Concerns & Risks

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 This section includes Concerns & Risks, Issues We May Face and How We May Be Silenced.

 This is a highly sensitive area. If you experience any overwhelming feelings due to some memories or your current circumstances and relationships, please consult a professional therapist immediately. I am not a counselor, but I am here if you need further assistance dawnstefano@sympatico.ca

Note that the *List below is not complete. After speaking and corresponding with a number of adult children, parents, and other caring family members, I found we shared some of the following concerns and risks.

  1. Sense of being different and not belonging
  2. Find peer acceptance more easily among multi-cultural, troubled or unique peers
  3. Feel alone or like running away
  4. Denial and lying, pretending everything is alright
  5. Shame and or embarrassment about your family situation
  6. Sense of abandonment and insecurity
  7. Anger, fear, and anxiety
  8. Prolonged and unresolved grief
  9. Sadness and depression
  10. Possible same-gender attraction or sexuality confusion
  11. Poor body image
  12. Possible participation in risk-taking or attention-seeking activities
  13. Rebellion, truancy and or juvenile delinquency
  14. Eating disorders
  15. Drug, alcohol and or sexual addiction(s)
  16. Suicidal ideation and or attempts
  17. Obsession with parent(s) and their partner(s)
  18. Seeking parent(s) love and acceptance
  19. Jealousy toward parent's partner(s)
  20. Pressure to accept, perform for, and or protect parent(s)/partner(s)
  21. Possible early exposure to diverse sexual experiences, abuse, and or experimentation
  22. Substitute academic and career success for personal sense of worth
  23. Difficulties with intimacy and trust in relationships
  24. Confusion around theology and sexuality
  25. Require therapeutic interventions
  26. Hide family secrets to protect parent(s) and their partner(s), sibling(s) and other family members
  27. Risk long-term estrangement from some family members if reveal family secrets

 ISSUES WE MAY FACE

What Are Some of the Issues We May Face? This is a highly sensitive area. If you experience any overwhelming feelings due to some memories or your current circumstances and relationships, please consult a professional therapist immediately. I am not a counselor, but I am here if you need further assistance dawnstefano@sympatico.ca

When you are ready, here are some questions for you to consider. Did you see same-sex attraction esteemed? Was there a strong emphasis on gender neutrality? Was one gender valued more often? How do you think this impacted you? At what age did you realize your family form was different from others? How many adults came into your home environment? How have you come to terms and dealt with your family form and living arrangements growing up?

Were you from a broken heterosexual union? Were you adopted or was reproductive technology accessed to bring you into the world? No matter how you came into your current family form, know you are a very special and immensely valuable person.

 HOW WE MAY BE SILENCED
  1. We are too young and dependent � As children we are not going to rock the boat.
  2. No choices around parent(s), partners (s), our family's social structure, living arrangements and changing value system.
  3. We are often raised to approve of all forms of expressed sexuality, including sexual preferences, gender neutrality, and non-distinct gender roles.
  4. We are often not allowed to express our disagreement, pain and confusion about our parent(s) beliefs, sexual behavior and lifestyle choices and how it impacts us.
  5. School environments that include safe school policies, gay-straight alliances, inclusive curriculum, and days of silence contribute to this silencing for us.
  6. We may not want public acceptance of our family form, yet we can not say anything negative about our situation.
  7. Our parent(s) and other adults in their lives want acceptance while we walk on egg shells, trying to not hurt their feelings.
  8. Peer pressure, conforming to political correctness around homosexuality and other forms of diverse sexuality, make it difficult for us to talk about our true feelings and experiences.
  9. Political correctness in some academia, professional associations, workplaces, media and culture also silence us.
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