being lucky to have a father who “cared enough to knock [his] head off” when he would fall out of line. I feel this was an unconscious family projection, where my grandfather projected these toxic emotions onto my father (Papero, 2000) . Keeping the concept of social learning in mind, witnessing this domestic violence between his parents developed his perspective of what “love” looked like, as well as identifying what was “acceptable”.

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3 Additionally, infidelity has also been identified as a major trend within my family. Dr. Bowen theorized that a dyad of an emotional system is unstable (Papero, 2000) . However, considering the stress formed, the dyad or two-person system transitions itself into a three-person system or triangle (Papero, 2000) . My mother unknowingly began dating my father while he was still married to his first wife, my siblings’ mother. My older sister (my mother’s oldest daughter) was the direct result of my father’s infidelity to his first wife. Eventually, the scandal was discovered and my father chose to reconcile with my mother, and file for divorce from his first wife. A few years after I was born my mother filed for divorce from my father after seven years of marriage and two children. I later learned that my father had been caught being unfaithful to my mother on multiple occasions with various women over those years. My mother would also sometimes endure physical abuse from my father when she would confront his infidelity. Furthermore, my maternal grandmother discovered that my maternal grandfather had been unfaithful to her after his untimely death. My paternal grandfather, Henry, had been unfaithful to my maternal grandmother, Linda, prior to his passing at 38 years old and conceived a child with another woman. This child was brought to my maternal grandmother after my grandfather had passed away because the mother could not continue to provide care for the child alone. My maternal grandmother raised this child as her own. The child was my Aunt Lynne. I could not imagine having to take in a child that was conceived with my husband and another woman after losing my husband. I am glad that my maternal grandmother had this strength, otherwise, I would not have been blessed to have my Aunt Lynne in my life. I also love that my grandmother truly treated my Aunt Lynne as if she was my maternal grandmother’s very own daughter, so much so that my Aunt Lynne did not discover this information until she was in her twenties. Moreover, my paternal grandfather, Arnold, also engaged in adultery. As mentioned before my

4 paternal grandfather married my paternal grandmother when he was 19 years old. By the time he was 35 years old, he had developed a whole separate family in addition to the family created with my paternal grandmother. My paternal grandfather had set up an apartment on the other side of Philadelphia for his paramour and their two children. My grandfather was a firefighter for Philadelphia, PA for over 25 years, and used his income to support two households. My father would report that my paternal grandfather would get into an altercation with my grandmother and then disappear for days. Bowen describes individuals within an emotional triangle will often shift outsiders when tensions increase within the triangle (Papero, 2000) . Even more, my grandfather, at the age of 78 years old, has recently connected with a daughter, who is in her 50s. This would have been more evidence of his infidelity because she would have been born while my paternal grandparents were still married. It was discouraging to learn about these affairs once I was old enough to understand and had become a victim of infidelity myself. Having my own experience with having an unfaithful partner was heartbreaking enough, but to learn that even men like my father and both grandfathers were capable of being unfaithful was even more disheartening. The occurrence of these affairs were direct example of triangulation (Papero, 2000) . The couple represents the dyad that is experiencing unbearable tension, and one person from the dyad invites a third person to relieve the stress within the dyad (Papero, 2000) . In these cases, the men seemed to cycle back and forth between the other two women within the triangle. Additionally, on occasions, my mother expressed that being with my father was one of the most depressive periods of her life. Bowen reported that the individual who is left on the “outside” often experiences rejection and depression (Papero, 2000) . My mother had to spend time redefining her life as a single mother of two once she was able to finally separate from my father (Nichols, 2009) . This would be explained

5 by Nichols as engaging in reorganizing or restructuring the family unit with a loss of a member due to separation (Nichols, 2009) . However, it would not be easy until they have completely let the relationship go and have had time to mourn it (Nichols, 2009) . Dr. Bowen described the emotional cutoff as an intervention used by individuals who desire to manage unresolved emotional trauma and conflict with family members (Papero, 2000) . When this interventio n is employed the individual is attempting to reduce or restrict emotional connection with their family members (Papero, 2000) . This is a trend that was very apparent in my personal genogram. My mother would explain that once her father died, her mother turned to alcohol. My mother and her sister experienced extreme neglect and sometimes abuse from my grandmother. Once both my mother and aunt were of age, they left their mother’s home and completely changed how they dealt with their mother. My mother reduced her emotional connection with her mother, but still included her mother in events like birthdays and holidays. My mother maintained contact with my grandmother, but my mother avoided my grandmother when she could and limited the emotional connection between them. However, my aunt completely cutoff emotional contact with her mother once she left home. I cannot recall that I have ever seen my aunt and grandmother in the same room. However, neither my mother nor my aunt have ever been able to resolve the issues that they have with their own mother (Papero, 2000) . My father and his siblings have also expressed experiencing a similar trend. My father and two aunts have all employed the concept of emotional cutoff with regards to my grandfather. Unfortunately, all my grandfather’s children have emotionally cut him off. I am thankful that my mother was such an advocate for me to have a relationship with my grandfather, because without her I may not have had the chance to know him the way I am blessed to know him today.

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6 My sister left for college when I was twelve years old, I remember the day because it was the first time in my life that I had my own bedroom. I noticed that when my sister left for college that she rarely visited. When I was old enough to understand, my sister explained to me that she wanted to escape our mother. As I got older, I began to analyze the manner in which my mother would talk to me at times. I began to feel like my mother was my biggest adversary around 17 years old. My mother would say things I felt were meant to purposely cut me down. My mother would be hyper focused on her romantic pursuits, and rarely have time for me. I would attempt to talk to her about difficult topics like my feelings but I never left the conversation feeling heard or acknowledged. This would be described as a circular causality, where I began to feel stuck in a toxic cycle with my own mother (Love, 2000) . This type of causality would be identified as a negative loop (Love, 2000) . I graduated high school a year early and was awarded a full scholarship to Norfolk State University, and I took this opportunity to put space between my mother and I. When I left for college, I began to also employ the concept of emotional cutoff. I felt like I needed to protect my feelings, and that would be accomplished by creating space between my mother and me (Nichols, 2009) . I still engage with my mother, but I often include a buffer such and avoid emotional topics (Papero, 2000) . I often feel overwhelmed or burned out during or after those interactions as well. I observed the trend of women within my family getting married and beginning families later to pursue careers and education. My grandmother was married at 16 years old to my grandfather. She would go on to give birth to three children before she was 21 years old. Because of this, she did not have the time or capacity to pursue her own personal goals. Additionally, my maternal grandmother had two children before 20 years old. She too missed the opportunity to create a career or obtain additional education because she had children to care for. My mother

7 was able to obtain her Associate’s Degree in Business Administration prior to having her first child at 24 years old. She advocated for education and pushed us to work hard and achieve good grades. This resulted in my older sister obtaining her Bachelor’s in Criminology at 21, although she gave birth to one of my nieces while finishing her program. I am currently 27 years old, and I am completely focused on my career at the moment. Bowen discussed the family projection process as the phenomenon where a parent can transmit emotional energy both positive and negative onto their child (Papero, 2000) . My mother always empowered us to believe that we were capable of achieving anything we set our minds too. Conversely, my mother would essentially love bombs, or shower you with a lot of affection within a short period of time, or be so critical of your performance that you feel discouraged from trying again. However, sometimes I feel this aggressive encouragement has caused me to become somewhat of a perfectionist, very critical of myself, and I attach value to productivity. Stigmatization of mental health has been a big issue within my family. Ironically enough I am pursuing my Master’s in Social Work to ultimately earn my credentials to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, with the goal of providing various forms of treatment to individuals who are navigating mental illness. I always have been greeted with resistance when I would attempt to talk to my family about my feelings. So much so that at one point, I stopped trying completely because I felt that my feelings did not matter. Nonetheless, after having a breakthrough in therapy, I gathered the understanding that my feelings in fact matter. I have struggled with anxiety and depression since I was about 11 years old. However, when it was recommended to have my mental health evaluated, it was always denied. My mother would tell clinicians that I was not depressed, but just dramatic. When I received a diagnosis of ADHD at 13 years old, my mother reported that I would not be taking the prescribed medication. She

8 insisted on using “natural” interventions because I did not seem “sick enough to need medication.” My mother was petrified by the thought that I may need mental health treatment. Additionally, my father was diagnosed at 22 with Bipolar II Disorder. He is a pharmacist and still refuses to take his medication appropriately. He has always demonstrated difficulty with accepting his diagnosis and would compare himself to other individuals with the diagnosis saying he did not have a diagnosis because his symptoms were not as severe as others may have been. Additionally, individuals within my family shared the belief that engaging in therapy was equivalent to telling a stranger on the street your personal information. As I was surrounded by family who spoke negatively aboutf mental health treatment I managed to develop my own differentiation of self to persevere and maintain my own personal mental health (Papero, 2000) . Developing my differentiated self allowed me to limit my dependence on others and not be so negatively affected by criticism and conflict (Papero, 2000) . In addition to the blatant stigmatization against mental health, another trend discovered was bullying. When you hear about bullying you think about kids on the playground. However, parents unfortunately can be bullies as well. In many cases I found myself as the outsider within a triangulated relationship between my mother and older sister (Papero, 2000) . My mother and sister would bond over the fact that I was a very emotionally sensitive child. My feelings would be easily hurt, and these two always knew exactly what triggers to employ, and which insecurities to play on. Additionally, my father would provide what he felt was “tough love” to my brother. Anytime my brother would express emotion, my father would chastise him and sometimes even call him names like “ wuss” or “punk”. It is my understanding that both of my parents also endured bullying from their own families and from their acquaintances. When I was younger I had a poor differential of self, because I would often seek that approval or affection

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9 that I felt I was being deprived of. Then I went through a phase where I felt that the opinions of others were not important to me at all, and I resisted the opinions of others. I believe that my brother was never able to develop a well-differentiated self because he continued to allow my father’s family projection process to conform my brother into joining a profession he was not at all interested in, the military.

10 References D'Aniello, C., Nguyen, H. N., & Piercy, F. P. (2016). Cultural Sensitivity As An MFT Common Factor. Routledge. Gottman, J., & Silver, N. (2015). The Seven Principles for making marriage work. Philadelphia: Harmony Books. McGoldrick, M., Gerson, P., & Shellenberger, S. (1999). Devleloping a Geonogram to Track Family Patterns . W.W. Norton. Nichols, M. (2009). Inside Family Therapy: Case Study in Family Healing. Boston: Pearson. Papero, D. (2000). Bowen Family System Theory. Pearson.

Nadine Driver_Genogram Paper. (1)

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