Therapy Mini: When Family Issues Play Out in Public... and Why It Hurts So Much!
What my Metro feature revealed about anxiety, depression, and family strain
At the end of last year, I was featured in the Metro, commenting on highly publicised family feuds and relationship breakdowns. While the stories focused on celebrities, the emotional patterns behind them are ones I see every day in the counselling room.
Family conflict is painful enough in private, but when it’s exposed, scrutinised, or judged, even on a much smaller scale, it can intensify anxiety, deepen depression, and leave people feeling misunderstood and emotionally unsafe.
You don’t need to be famous for this to hurt.
Why family issues hit so deeply
Family relationships carry history, identity, loyalty, and unspoken expectations. When something fractures, a disagreement, distance, breakdown, or loss, it rarely stays simple.
In my Metro comments, I spoke about how people navigating family breakdown usually need:
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privacy
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emotional safety
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space to say the messy, complicated things
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freedom to process without judgement
Without that, emotions don’t soften... they harden!
This is true whether conflict is:
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played out in the media
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discussed in group chats
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analysed by extended family
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or quietly carried alone
The nervous system doesn’t care about the scale, only the emotional impact.
How family strain shows up as anxiety and depression
When family issues go unresolved, people often come to counselling describing:
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constant overthinking
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sleep problems
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chest tightness or panic
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emotional numbness
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low mood or loss of motivation
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feeling “on edge” all the time
Anxiety thrives where there’s uncertainty and emotional threat and depression often follows when conflict feels endless or unfixable.
Many people blame themselves, saying things such as “I should be coping better” when actually they’re responding normally to prolonged emotional stress.
ADHD and family misunderstandings
Family tension can be especially difficult for people with ADHD or other forms of neurodivergence.
Differences in communication, emotional regulation, or processing can easily be misinterpreted as:
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not caring
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being dramatic
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being selfish
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being “too much”
Before diagnosis, many people feel fundamentally different without knowing why... after diagnosis, there’s often relief, but also grief for years spent misunderstood.
Family conflict doesn’t happen in a vacuum and neurodiversity matters.
Why public scrutiny makes things worse
In the Metro piece, I spoke about how public commentary often:
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removes nuance
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forces people into “sides”
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turns normal disagreements into loyalty tests
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freezes people into positions they might otherwise soften from
When there’s already grief, mental health strain, or long-standing hurt, this pressure amplifies distress rather than resolving it.
That’s true whether the audience is millions or just a few people watching closely.
Repair rarely happens in public
One of the most important truths I shared is this:
Family rifts don’t mean relationships are broken forever, but repair rarely happens in public.
Repair needs:
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privacy
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honesty
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emotional safety
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time
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support
and often, a neutral space where nothing has to be performed.
That’s what counselling offers.
A Moment to Breathe
Pause for a moment.
Let your shoulders drop.
Ask yourself gently:
Where am I carrying family tension alone, without space to be honest about how it affects me?
You don’t need to solve it right now. Just notice.
Closing — An invitation
If family issues are affecting your mental health, whether that shows up as anxiety, depression, ADHD-related overwhelm, or feeling emotionally stuck, you don’t have to navigate it on your own.
Counselling offers a private, non-judgemental space to explore what’s happening beneath the surface.
If something in this post resonated and you’d like to explore counselling with me, you can get in touch through my contact form here. I’d love to hear from you.