Why You Can’t Quit Family? And Why That Changes Everything
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Traditional therapy often treated families like a backdrop, not a living, evolving force shaping mental health. But in reality, families go through predictable stages, each with its own crises:
Launching Young Adults → But what if they can’t leave home due to economic or cultural pressure?
Marriage & New Couples → What if it’s an arranged marriage with no emotional prep?
Raising Children → What if grandparents are the real decision-makers?
Aging Parents & Role Reversals → What happens when the caregiver becomes the cared-for?
In Pakistan and similar cultures, these stages don’t follow Western timelines. Multigenerational homes are the norm. Divorce is stigmatized. Elders hold authority long after they “should” pass the torch.
Result? Stuck transitions. Silent resentments. Mental health struggles disguised as “family duty.”
Why This Matters for Mental Health
When a family gets “stuck” in a stage, dysfunction thrives:
A 30-year-old treated like a child.
A wife drowning in in-laws’ demands.
A grandparent’s depression ignored because “they’re old, what can we do?”
Therapy that ignores this misses the real problem. You can’t heal anxiety in a young Pakistani woman without asking: Is her family allowing her to grow up? You can’t treat a depressed grandfather without acknowledging: Has his role in the family vanished overnight?
The Way Forward: Therapy That Sees the Whole Family
Stop pretending individuals exist in a vacuum.
Ask: What life stage is this family in? Where are they stuck?
Acknowledge cultural scripts.
In South Asia, “independence” might mean contributing to the family, not moving out.
Name the unspoken rules.
Who really makes decisions? Whose needs are invisible?
Families don’t have exit doors. But they can change how they move through life together.
Thoughts?How has your family’s life cycle shaped you? Have you seen these “stuck points” in South Asian families? Share below.
(Want a deeper dive? Next week, we’ll explore how to set boundaries in cultures where “no” isn’t an option.)
