Unstable Family Quotes

The first time someone I loved left me behind...I didn't know how my family would balance. We had been such a sturdy little end table, four solid legs. I was sure we would now be off-kilter, always unstable. Until one day I looked more closely, and realized that we had simply become a stool.

The whole edifice of civilization turned out to be constructed from an unstable mix of quicksand and imagination.

After years of living in the absence of friendliness, after the toxicity with my family, losing my friends, the unstable housing and black mold, my invisibility as a maid, I was starved for kindness. I was hungry for people to notice me, to start conversations with me, to accept me. I was hungry in a way I’d never been in my entire life.

I became a student of my own depressed experience, trying to unthread its causes. What was the root of all this despair? Was it psychological? (Was it Mom and Dad's fault?( Was it just temporal, a 'bad time' in my life? (When the divorce ends will the depression end with it?) Was it genetic? (Melancholy, called by many names, has run through my family for generations, along with its sad bride, Alcoholism.) Was it cultural? (Is this just the fallout of postfeminist American career girl trying to find balance in an increasingly stressful alienting urban world?) Was it astrological? (Am I so sad because I'm a thin-skinned Cancer whose major signs are all ruled by unstable Gemini?) Was it artistic? (Don't creative people always suffer from depression because we're so supersensitive and special?) Was it evolutionary? (Do I carry in me the residual panic that comes after millennia of my species' attempting to survive a brutal world?) Was it karmic? (Are all these spasms of grief just the consequences of bad behavior in previous lifetimes, the last obstacles before liberation?) Was it hormonal? Dietary? Philosophical? Seasonal? Environmental? Was I tapping into a universal yearning for God? Did I have a chemical imbalance? Or did I just need to get laid?

In Kinvara, poor as we were, and unstable, we at least had family nearby, people who knew us. We shared traditions and a way of looking at the world. We didn’t know until we left how much we took those things for granted.

Like it or not, today we are all pioneers, picking our way through uncharted and unstable territory. The old rules are no longer reliable guides to work out modern gender roles and build a secure foundation for marriage. Wherever it is that people want to end up in their family relations today, even if they are totally committed to creating a so-called traditional marrige, they have to get there by a different route from the past.

When sodium, an unstable metal that can suddenly burst into flame, reacts with a deadly poisonous gas known as chlorine, it becomes the staple food sodium chloride, NaCl, from the only family of rocks eaten by humans.

Kate slid to her knees, pulling the child’s head to her breast, her mouth in its hair. “Pippa. Pippa, we’re awful fools. What Father means is that truly nothing we have ever done can harm us, and Mr. Crawford has mixed us up with someone else. But you know what unstable-looking parents you have. He doesn’t believe us, but he says he’ll believe you. It’s not very flattering,” said Kate, looking at her daughter with bright eyes, “but you seem to be the one in the family with an honest sort of face, and your father and I must just be thankful for it. Go over to him, darling. I’ll be behind you. And just speak,” she said with an edge like a razor. “Just speak as you would to the dog.

A democracy in a backward or unstable country simply gets smashed by the best-organized power gang.

Winston Churchill, today an idealized hero of history, was in his time variously considered a bombastic blunderer, an unstable politician, an intermittently inspired orator, a reckless self-dramatizer, a voluminous able writer in an old-fashioned vein, and a warmongering drunkard. Through most of his long life he cut an antic, brilliant, occasionally absurd figure in British affairs. He never won the trust of the people until 1940, when he was sixty-six years old, and

Yes, I know that now that there is truth in beauty and beauty in truth. My nature is to be depressive and come out of it and write, and enjoy writing and feeling as if I have a passion and excitement and love and euphoria for it and then I go 'back to sleep again' where I can eat and watch television and not work, not be productive and then just as if a magic switch is turned on I can do it all over again. I don't mind the being depressed part. Sometimes it seems to fuel me. The anger though is gone now that was there in my twenties and even earlier in my youth. Your voice is Tolstoy’s, Hemingway’s, Updike’s, Styron’s, Mcewan’s, Greene’s, Fugard’s, Kundera’s, Rilke’s while I am the incarnate of Radcliffe Hall crossing both genders effortlessly. You betray nothing. There is son in the picture. A small boy but you don’t introduce him to me. Obsessions are unhealthy creatures. They make you mentally ill, emotionally unstable; leave you with a chemistry of deep sadness in your life. I have my writing. It keeps me from disintegrating into fractions. I should stop now before I begin to make myself cry.

Alice's illness had turned her into the center of mass around which the rest of the family moved in anxious orbits, like unstable planets.

Entire volumes are devoted to the phenomenon of “resilient children”—kids who prosper despite an unstable home because they have the social support of a loving adult. I

family stood poised on the edge of a great precipice that could collapse at any second, crumble away like the houses that crashed down Seattle’s unstable, waterlogged hillsides.

I took on my depression like it was the fight of my life, wich of course, it was. I became a student of my own depressed experience, trying to unthread its causes. What was the root of all this dispair? Was it psychological? (Mom and Dad's fault?) Was it just temporal, a "bad time" in my life? (When the divorce ends, will the depression end with it?) Was it genetic? (Melancholy, called by many names, has run through my family for generations, along with its sad bride, Alcholisme.) Was it cultural? (Is this just the fallout of a postfeminist American career girl trying to find balance in an increasingly stressful and alienating urban world?) Was it astrological? (Am I so sad because I'm a thin-skinned cancer whose major signs are all ruled by unstable Gemini?) Was it artistic? (Don't creative people always suffer from depression because we're so supersensitive and special?) Was it evolutionary? (Do I carry in me the residual panic that come after millennia of my species' attempting to survive a brutal world?) Was it Karmic? (Are all these spasms of grief just the consequences of bad behavior in previous lifetimes, the last obstacles before liberation?) Was it hormonal? Dietary? Philosophical? Seasonal? Environmental? Did I have a chemical imbalance? Or did I just need to get laid?

Reams of social science attest to the positive effect of a loving and stable home. I could cite a dozen studies suggesting that Mamaw’s home offered me not just a short-term haven but also hope for a better life. Entire volumes are devoted to the phenomenon of “resilient children”—kids who prosper despite an unstable home because they have the social support of a loving adult.

felt to her as if her family stood poised on the edge of a great precipice that could collapse at any second, crumble away like the houses that crashed down Seattle’s unstable, waterlogged hillsides.

Of course, active alcoholics love hearing about the worst cases; we cling to stories about them. Those are the true alcoholics: the unstable and the lunatic; the bum in the subway drinking from the bottle; the red-faced salesman slugging it down in a cheap hotel. Those alcoholics are always a good ten or twenty steps farther down the line than we are, and no matter how many private pangs of worry we harbor about our own drinking, they always serve to remind us that we’re okay, safe, in sufficient control. Growing up, whatever vague definition of alcoholism I had centered around the crazy ones—Eliza’s mother, Lauren’s father’s ex-wife, the occasional drunken parent of a friend. Alcoholics like that make you feel so much better: you can look at them and think, But my family wasn’t crazy; I’m not like that; I must be safe. When you’re drinking, the dividing line between you and real trouble always manages to fall just past where you stand.

Their Biggest Fear   What is a narcissist afraid of most? Narcissist who have had some insight into their own disorder will tell you that the biggest fear of the narcissist is BEING FOUND OUT.   They fear that you will recognize their facade. They fear you will realize that much of their bad behavior is intentional. When the narcissist realizes that YOU KNOW the truth about his lack of empathy; that is when you will be cut off, and he will work to turn all of your mutual relationships against you that he can.   I have written several times thus far about how most of the narcissist's motivations and behavior are subconscious. However, – from time to time, the narcissist does recognize, in brief glimpses, the truth about his envious and angry nature. The truth will rise to the surface of his conscience if he allows you to confront him. Therefore you and your voice absolutely must be suppressed. You also must not be allowed access to his other relationships – the ones he can still control, the relationships he still has fooled. For the narcissist, the  easiest way to suppress your voice is to launch a  character attack against you. He decides he must spread lies about you to everyone so that 1) he can explain your sudden absence in his life (He tells everyone that he discovered you were really a mean, hateful person, and he had to cut you off to maintain his own sanity. There is no way he can allow others to think you cut him off – as that would indicate there might be something wrong with him); and 2) he must convince others that you are a terrible, or at least an unstable person – so that if you ever have a chance to talk

Stressful conditions from outside school are much more likely to intrude into the classroom in high poverty schools. Every one of ten stressors is two to three times more common in high poverty schools-- Student hunger, unstable housing, lack of medical and dental care, caring for family members, immigration issues, community violence and safety issues.

The story of a family where three generations drifted between Christianity and Islam and back again, between suits and salvars, Mughal Hyderabad and Regency London, seemed to raise huge questions: about Britishness and the nature of Empire, about faith, and about personal identity; indeed, about how far all of these mattered, and were fixed and immutable – or how far they were in fact flexible, tractable, negotiable. For once it seemed that the normal steely dualism of Empire – between rulers and ruled, imperialists and subalterns, colonisers and the colonised – had broken down. The easy labels of religion and ethnicity and nationalism, slapped on by generations of historians, turned out, at the very least, to be surprisingly unstable.

Adult survivors of family scapegoating abuse have historically been diagnosed with one or more mental health conditions that ignore the trauma symptoms they are regularly experiencing. Rarely will their most distressing symptoms be recognized as Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) secondary to growing up in an unstable, non-nurturing, dangerous, rejecting, or abusive family environment.

More than anything, I dream of love, crazy crazy mad love. Not the love of rings and white dresses and churches, but of lust and insanity, the love where you can’t stop touching, kissing, licking, sucking, and fucking. The love that breaks hearts, starts wars, ruins lives, the love that sears itself into your soul, that you can feel every time your heart beats, that scorches your memory and comes back to you whenever you’re alone and it’s quiet and the world falls away, the love that still hurts, that makes you sit and stare at the floor and wonder what the fuck happened and why. I dream of crazy crazy mad love the kind that starts with a look, with eyes that meet, a smile, a touch, a laugh, a kiss. The kind of love that hurts and makes you love the pain, makes you want the pain, makes you yearn for the fucking pain, keeps you awake until the sun rises, stirs you while you’re still asleep. The kind of love you can feel with every step you take, every word you speak, every breath, every movement, is part of every thought you have every minute of the day. Love that overwhelms. That justifies our existence. That provides proof we are here for a reason. That either confirms the existence of God and divinity, or renders it utterly meaningless. Love that makes life more than just whatever we know and see and feel. That elevates it. Love for which so many words have been spoken and written and read and cried and screamed and sung and sobbed, but is beyond any real description of it. I’ve known much in my short, silly, unstable, sometimes wonderful sometimes brutal always reckless wreck of a life, but I’ve never known love. Crazy crazy mad love. Fear and pain, insecurity, rage, occasional joy, fleeting peace, they are all friends of mine. Kindness and familial love have always come my way. Disdain, contempt, and rage are constant companions. But never love.

Kristy used to wonder how the family had missed the signs that Marcus was unstable, the things he said, the things he did; but then she thought of Lance. She had taken his protectiveness in those early months as considerate. She had believed the stories he told her about his fight training, thinking he wanted to use it to empower people, when really it was about dominating. Love blinds us all, she thought. No matter how much she loved Lance, she couldn’t seem to live up to his expectations.

Foundational anxiety is not a brain chemistry issue but rather an attachment issue. When your core attachment foundation is unstable, so are you. Susan Forward teaches that “an unpredictable parent is a fearsome god in the eyes of a child. As children we are at the mercy of our god-like parents. If we never know when the next lightning bolt of neglect, abuse, or manipulation will strike, we live in fear. The fear of its strike and the anxiety of not knowing when it is going to hit becomes deeply ingrained and grows in us as we grow.”10

Right around that time, I started dating a guy named Jeff. He was a classically handsome, popular guy. But there was something different about him too. He was angrier than most teenage boys, and a little misunderstood. I ignored the signs that he was probably a bit unstable. Signs like when they gave him a fish fillet at McDonald’s instead of a Big Mac, he became so furious that he cried. Truly lost it. Real tears of rage. Like the kind of tears guys are only supposed to get when they watch a movie that touches on their dad issues. (So, most movies.) Isn’t it funny that they say most girls have daddy issues, when really, every dude does? But this dude had daddy, mommy, doggy, and fish fillet issues. I just thought, Well, he can’t help it. But I understand him. I’m here for him. Even though we were both generally well liked, when we were together it was us vs. the world. I’ve only recently broken my pattern of being drawn to the “you’re the only one who gets me” guy. Which is a bad guy to be drawn to, and it’s not a coincidence if everyone—including all your friends and family and your dog—dislikes him. But

Let’s now look at the four basic types of EI parents (Gibson 2015): Emotional parents are dominated by feelings and can become extremely reactive and overwhelmed by anything that surprises or upsets them. Their moods are highly unstable, and they can be frighteningly volatile. Small things can be like the end of the world, and they tend to see others as either saviors or abandoners, depending on whether their wishes are being met. Driven parents are super goal-achieving and constantly busy. They are constantly moving forward, focused on improvements, and trying to perfect everything, including other people. They run their families like deadline projects but have little sensitivity to their children’s emotional needs. Passive parents are the nicer parents, letting their mate be the bad guy. They appear to enjoy their children but lack deeper empathy and won’t step in to protect them. While they seem more loving, they will acquiesce to the more dominant parent, even to the point of overlooking abuse and neglect. Rejecting parents aren’t interested in relationships. They avoid interaction and expect the family to center around their needs, not their kids. They don’t tolerate other people’s needs and want to be left alone to do their own thing. There is little engagement, and they can become furious and even abusive if things don’t go their way.

Homelessness was fed by racism, income inequality, and a cascade of other related forces. These included insufficient investments in public housing, as well as tax and zoning codes that had spurred widespread gentrification and driven up rents. Many poor and moderately poor Americans lived with the fear of losing housing, which can itself harm bodies and minds as well as social relations in families. One recent study had found that “unstable housing” was accompanied by a twofold increase in diabetic emergencies. Illnesses such as diabetes, and all sorts of accidents and injuries, could lead to homelessness, which itself bred other illnesses, such as PTSD—redefined by one practitioner of street medicine as “persistent traumatic stress disorder.

The narcissistic love match is inherently unstable. Any intrusion of reality can destabilize the relationship, leading to chronic or intermittent conflict, misery, trips to the couple counselor, or traumatic ruptures that bring the union to an end. When the narcissist can find support outside the relationship – career, family, friends, or other interests- that keep him or her feeling pumped up, the pressure on the partner may be minimal. But frustrations at work, job loss or retirement, disruptions in other needed relationships, and losses in status or rewards from other pipelines usually lead to more demands on the partner to pick up the slack. It is the nature of human beings to seek more satisfying solutions to life’s challenges over time and to strive toward a fully realized evolution of Self. Even a seed of emotional health wants to grow. Just as primary narcissism is a transient state in early childhood, so may narcissistic relationships be way stations on our journey to mature love. But sometimes the hard part is figuring out if, when, and how to move on.

Hunter-gatherer societies have typically been egalitarian, as we'll soon see, throughout hominin history. Inequality emerged when stuff, things to possess and accumulate, was invented following animal domestication and the development of agriculture. The more stuff, reflecting surplus, job specialization, and technological sophistication, the greater the potential inequality. Moreover, inequality expands enormously when cultures invent inheritance within families. Once invented, inequality became pervasive. Among traditional pastoralists or small-scale agricultural societies, levels of wealth inequality match or exceed those in the most unequal industrialized societies. Why have stratified cultures dominated the planet, generally replacing more egalitarian ones? For population biologist Peter Turchin, the answer is that stratified cultures are ideally suited to being conquerors. They come with chains of command. Both empirical and theoretical work suggest that in addition, in unstable environments, stratified societies are better able to survive resource shortages than egalitarian cultures by sequestering mortality to the lower classes. In other words, when times are tough, the unequal access to wealth becomes the unequal distribution of misery and death.

DEFENDING A RAPIST What is the character of a person who becomes a sexual enabler? We get an early glimpse into this question from 1975, when Hillary Clinton defended a man, Thomas Alfred Taylor, who was accused of beating and raping a twelve-year-old girl. A virgin prior to the attack, she spent five days in a coma, several months recovering from her injuries, and years in therapy. Even people who are accused of heinous crimes deserve criminal representation. Hillary’s strategy in defending Taylor, however, was to blame the teenage victim. According to an affidavit filed by Hillary, children who come from “disorganized families such as the complainant” sometimes “exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences.” Hillary suggested the girl was “emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing.” Here Hillary seems to be echoing what Bernie Sanders wrote in his rape fantasy essay. In this case, however, the girl certainly didn’t dream up the assault and rape. There was physical evidence that showed she had been violated, and she was beaten so badly she was in a coma. Prosecutors had in their possession a bloodied pair of Taylor’s underwear. But fortunately for Hillary and her client, the forensic lab mishandled the way that evidence was preserved. At the time of trial, the state merely had a pair of Taylor’s underwear with a hole cut in it. Hillary plea bargained on behalf of Taylor and got him released without having to do any additional time. A tape unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon has Hillary celebrating the outcome. “Got him off with time served in the county jail,” she says. Did Hillary believe that, in this case, justice was done? Certainly not. On the tape, Hillary admits she never trusted her client. “Course he claimed he didn’t, and all this stuff.” So she decided to verify his story. “I had him take a polygraph, which he passed—which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs.” Clearly Hillary knows her client is guilty, and this fact doesn’t bother her. The most chilling aspect of Hillary’s voice is her indifference—even bemusement—at getting a man off after he raped a twelve-year-old. The episode is a revealing look into the soul of an enabler. In fact, it reminds me of Alinsky protesting to Frank Nitti about the wasted expense of importing an out-of-town-killer. Hillary, like Alinsky, seems to be a woman without a conscience.9

Dealing with a narcissist in a divorce is like dealing with a bully. The wear and tear you will experience when you try to protect your child’s emotional welfare will be significant. Even though you are mentally healthier than the narcissist, you can look unstable to the professionals involved in your case due to your reactions to the bully’s abusive behavior.

Someone in art wrote "Ur mom plus ur dad, equals, ur annoying self." on the table I was at. and I was fighting the urge to write, "No mom, plus no dad, equals, you with an unstable family." Y'know, to right some wrongs. but two wrongs don't make a right so I fended off that urge and continued on with my day X,)

It's not easy to recognize how to handle a mentally unstable ex-partner. Many people will tell you to walk away, but sometimes it's not that easy. There may be legal obligations or shared children and family and community ties that make it challenging to leave them. If you've experienced abuse, there is the added complication that the abusive partner will often rely on you for emotional support and material support, even after they have mistreated you.

Reconstructing family life amid the chaos of the cotton revolution was no easy matter. Under the best of circumstances, the slave family on the frontier was extraordinarily unstable because the frontier plantation was extraordinarily unstable. For every aspiring master who climbed into the planter class, dozens failed because of undercapitalization, unproductive land, insect infestation, bad weather, or sheer incompetence. Others, discouraged by low prices and disdainful of the primitive conditions, simply gave up and returned home. Those who succeeded often did so only after they had failed numerous times. Each failure or near-failure caused slaves to be sold, shattering families and scattering husbands and wives, parents and children. Success, moreover, was no guarantee of security for slaves. Disease and violence struck down some of the most successful planters. Not even longevity assured stability, as many successful planters looked west for still greater challenges. Whatever the source, the chronic volatility of the plantation took its toll on the domestic life of slaves. Despite these difficulties, the family became the center of slave life in the interior, as it was on the seaboard. From the slaves' perspective, the most important role they played was not that of field hand or mechanic but husband or wife, son or daughter - the precise opposite of their owners' calculation. As in Virginia and the Carolinas, the family became the locus of socialization, education, governance, and vocational training. Slave families guided courting patterns, marriage rituals, child-rearing practices, and the division of domestic labor in Alabama, Mississippi, and beyond. Sally Anne Chambers, who grew up in Louisiana, recalled how slaves turned to the business of family on Saturdays and Sundays. 'De women do dey own washing den. De menfolks tend to de gardens round dey own house. Dey raise some cotton and sell it to massa and git li'l money dat way.' As Sally Anne Chambers's memories reveal, the reconstructed slave family was more than a source of affection. It was a demanding institution that defined responsibilities and enforced obligations, even as it provided a source of succor. Parents taught their children that a careless word in the presence of the master or mistress could spell disaster. Children and the elderly, not yet or no longer laboring in the masters' fields, often worked in the slaves' gardens and grounds, as did new arrivals who might be placed in the household of an established family. Charles Ball, sold south from Maryland, was accepted into his new family but only when he agreed to contribute all of his overwork 'earnings into the family stock.' The 'family stock' reveals how the slaves' economy undergirded the slave family in the southern interior, just as it had on the seaboard. As slaves gained access to gardens and grounds, overwork, or the sale of handicraft, they began trading independently and accumulating property. The material linkages of sellers and buyers - the bartering of goods and labor among themselves - began to knit slaves together into working groups that were often based on familial connections. Before long, systems of ownership and inheritance emerged, joining men and women together on a foundation of need as well as affection.

Beware of double-minded men, unstable in their ways, for they will promise the world but deliver only disappointment. Seek instead the steadfast and reliable, those who stand firm in their words and actions, like a rock in the midst of raging waters.

The trouble with Donald had started long before he entered school. At home, he tormented his little brother, Robert, a year and a half younger, and seemed to have nothing but disdain for everybody else, including, and perhaps especially, his mother. The kids in the neighborhood alternately despised and feared him; he had a reputation for being a thin-skinned bully who beat up on younger kids but ran home in a fit of rage as soon as somebody stood up to him. Nobody liked Donald when he was growing up, not even his parents. As he got older, those personality traits hardened, the hostile indifference and aggressive disrespect that he’d developed as a toddler to help him withstand the neglect he suffered at his parents’ hands—from his mother because she was seriously ill and psychologically unstable, and from his father because, as a sociopath, he had no interest in his children outside of Freddy, who, at least initially, was being groomed to take over his empire.

The day Jonathan brought him to play music for the king had changed his life with new purpose. He decided it must have been the purpose of the Seer’s anointing. He had quickly discovered the ally he had in Jonathan, an unusual royal heir of integrity and character. He had taken a liking to this man over twice his age. Jonathan had become his mentor, his best friend. They had seen something in each other that connected them. He was everything David wished to be. Jonathan was measured and temperate; David was passionate and unstable. Jonathan had a singularity of spiritual devotion; David struggled with a divided heart for Yahweh and for the flesh. Jonathan had courtly sophistication, David was a rustic. Jonathan had the wisdom of age, David had the recklessness of youth. Jonathan had taken David under his wing and schooled him in the politics of the palace. They spent many hours together at both work and leisure. He became David’s confidant. He even shared family secrets and advised David not to reveal his anointing until Yahweh himself chose the time. When Jonathan discovered David’s battle skills, he was impressed and persuaded his father to make David one of the king’s armor-bearers. When the king had one of his fits of madness, Jonathan would call upon David to play his lyre and soothe the beast.

You’re probably wondering what the heck I mean by “The Pillars of Your Life”, right? Well this is simple. It’s the things that make your life what it is. The things or people that make you, you. There’s work, family, your hobby, your art, and your traditions. Except, some of us have wonky pillars. Some of us give one pillar too much to hold, and the others not enough. One’s too tall, whilst the others are too small. Therefore we become unstable, and sometimes, everything comes crashing down.

how we calibrate our internal compasses to set ourselves in the right direction. Answer with honesty If your kids ask a question, give them an honest answer. Of course, your answer has to be age appropriate and commensurate with their level of understanding. Being sincere in your responses is important in all aspects of life, even the difficult ones. By not being authentic, you undermine your child’s ability to sense what is true and false. Kids are incredible lie detectors, and they can feel unstable if you are being fake. Use examples from your own childhood Whether it’s the doctor’s office or a difficult situation or just a fun time, kids like to hear about your experiences and how you felt when you were little, particularly when it’s true and heartfelt. This gives them a better understanding of who you are and lets them know that their situation is normal even if they are scared, happy, or sad. Teach honesty Talk with your children about how important honesty is in your family. Make it a value. Let them know

We believed we had an obligation to our team. They had joined a relatively unstable young company on faith and trust. They had poured themselves into it. To us, they weren’t parts to be discarded when the system was inefficient; they were people with families. And they were part of our family.

Let there be light. Gen. 1:3 Let there be enlightenment; let there be understanding. Darkness. Gen. 1:4 Ignorance; lack of enlightenment and understanding. Eden. Gen. 2:8 A delightful place; temporal life. Garden. Gen. 2:8 Metaphorically—a wife; a family. Tree of life in the midst of the garden. Gen. 2:9 Sex; posterity, progeny. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Gen. 2:9 Moral law; the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life. Gen. 2:9 Eternal life. The tree of good and evil. Gen. 2:17 Metaphorically—sexual relationship. Good. Gen. 2:17 Anything perfect. Evil. Gen. 2:17 Anything imperfect; contrary to good; immature. Naked. Gen. 2:25 Exposed; ashamed. Serpent. Gen. 3:1 An enemy; deception. Thorns and thistles. Gen. 3:18 Grievances and difficulties. Sent forth from the garden. Gen. 3:23 A loss of harmony; a lost paradise. God took him away. Gen. 5:24 He died painlessly. He had a heart attack. Sons of God. Gen. 6:2 Good men; the descendants of Seth. My spirit shall not dwell in man forever. Gen. 6:3 I have become weary and impatient. (A scribal note.) The Lord was sorry that He made man. Gen. 6:6 (A scribal note. See Old Testament Light—Lamsa.) I set my bow in the clouds. Gen. 9:13 I set the rainbow in the sky. I have lifted up my hands. Gen. 14:22 I am taking a solemn oath. Thy seed. Gen. 17:7 Your offspring; your teaching. Angels. Gen. 19:1 God’s counsel; spirits; God’s thoughts. Looking behind. Gen. 19:17 Regretting; wasting time. A pillar of salt. Gen. 19:26 Lifeless; stricken dead. As the stars of heaven. Gen. 22:17 Many in number; a great multitude. Went in at the gate. Gen. 23:18 Mature men who sat at the counsel. Hand under thigh. Gen. 24:2 Hand under girdle; a solemn oath. Tender eyed. Gen. 29:17 Attractive eyes. He hath sold us. Gen. 31:15 He has devoured our dowry. Wrestling with an angel. Gen. 32:24 Being suspicious of a pious man. Coat of many colors. Gen. 37:23 A coat with long sleeves meaning learning, honor and a high position. Spilling seed on the ground. Gen. 38:9 Spilling semen on the ground. (An ancient practice of birth control.) No man shall lift up his hand or foot. Gen. 41:44 No man shall do anything without your approval. Put his hand upon thine eyes. Gen. 46:4 Shall close your eyes upon your death bed. Laying on of hands. Gen. 48:14 Blessing and approving a person. His right hand upon the head. Gen. 48:17 A sincere blessing. Unstable as water. Gen. 49:4 Undecided; in a dilemma. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah. Gen. 49:10 There shall always be a king from the lineage of Judah. Washed his garments in wine. Gen. 49:11 He will become an owner of many vineyards. His teeth white with milk. Gen. 49:12 He will have abundant flocks of sheep. His bow abode in strength. Gen. 49:24 He will become a valiant warrior. The stone of Israel. Gen. 49:24 The strong race of Israel. He gathered up his feet. Gen. 49:33 He stretched out his feet—He breathed his last breathe; he died.

Only then did scientists realize the rather profound conclusions of the experiment: REM sleep is what stands between rationality and insanity. Describe these symptoms to a psychiatrist without informing them of the REM-sleep deprivation context, and the clinician will give clear diagnoses of depression, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia. But these were all healthy young individuals just days before. They were not depressed, weren’t suffering from anxiety disorders or schizophrenia, nor did they have any history of such conditions, self or familial. Read of any attempts to break sleep-deprivation world records throughout early history, and you will discover this same universal signature of emotional instability and psychosis of one sort or another. It is the lack of REM sleep—that critical stage occurring in the final hours of sleep that we strip from our children and teenagers by way of early school start times—that creates the difference between a stable and unstable mental state.

Why would a parent reject, shame, blame, and seek to dominate their own child? One primary reason is that the parent may suffer from unrecognized, untreated trauma. Another is that they may have Borderline Personality Disorder  or  Narcissistic Personality Disorder causing them to be highly aggressive, dominating, or unstable (learn more about personality disorders

A confession. At the beginning of my career, I would inwardly roll my eyes at children who had no schoolbooks but the latest mobile phones or sneakers... I had misunderstood many things ... a poor but stable family is very different from a poor and unstable one...mobile phones and hoodies sometimes carry far more meaning than their superficial appearance...Parents who have very little can carry enormous burdens of guilt born of love; their hearts ache with the knowledge of the happiness that is missing in a childhood that is, after all, painfully fleeting. Such parents often remember the privations and suffering of their own youth and don't want them to be repeated.

fantasizing about being the type of woman who lived unapologetically, who experienced and learned and applied the knowledge gathered along the way to enable herself to thrive. The type of woman who learned to navigate her way out of the impossible labyrinth of family history and tradition. One who unlearned the inherited toxic traits that were handed down to her and bound her to an unstable and wildly limited path like angry, unbreakable vines.

Going to prison is terrible. You’re never comfortable. All the talk about ‘Club Fed’ is garbage… You’re surrounded by very violent people, very unstable people. Prisons work hard to make you uncomfortable. But that’s not what’s bad about going to prison. What’s bad about going to prison is that you’re separated from your family.

I’ve tried to think of every reason why I should wash my hands of this place. But I keep returning to the conclusion that I owe it to every man, woman, and child on this estate to try and save the estate. Eversby Priory has been the work of generations. I can’t destroy it.” “I think that’s a very admirable decision,” she said with a hesitant smile. His mouth twisted. “My brother calls it vanity. He predicts failure, of course.” “Then I’ll be the counterbalance,” she said impulsively, “and predict success.” Devon gave her an alert glance, and he dazzled her with a quick grin. “Don’t put money on it,” he advised. The smile faded except for a lingering quirk at one corner of his mouth. “I kept waking during the night,” he said, “arguing with myself. But then it occurred to me to wonder what my father would have done, had he lived long enough to find himself in my position.” “He would have saved the estate?” “No, he wouldn’t have considered it for a second.” Devon laughed shortly. “It’s safe to say that doing the opposite of what my father would have done is always the right choice.” Kathleen regarded him with sympathy. “Did he drink?” she dared to ask. “He did everything. And if he liked it, he did it to excess. A Ravenel through and through.” She nodded, thinking of Theo. “It has occurred to me,” she ventured, “that the family temperament isn’t well suited to stewardship.” Amusement glinted in his eyes. “Speaking as a man who has the family temperament in full measure, I agree. I wish I could claim to have a mother from steady, pragmatic stock, to balance out the Ravenel wildness. Unfortunately she was worse.” “Worse?” Kathleen asked, her eyes widening. “She had a temper?” “No, but she was unstable. Flighty. It’s no exaggeration to say there were days at a time when she forgot she even had children.” “My parents were very attentive and involved,” Kathleen volunteered after a moment. “As long as you were a horse.

At a time when banks and laws and governments were still enormously unstable, marriage became the single most important business arrangement most people would ever make in their lives. But marriage in the Middle Ages was certainly the safest and smoothest means of passing wealth, livestock, heirs, or property from one generation to the next. Great wealthy families stabilized their fortunes through marriages much the same way that great multinational corporations today stabilize their fortunes through careful mergers and acquisitions. Wealthy European children with titles or inheritance became chattel, to be traded and manipulated like investment stocks.

Today people ask why we seem to have lost a stabilizing and orienting sense of values, why the family doesn't hold together as it used to, and why aggression and anger cannot be contained, as they creep out in vandalism, crime, and ubiquitous signs of decadence. Why can't 'these people'-meaning some other race or nationality, youth, the homeless, the emotionally unstable-live properly? we ask moralistically. A more accurate question might be: What have we done in creating this modern culture that makes it so difficult to live from deep values?

Paul once tried to explain how the two of them had become what they were. ‘John, because of his upbringing and his unstable family life, had to be hard, witty, always ready for the cover-up, ready for the riposte, ready with the sharp little witticism. Whereas with my rather comfortable upbringing, a lot of family, a lot of people, very northern, “Cup of tea, love?”, my surface grew to be easy-going. Put people at their ease. Chat to people, be nice, it’s nice to be nice … Mentally, no one could say much to hurt me, whereas with John: his dad wasn’t home, so it was “Where’s yer dad, you bastard?” And his mother lived with somebody and that was called “living in sin” in those days, so there was another cheap shot against him. John had a lot to guard against, and it formed his personality; he was a very guarded person … He had massive hang-ups from his upbringing.

The idea of roots setting a person free is counterintuitive, but deracination from the past, from land, from family, from mothers, makes for an unstable present. We must have, or we will always search for, a place to bury our bones.

But in one or two essential elements, they had all been the same; always unavailable, sometimes unstable, and in terms of my sobriety, even dangerous. Were these the conditions that had governed my feelings about my mother, and was I still unconsciously trying to replicate that relationship? I think so. My low self-esteem had dictated all my choices. I had chosen what I knew and was comfortable with, but they had all been unworkable situations. I had done a lot of family-of-origin work in my recovery, but it seemed like I would never be able to break the mold.

To add to our challenge of validating our experience, the average person isn’t typically well educated or aware of emotional abuse, even when it is happening directly to him or her. Unless we have done the work to educate ourselves on emotional abuse, we cannot and will not be able to explain our situation. This allows the abusive treatment of our toxic family members to continue without interruption. Our toxic family members are experts at concealing their abusive behaviors just slightly under public radar so that when we complain about the hurt they have made us feel, our complaints fall on deaf ears. This level of slyness allows our toxic family members to walk away looking innocent and unfairly accused while we appear emotionally unstable. This is the most infuriating part for us.

Is this your lifemate, Jacques?” Raven asked softly. Shea looked at her then, this woman who had been a part of Jacques’ life. “I’m Shea O’Halloran.” Her voice was husky and ragged. “Jacques has been unable to use his voice since I found him.” Raven touched Shea’s bruised throat with gentle fingers. “Someone had better tell me what happened here.” Her blue eyes were studying the dark smudges closely. “Help her to the bed,” Gregori interceded, distracting Raven from her study. You owe me one, old friend, he sent to Mikhail. Raven smiled very gently at Jacques. “Do you mind if I help her? Shea is quite weak.” Not waiting for his approval, she slipped an arm around Shea’s waist, supporting her as she tried to stand. Instantly Shea felt the ripple of unease coursing through Jacques. The others felt it as the ground shifted and rolled. The flames in his eyes glowed a brilliant red, and a slow hiss escaped him. Raven glared at Mikhail over her shoulder. He shrugged helplessly. I am not doing it, little one. Jacques is unstable. He does not like the woman apart from him. Temper tantrums seem to run in your family.

Do you mind if I help her? Shea is quite weak.” Not waiting for his approval, she slipped an arm around Shea’s waist, supporting her as she tried to stand. Instantly Shea felt the ripple of unease coursing through Jacques. The others felt it as the ground shifted and rolled. The flames in his eyes glowed a brilliant red, and a slow hiss escaped him. Raven glared at Mikhail over her shoulder. He shrugged helplessly. I am not doing it, little one. Jacques is unstable. He does not like the woman apart from him. Temper tantrums seem to run in your family.

Endometriosis, or painful periods? (Endometriosis is when pieces of the uterine lining grow outside of the uterine cavity, such as on the ovaries or bowel, and cause painful periods.) Mood swings, PMS, depression, or just irritability? Weepiness, sometimes over the most ridiculous things? Mini breakdowns? Anxiety? Migraines or other headaches? Insomnia? Brain fog? A red flush on your face (or a diagnosis of rosacea)? Gallbladder problems (or removal)? — PART E — Poor memory (you walk into a room to do something, then wonder what it was, or draw a blank midsentence)? Emotional fragility, especially compared with how you felt ten years ago? Depression, perhaps with anxiety or lethargy (or, more commonly, dysthymia: low-grade depression that lasts more than two weeks)? Wrinkles (your favorite skin cream no longer works miracles)? Night sweats or hot flashes? Trouble sleeping, waking up in the middle of the night? A leaky or overactive bladder? Bladder infections? Droopy breasts, or breasts lessening in volume? Sun damage more obvious, even glaring, on your chest, face, and shoulders? Achy joints (you feel positively geriatric at times)? Recent injuries, particularly to wrists, shoulders, lower back, or knees? Loss of interest in exercise? Bone loss? Vaginal dryness, irritation, or loss of feeling (as if there were layers of blankets between you and the now-elusive toe-curling orgasm)? Lack of juiciness elsewhere (dry eyes, dry skin, dry clitoris)? Low libido (it’s been dwindling for a while, and now you realize it’s half or less than what it used to be)? Painful sex? — PART F — Excess hair on your face, chest, or arms? Acne? Greasy skin and/or hair? Thinning head hair (which makes you question the justice of it all if you’re also experiencing excess hair growth elsewhere)? Discoloration of your armpits (darker and thicker than your normal skin)? Skin tags, especially on your neck and upper torso? (Skin tags are small, flesh-colored growths on the skin surface, usually a few millimeters in size, and smooth. They are usually noncancerous and develop from friction, such as around bra straps. They do not change or grow over time.) Hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia and/or unstable blood sugar? Reactivity and/or irritability, or excessively aggressive or authoritarian episodes (also known as ’roid rage)? Depression? Anxiety? Menstrual cycles occurring more than every thirty-five days? Ovarian cysts? Midcycle pain? Infertility? Or subfertility? Polycystic ovary syndrome? — PART G — Hair loss, including of the outer third of your eyebrows and/or eyelashes? Dry skin? Dry, strawlike hair that tangles easily? Thin, brittle fingernails? Fluid retention or swollen ankles? An additional few pounds, or 20, that you just can’t lose? High cholesterol? Bowel movements less often than once a day, or you feel you don’t completely evacuate? Recurrent headaches? Decreased sweating? Muscle or joint aches or poor muscle tone (you became an old lady overnight)? Tingling in your hands or feet? Cold hands and feet? Cold intolerance? Heat intolerance? A sensitivity to cold (you shiver more easily than others and are always wearing layers)? Slow speech, perhaps with a hoarse or halting voice? A slow heart rate, or bradycardia (fewer than 60 beats per minute, and not because you’re an elite athlete)? Lethargy (you feel like you’re moving through molasses)? Fatigue, particularly in the morning? Slow brain, slow thoughts? Difficulty concentrating? Sluggish reflexes, diminished reaction time, even a bit of apathy? Low sex drive, and you’re not sure why? Depression or moodiness (the world is not as rosy as it used to be)? A prescription for the latest antidepressant but you’re still not feeling like yourself? Heavy periods or other menstrual problems? Infertility or miscarriage? Preterm birth? An enlarged thyroid/goiter? Difficulty swallowing? Enlarged tongue? A family history of thyroid problems?

Managing two families wasn't easy, but bin Laden wasn't discouraged. He developed a theory of multiple marriages. 'One is okay, like walking. Two is like riding a bicycle: it's fast but a little unstable. Three is a tricycle, stable but slow. And when we come to four, ah! This is the ideal. Now you can pass everyone

Watch out. Deigh says that building on the other side of the road has a crate of something marked with Liam’s family crest,” Tairn tells me as I fire off another blast that lands nowhere near the venin. “He says it’s highly…unstable,” he finishes, pausing as he relays the information. “Not worried about the building,” I reply as the circle of death expands under Tairn’s beating wings, and I draw more power from Tairn, poising to strike again.