Overcoming Family Crises

A crisis can be defined as "a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger". By no surprise, everyone faces multiple crises throughout their life. Not only can individuals go through a crisis, but families, together as one unit, face multiple crises as well. Sadly, some crises can break families and leave them with no hope of repair. However, it's not necessarily the crisis that breaks them, it's the way the family members react, respond, and think about the event. 

I want to introduce you all to the ABCX model that was developed by Reuben Hill. For this model A+B+C=X. You might be wondering what all these letters stand for: 

• A stands for Actual Event: This is the stressor event that happens. There are multiple types of stressor events-
• Internal (starts within the family, such as suicide)
• External (natural disasters)
• Normative (things expected over time in the family, such as marriage)
• Non-normative (unexpected, divorce or winning the lottery)
• Ambiguous (things are unclear)
• Non-ambiguous (the facts are very clear)
• Volitional (wanted events, such as college or pregnancy)
• Non-volitional (sudden, unwanted events, like losing a job)
• Chronic (long duration, such as addiction)
• Acute (Short duration, but extreme, also losing a job)
• Cumulative (lots of events happening simultaneously or one right after the other)
• Isolated (single event that happens during a period of time) 
• B stands for Both Resources and Response: A stressor event might happen when a family has numerous or limited resources. How these resources are used and how the family responds to the crisis is critical to the outcome after the crisis has occurred. Resources include-
• Money
• Extended family support 
• Friends 
• Religion
• Jobs 
• Job skills
• Education
• Emotional stability 
• Programs
• C stands for Cognition: This is how and what we think about the stressor event. The way the event is defined will determine the experience. 
• X stands for Total eXperience: This is the final outcome and ultimately where the family decides if the stressor event is a crisis or not. 

This model is extremely helpful and beneficial in identifying if a family struggled with (or is currently struggling with) a crisis. Because it shows the resources and how the family thought about the situation it's easier to see where certain problems were rooted in the family and what exactly steered them off course during their difficult time. 

This might seem like an unpopular opinion, but facing difficult things is actually beneficial. Think of the stressor events and crises you've faced in your life and how you overcame them. Hard things make us stronger and we are able to face the challenging times in our future because we were able to grow and learn from them in our past. Family stress can cause so many blessings; we often don't recognize the sacred outcomes of it. 

I would like to share a time my family underwent a crisis and the ways it strengthened us. 

It was finals week here at BYUI when I received the news that my Grandpa, who had liver cancer, had taken a turn for the worse and only had a few hours to live. I was devastated. I had such a wonderful relationship with my Grandfather and this news was so unexpected. I called my mom and she told me the details of the situation. She said that me and my sisters (who were up at BYUI with me) should stay in Rexburg and focus on our finals. She told me to go to class the rest of the day and to have my roommates give me a hug. I rushed to my apartment and immediately cried on the shoulders of my roommates who provided me with comfort, love, and support. After attending class, I went to my sisters' apartment where we waited for the bad news. We all desperately wanted to go home to be with our family, especially because all of our extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) were gathered together at the hospital, but we wanted to obey our mom and we couldn't find a way to make it work with our final exams. My Grandpa passed later that evening. The week that followed was long and hard. The stress of finals and moving out of my apartment made me push my grief to the back burner. It wasn't until the viewing and the funeral that my emotions gushed out of me. My siblings and I seemed to struggle more at that time because we hadn't had the opportunity to spend time with family and bond and grieve with each other. But, my family was incredibly sympathetic and empathetic even though they themselves were still grieving. A cousin texted me and made sure to ask how I was doing while I was away from everyone and dealing with finals. An aunt put her arm around me the morning of the funeral and said she saw how much my sisters and I were struggling; she told me how her kids weren't able to be at the hospital either and how they struggled too. After the funeral, and throughout the weekend that followed, my family spent as much time together as possible. We went to dinner at my Grandpa's favorite burger place, we laughed together, we looked at old pictures of him, we talked and we loved one another. I personally have felt that we have become so much stronger as a family because of this crisis. 

Because of the resources we had (family members-aka each other- religion, church members, friends, emotional stability) and the response we had (effectively using our resources) we were able to think positively about the situation. Of course we were deeply saddened by what happened but we knew that he was in a better place and was no longer in pain. We also knew that we were going to be okay and that we were going to make it through this difficult time. In the end, the crisis wasn't really a crisis at all because of how we responded, used our resources, and controlled our thoughts about the situation. I will forever be grateful for the bond my family now has.