DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY When you're in a family where speaking up about your pain is met with silence, dismissal, or hostility - where you're told to "get over it, "stop being dramatic," or "let it go" — that's not love, that's dysfunction. This behavior often comes from emotional immaturity and inflated egos that can't handle accountability. Instead of owning their actions, they sweep issues under the rug and pretend nothing happened. When you try to hold them accountable for being hurtful, rude, dishonest, or excluding you, they twist it around and make you the problem for daring to speak up. If someone silences you, manipulates you, bullies you, or invalidates your feelings instead of resolving the issue - that is emotional abuse. You're not dealing with healthy people; you're dealing with dysfunction, manipulation, and denial. Healthy families communicate, listen, and apologize. Dysfunctional ones gaslight, blame, and silence.