Relationships
![Nedra Glover Tawwab - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B07HPCR699.jpg)
Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships
From the bestselling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, a road map for understanding and moving past family struggles-and living your life, your way.
Every family has a story. For some of us, our family of origin is a solid foundation that feeds our confidence and helps us navigate life's challenges. For others, it's a source of pain, hurt, and conflict that can feel like a lifelong burden. In this empowering guide, licensed therapist and bestselling relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab offers clear advice for identifying dysfunctional family patterns and choosing the best path to breaking the cycle and moving forward.
Covering topics ranging from the trauma of emotional neglect, to the legacy of addicted or absent parents, to mental health struggles in siblings and other relatives, and more, this clear and compassionate guide will help you take control of your own life-and honor the person you truly are.
Every family has a story. For some of us, our family of origin is a solid foundation that feeds our confidence and helps us navigate life's challenges. For others, it's a source of pain, hurt, and conflict that can feel like a lifelong burden. In this empowering guide, licensed therapist and bestselling relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab offers clear advice for identifying dysfunctional family patterns and choosing the best path to breaking the cycle and moving forward.
Covering topics ranging from the trauma of emotional neglect, to the legacy of addicted or absent parents, to mental health struggles in siblings and other relatives, and more, this clear and compassionate guide will help you take control of your own life-and honor the person you truly are.
Editorial Reviews
"Without a fresh perspective and the belief that we can break the cycle, we can get stuck in family patterns rather than living as our whole selves. With compassion and clarity, Nedra Tawwab offers a much-needed guide to understanding our upbringing-and becoming an agent for change in our own lives." -Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and co-host of the Dear Therapists podcast
"In Drama Free, therapist Nedra Tawwab gives us the tools to understand family relationships and manage them in a healthier way – while staying true to who we are and what we need. This book offers a powerful path forward." -Charlamagne Tha God, New York Times bestselling author and co-host of The Breakfast Club
"Many people go to therapy to work through the issues in their heads, overlooking that their biggest challenges often lie in their family relationships. In this book, therapist Nedra Tawwab offers practical wisdom to help you handle problems with parents, siblings, children, and yes, even in-laws. In a time when mental health is finally getting the attention it deserves, this is a vital guide to building healthier families." -Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking
"Drama Free is an engaging and relatable guide to understanding what's really going on within our families, offering practical steps for creating healthy changes as needed." -Myleik Teele, CURLBOX founder
"The family dynamics we grew up with can feel like an immutable fact of life-a set of patterns and rules we carry with us, for better or worse. In this empowering book, Nedra Tawwab upends this assumption, unpacking these complex relationships and offering tools for positive change." -Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, New York Times
"In Drama Free, therapist Nedra Tawwab gives us the tools to understand family relationships and manage them in a healthier way – while staying true to who we are and what we need. This book offers a powerful path forward." -Charlamagne Tha God, New York Times bestselling author and co-host of The Breakfast Club
"Many people go to therapy to work through the issues in their heads, overlooking that their biggest challenges often lie in their family relationships. In this book, therapist Nedra Tawwab offers practical wisdom to help you handle problems with parents, siblings, children, and yes, even in-laws. In a time when mental health is finally getting the attention it deserves, this is a vital guide to building healthier families." -Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking
"Drama Free is an engaging and relatable guide to understanding what's really going on within our families, offering practical steps for creating healthy changes as needed." -Myleik Teele, CURLBOX founder
"The family dynamics we grew up with can feel like an immutable fact of life-a set of patterns and rules we carry with us, for better or worse. In this empowering book, Nedra Tawwab upends this assumption, unpacking these complex relationships and offering tools for positive change." -Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, New York Times
Readers Top Reviews
Courtney Adam Polloc
I devoured this book. It gives such helpful guidance about navigating through difficult relationships. Excellent parenting information and steps to distancing or removing yourself from unhealthy family relationships. I am going to Recommend this book to everyone!
Raya Polyak
Once again, Nedra hits the nail on the head with direct, honest, and concise advice for dealing with challenging family relationships. Honestly, I find a lot of this applicable to relationships with friends and chosen family. A great guidebook to managing family relationships and a complementary tool to assist one’s own therapeutic journey.
Kat Everdeen
I felt like this book was written just for me. We have been having so many issues with my in laws. This book was so helpful in helping my partner process their family issues. It’s easy to understand and yet goes deep into getting to the root of the issue. I also appreciate the examples and exercises.
Taylor Novak
This book is a great addition to Nedra's first book on boundaries. The content is sorely needed: dealing with family relationships. It's a conversational read with immediately applicable content. As a therapist, I will advise clients to read this book, and I recommend other mental health counselors keep it in their libraries as well!
Shanique
In Nedra Glover Tawwab’s new book, she takes her work on boundaries to the next step: how to maintain relationships with people in our lives with whom we have difficult relationships. The premise of the book is that very often, our boundaries are not because we want to end relationships with people in our lives, but that we want to find ways to keep those relationships without doing harm to ourselves. In her practical voice, she offers examples of situations where this is necessary or important, and tips for how one might respond in these situations. She offers recognition that there are stages to making change, and it takes time to move from contemplating change to implementing it. As always, Nedra uses simple, clear language to help us process a very complicated topic, while continuing to offer us empathy for whatever stage we are at. “Even though you’ve changed, from time to time you might revisit your former thoughts or former behaviors. When that happens, greet yourself in the present with grace and understanding. It’s hard to overcome patterns, and it’s challenging to avoid lapsing into old behaviors. Know that you might not always get it right.”
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
What Dysfunction Looks Like
Carmen grew up in a two-parent home. It was customary for her father, Bruce, to work all day, come home, get drunk, and go into a rage. Carmen's mom, April, spent much of her time in her room disengaged from Carmen and her two siblings. April "drank too much," but she wasn't as bad as Bruce.
When April and Bruce would argue, Carmen and her siblings would tune them out by blasting the TV. Carmen spent a lot of time with her friends to avoid being at home. With her friends' families, she found that it wasn't the norm for parents to be drunk, argue all the time, or be emotionally neglectful.
As Carmen grew older, she learned to rely on her extended family for support. When she needed a ride to hang out with friends, she'd call her grandmother. She couldn't risk her parents picking her up while drunk. When she needed clothes for school, she called her aunt, who gladly took her shopping. What Carmen didn't have was someone to talk to about her homelife. Her friends didn't have these issues with their parents, and her extended family danced around her parents' issues by trying to pick up the slack.
Carmen was lonely and embarrassed. For many years, she thought she was the problem because no one else seemed concerned about her parents' actions. Her siblings accommodated their parents' behavior, and the rest of the family said things like, "That's just who your parents are. You have to love them anyway." She loved her parents, but she was tormented by how they behaved. Their issues even continued into her adulthood.
Most of the time, Carmen just sucked it up, and when she did put her foot down, her family guilt-tripped her, accusing her of acting funny and being mean. She wanted someone to see the issues, validate her experiences, and let her know that it was OK to want something different from her family.
What Does It Mean to Have a Dysfunctional Family?
For Carmen, it meant having parents who were addicts, emotionally neglectful, and at times verbally abusive. A dysfunctional family is one where abuse, chaos, and neglect are accepted norms. In dysfunctional families, unhealthy behaviors are overlooked, swept under the rug, or catered to. As in Carmen's case, it's hard to ascertain dysfunction until you're exposed to other, healthier situations. And even when exposed to better relationships, it can still be hard to break away from dysfunctional patterns.
If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you probably thought this was normal:
Forgiving and forgetting (with no change in behavior)
Moving on as if nothing happened
Covering up problems for others
Denying that a problem exists
Keeping secrets that need to be shared
Pretending to be fine
Not expressing your emotions
Being around harmful people
Using aggression to get what you want
When People Tell You There's a Problem, Believe Them
Far too often, people become defensive and resistant to change instead of acknowledging the problem and working toward a resolution. In Carmen's case, whenever she tried to talk to her parents about some of their unhealthy behaviors, they became defensive or blamed her for wanting something different. No one within the family was willing to hear her concerns, likely because they weren't ready to work on the issues.
Carmen wasn't alone, yet no one was willing to stand with her. Her experience was the same as everyone else's, but she was the one who was brave enough to point out that there was a problem. She wanted to learn how to confront the issues that everyone seemed to easily accommodate or ignore.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Survey
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Survey is commonly used to measure the severity of childhood trauma. The survey takes into consideration areas such as these:
Witnessing violence
Sexual abuse
Exposure to substance abuse in the home
Physical abuse
Verbal abuse
Emotional abandonment
Parent who was mentally ill
Imprisonment of a parent
Childhood trauma impacts our ability to process and express emotions, and it increases the likelihood of maladaptive emotional-regulation strategies (e.g., suppression of emotions). In particular, children exposed to violence have challenges in distinguishing threat and safety cues.
It's widely known that things like abuse and neglect are dysfunctional aspects within a family dynamic. But family relationships are impacted by other factors as well. Trauma is assessed on a scale from 0 to 10, but childhood trauma can be impactful with a score as low as 2. ACE doesn't even consider financial instability, moving multiple times, or generation...
What Dysfunction Looks Like
Carmen grew up in a two-parent home. It was customary for her father, Bruce, to work all day, come home, get drunk, and go into a rage. Carmen's mom, April, spent much of her time in her room disengaged from Carmen and her two siblings. April "drank too much," but she wasn't as bad as Bruce.
When April and Bruce would argue, Carmen and her siblings would tune them out by blasting the TV. Carmen spent a lot of time with her friends to avoid being at home. With her friends' families, she found that it wasn't the norm for parents to be drunk, argue all the time, or be emotionally neglectful.
As Carmen grew older, she learned to rely on her extended family for support. When she needed a ride to hang out with friends, she'd call her grandmother. She couldn't risk her parents picking her up while drunk. When she needed clothes for school, she called her aunt, who gladly took her shopping. What Carmen didn't have was someone to talk to about her homelife. Her friends didn't have these issues with their parents, and her extended family danced around her parents' issues by trying to pick up the slack.
Carmen was lonely and embarrassed. For many years, she thought she was the problem because no one else seemed concerned about her parents' actions. Her siblings accommodated their parents' behavior, and the rest of the family said things like, "That's just who your parents are. You have to love them anyway." She loved her parents, but she was tormented by how they behaved. Their issues even continued into her adulthood.
Most of the time, Carmen just sucked it up, and when she did put her foot down, her family guilt-tripped her, accusing her of acting funny and being mean. She wanted someone to see the issues, validate her experiences, and let her know that it was OK to want something different from her family.
What Does It Mean to Have a Dysfunctional Family?
For Carmen, it meant having parents who were addicts, emotionally neglectful, and at times verbally abusive. A dysfunctional family is one where abuse, chaos, and neglect are accepted norms. In dysfunctional families, unhealthy behaviors are overlooked, swept under the rug, or catered to. As in Carmen's case, it's hard to ascertain dysfunction until you're exposed to other, healthier situations. And even when exposed to better relationships, it can still be hard to break away from dysfunctional patterns.
If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you probably thought this was normal:
Forgiving and forgetting (with no change in behavior)
Moving on as if nothing happened
Covering up problems for others
Denying that a problem exists
Keeping secrets that need to be shared
Pretending to be fine
Not expressing your emotions
Being around harmful people
Using aggression to get what you want
When People Tell You There's a Problem, Believe Them
Far too often, people become defensive and resistant to change instead of acknowledging the problem and working toward a resolution. In Carmen's case, whenever she tried to talk to her parents about some of their unhealthy behaviors, they became defensive or blamed her for wanting something different. No one within the family was willing to hear her concerns, likely because they weren't ready to work on the issues.
Carmen wasn't alone, yet no one was willing to stand with her. Her experience was the same as everyone else's, but she was the one who was brave enough to point out that there was a problem. She wanted to learn how to confront the issues that everyone seemed to easily accommodate or ignore.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Survey
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Survey is commonly used to measure the severity of childhood trauma. The survey takes into consideration areas such as these:
Witnessing violence
Sexual abuse
Exposure to substance abuse in the home
Physical abuse
Verbal abuse
Emotional abandonment
Parent who was mentally ill
Imprisonment of a parent
Childhood trauma impacts our ability to process and express emotions, and it increases the likelihood of maladaptive emotional-regulation strategies (e.g., suppression of emotions). In particular, children exposed to violence have challenges in distinguishing threat and safety cues.
It's widely known that things like abuse and neglect are dysfunctional aspects within a family dynamic. But family relationships are impacted by other factors as well. Trauma is assessed on a scale from 0 to 10, but childhood trauma can be impactful with a score as low as 2. ACE doesn't even consider financial instability, moving multiple times, or generation...
