Almost everyone has challenges with their family…for one there is history….sometimes a long, ugly history.  Expectations are often higher for family than for friends.  Walking away from family can be complicated or feels impossible.  Guilt trips and button pushing can abound.  I also seen another side of family filled with acceptance, encouragement, standing by each other, filled with love.  Some people get so burdened and burned out by family they choose not to have a family of their own.  Some people recognize their own limitations on family.  It is a complex question.  I used the complex on purpose….because the C in CPTSD stands for complex….most of the time the root of Complex PTSD is in the family….long term, multiple forms of abuse.  Excuses and secrecy keep children bound for generations.  The abuses heaped upon grandparents are passed down generation to generation.  It takes courage to say, “I will stop this insanity.”  A reduction of the insanity is sometimes the best we can do.  I call the individuals that seek counseling and courageously work at ending generational abuse are chain-breakers.  The ones encouraging their children to stand on their shoulders so they can reach farther and be what was never done before.  Sometimes the decision is not to have children.  Courage, honor, integrity all attributes of chain-breakers.  The part of chain-breaking that became dangerous for me was the commitment to break the chains of abuse or die.  My counselor was shocked to realize that my suicidal thoughts were not based in fear of facing pain but in the determination to stop the insanity….if that meant death, so be it.  My counselor worked long and hard to help me realize there was another choice, a difficult, challenging, courageous choice to live and break the chains of abuse.  The path each person chooses to take may very.  The challenges they over come monumental proportions.  Chain-breakers are wounded warriors on the battlefront of home.