An Estrangement Lexicon

or

The Proper Use of Terms When Speaking of Estrangements and Relatives

By Tung Incheeky

Scapegoat:

The one on whom all is blamed. Convenient persons without which no estrangement would be complete.

If one is not immediately available, choose whichever relative has a history of being nice. Keep this in mind when choosing your own scapegoat.

If the person has a history of trying not to swear when abused and loves to make people happy, such a person will make an ideal scapegoat.  That makes it fun because nice people are loathe to defend themselves in a truly nasty manner .... until enough years go by when they get fed up with the role. When this occurs, the previously nice person may become less nice and it may be wise to choose a different scapegoat.

Dysfunctional Family

Descriptive term for the Normal Family invented in the late eighties after it rampaged through the mental health field like kudzu (Yankees, see note below).

Popularized at the same time as the Inner Child Movement, the rise of Codependency Groups, and the publishing of books by Melody Beattie. Essentially an alternative term for Normal.

When there was a study done by Tung Incheeky searching for a family that could meet the criteria of Normal, none were found. Apparently the Normal Family did not exist. Yet all Families studied met the criteria for Dysfunctional until it became apparent that Normal was Dysfunctional and Dysfunctional was Normal. Dysfunctional was the New Normal. This was an exciting find!

Yet Normal Families have days in which they are Functional and other days in which they are less Functional or Not Functional at all. Therefore, Dysfunctional Family refers to most Normal Families when they are having a sort of Bad Hair Day with some days the hair having been done by a an unskilled carpenter using a cake beater as a brush.

However, to elucidate further, Psychotic Persons who become Serial Killers are not the result of a merely Dysfunctional Family nor are Sociopaths merely Neurotic. The proper term for Families which contain disturbed offspring or parents who are Psychotic Sociopaths or other similarly disturbed individuals has not yet been determined although the responsibility for the resulting behaviors generally lie with the perpetrator of unacceptable behavior, regardless of their role in the Family.

Most of the people in such Families deserve such terms as Victims but there may be others in the Family who are also Psychotic. Thus no term can describe ALL of the members of the Family which contains the seriously disturbed and compassion must be extended to most of those related to those so impaired.

Personality Disorder:

Handy term with legitimate uses in the Professional Mental Health Field.
When used by those whose training in Psychology and Mental Health is minimal and who have an agenda, it is an amusingly useful and intelligent sounding insult to toss at aggravating relatives, no matter how much evidence there is that said relatives are Normal (For further discussion of Normal, see Dysfunctional Family above).

This is an amusing game that has prospects of entertaining both sides due to its potential for absurdity. An example of this follows:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder. If you are the parent, then this is what your pain in the butt kid has. If you are the child, then this is what your jerky parent has. Whether you yourself have it is a moot point as no one with NPD can recognize it in themselves so ... you see ... the only way you would be sure not to have it is if you say you have it. There is one guy on the internet who does this but it is possible that he does have it .... because he exploits it .... so perhaps he is the one person who claims to have it and actually has it. So if you say you have it and you are exploiting it, then you may indeed have it too.

*Kudzu is an aggressive vine that covers anything left out in the open including all of the foliage along highways in the South. This definition might be needed by Yankee readers. Further information is available by clicking the first link and then this link about kudzu.

**All of these statements were made by a person who is NOT a mental health professional.

***No kudzu, sociopaths, narcissists, psychopaths or Normal Families were harmed in the defining of these terms.

****Note: Tung Incheeky has a history of Incheeky studies of this sort beginning in college when Tung wrote a short article for the student newspaper in which Tung reported that all food had been banned due to its not being sufficiently safe to eat. Someone actually believed the article and disputed Tung's writing. The person reported that food had NOT been banned. Hopefully, that person has ...um..... developed more critical reading abilities since then.

End of First Section on Terminology
Tung Incheeky © 2006
Note: Tung Incheeky is also known as Ginny Snickers among other things such as "vile and revolting" etcetera.