Nathalie’s parents moved her and her siblings to Mexico as children and back to the U.S. later on. Those decisions had huge consequences for their emotional lives, which the family is now trying to understand. And, family therapist Catalina Fortich returns to help us reshape our "dominant narratives" to reconnect with loved ones—and ourselves.
Our expert this week is Catalina Fortich, a marriage and family therapist with her own private practice based in South Florida, Safe Place Therapy. Learn more about her work here. If you loved this episode, be sure to listen to She's Stuck in a Family Triangle and When Mamí & Papí Help Too Much,
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Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi everybody, today I'm speaking with Nathalie. Nathalie was born in the United States, but moved to Mexico with her parents, brother and sister, when she was a child. Later on, when the family moved back to the U.S., Everyone had a hard time adjusting. They're now trying to figure out how all of this impacted them as a family. Let's get into it.
Nathalie: My name is Nathalie. I was born here in Maryland and in my household growing up, we called mom and dad, mamá y papá. We moved to Mexico when I was six, came back to the United States when I was 14. It was a good, wild ride. I would not take it back. I loved my stay in Mexico. I think it was very difficult, the transition for all of us as a family. Took us probably roughly from a year to two years to completely settle. But after that we got situated and then coming back here was rough. My dad, he is very, very smart. He didn't finish his education. He dropped out when he was in elementary school in Mexico. All of his life has been job to job until...Basically when we moved to Mexico is because he lost his job and he suffers from depression. His mental health had taken a toll and for him, an easy thing was to move to Mexico, start fresh. So we did.
The culture of Mexico really helped me navigate by sticking to my core values. There's a lot of unity and family. Family is unit. I have that for myself now with my own family. I don't know what that would have looked like if I would have stayed here growing up in American culture. All of the experiences that I went through, transitioning from here to Mexico and back, they put me through so many tests.
We have a broken family. We have a very broken family and slowly by slowly, they have been trying to patch up a lot of things. When we moved back from Mexico, we all had it rough. My sister didn't want to come back. She wanted to stay over there. So my parents, they... She was older enough to make her own decisions, at that point. She had a relationship and they asked her to come stay here for a while and just to give it a year. It was a no go. She moved back to Mexico. My brother, entering his senior year, socializing has never been his forte. He was diagnosed with ADHD when he was young, not treated, because my dad did not believe in medicine. And he himself grew up thinking probably crap about himself. I don't think there's... He's very smart. He's very intelligent, but he's facing his demons now.
I was transitioning between middle school and high school. I did not know how to speak English. Took me about a year, two years to perfect it. We were all in different phases of our lives. My parents have never been... They were a very dysfunctional relationship, a very dysfunctional marriage. They didn't understand each other. They didn't have the empathy towards each other, nor the patience, nor the communication skills to be able to weather through certain storms that were presented to them. So we grew up with a lot of dysfunctionality, a lack of self love. We became a broken family. My sister was in Mexico. Eventually, my brother, in a year or two years into being here, he didn't want to be here anymore. He became very depressed. They sent him with my uncle down in Mexico. It hit him a lot. He became even more depressed, probably down there. So it was just me and my parents for a while here.
I think that I coped fine. I think that when it comes to me, a huge part of my personality, not maybe because I wanted to, but because survival of the fittest kind of was just to take on the punches and roll with it. That's just who I am. Push yourself, you got this. Push yourself, you got this. Nothing hurts. Everything was okay. You could have it worse. Just keep on doing what you're doing. And I think part of that really, it was a learned behavior that really distracted me from myself, essentially, from having the organization and the discipline, even maybe to seek the things that I’ve needed, instead of trying to just go with the flow. We still are a broken family, but we aren't nowhere near where we were before. We've grown up. We're adults now and we are able to express, we have been able to understand our feelings. I think we've all called each other out on our bullshit. I think that it hasn't been easy. And at the end of the day, the most beautiful thing that I take away from that is that family sticks together.
Lantigua: You know, I sometimes forget what a huge deal immigrating to another country is. And I'm an immigrant. Nathalie's story made me think about how, or even if we actually process these life-changing experiences that our families go through. The ramifications on our emotional lives, on our relationships can remain unknown or unexplored for years. To help us think through some of it, I called in an expert.
Catalina Fortich:
My name is Catalina Fortich and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, working out of South Florida. I am in private practice. My private practice name is Safe Place Therapy. And I work with individuals, couples, families, a little bit of everything.
Lantigua: Welcome back. You're actually our three-peat expert.
Fortich: I just learned that. And I am very honored right now. I hope I don't disappoint.
Lantigua: Never. You could never. All right, so let's start where we always start. You listened to Nathalie's testimonial. What did you hear as you listened?
Fortich: So I heard the narrative of a family who obviously had to face a lot of adversities and challenges. And my sense is that they're at a place where they're starting to begin to repair some of that now, as the children have grown and are now more able to advocate for themselves and speak up.
Lantigua: Immigration, we know, is a seismic event in people's lives and in this family, they did it twice.
Fortich: Yeah. Yeah.
Lantigua: Talk to me about what the dynamics at play are, especially when... The first instance was when they were children and the second instance was when they were adults and basically established in their identities.
Fortich: Yeah, there was a lot more difficulty the second time around, right? There was... Obviously some of them didn't want to come back. It sounds like she was able to adapt a little bit better than her siblings and there was definitely, her brother had to struggle with some mental health issues. And it sounds like there was a strain on the couple itself, the parents as well. So obviously when you have any life transitions that are significant like that, like a move, like a relocation, like a whole new culture, that definitely could put a strain on a family ’cause their whole balance gets thrown upside down.
Lantigua: Nathalie kept using this phrase, broken family. What did that bring up for you? And especially in light of the work that you do with your families as clients.
Fortich: It struck me definitely the way that she said it. It sounds like that's become the dominant story, is what I would call that. One of the lenses that I look through as a therapist, narrative therapy. So I listened to the stories and what's the dominant story there. And the broken family narrative is definitely part of her family and the way that she is seeing all of the things that they went through. So as a therapist, I would definitely want to delve into that and deconstruct that a little bit with her. My concern is would you not only be seeing the family as broken, but do you see yourself as broken? Because, you are part of that family. And so that's definitely going to get my antennas going. And I want to delve into that a little bit and see if we can find, which I think she's already on her own doing, an alternative story. One that's a little bit more empowered, one of resiliency. And I want to help her find that as a therapist.
Lantigua: So I want to actually spend a little bit more time on this notion of a dominant narrative. I've never heard it put that way. Can you talk to us a little bit about that and how it acts as a force in how you understand yourself and you understand your family and how we can restrict you?
Fortich: Absolutely. So we have these lived experiences and as we go through life, we start noticing that we might have evidence that these beliefs, that these meanings that we've made of these lived experiences might dominate. So if I had a life of a lot of challenges, but I also had simultaneously a life where a lot of strengths and a lot of resiliency was a part of it but the dominant part of it is the challenges, as a therapist, I want to help you find the exceptions to that, highlight those moments where you weren't just living in challenge, right? Because, our dominant stories become our reality. And if those dominant stories aren't one that is filtered through empowerment or strengths or resiliency or anything like that, then it becomes really restricted, a very rigid perspective that if I don't feel that I'm capable, then how am I going to overcome certain challenges when they do arise?
Lantigua: So it's fascinating because she uses terms like pushed through and rolled with the punches in how she frames her coping mechanisms. So is that a direct result of this dominant narrative; well, if we're broken, I just have to push through the brokenness?
Fortich: Well, that would be to me indicative of that there is an alternative narrative, right? Those are the exceptions. I pushed through, I survived. We are trying to repair. She didn't use that word, but obviously, we're at a place where we're trying to empathize and rebuild and understand each other. So those are windows for me. And I'm like, okay, let's go that route.
Lantigua: So it sounds as if the person in telling the story of the dominant narrative, can also pay attention to where they also locate these windows. Talk to me about how the person can pay attention to their storytelling of their story to stop when they have a window where they can look and see if there's an alternative way to understand what happened to them.
Fortich: We got to be careful with that, right? Because, it can sound like I'm invalidating the other part of the story. And is where you get to embrace the duality of healing, that there is two stories, right? Or there's two ways that you can conceptualize something and that one doesn't have to invalidate the other. So it's where two opposing ideas can co-exist, right? So the grief of my parents not being able or willing to give me what I needed and that they did the best that they could with what they had at the time. And when you do that, then you're able to validate your lived experience, but also not live stuck in this blaming kind of pathologizing. And when you're able to validate your lived experiences and at the same time, become a curious and explore your family's lived experiences, you're able to hold that duality. And there's a lot of healing and being able to hold that duality.
Lantigua: I think that this is one of the really challenging parts of being a hyphenated individual in the many, many ways that we're all hyphenated, which is that there is a tendency to want everything to be binary; this or that, before and after, black or white. And the fact that you just said, and, is transformative.
Fortich: When you start looking at things that way, then there's a bridge there, right? And the inner conflict I often say is, because we're trying to say which one's true, which one's valid, right? We spend so much time there. I'm going to get a little personal on this. And I, myself, when I realized that I would have to be angry at my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather to explain why certain things happened in my family dynamic, that's when I said, "That's a lot of people to be angry at, and I don't even know them." I was like... I just had to let go of that and say, "Each generation did what they could with what they had." And now I just delved into becoming the best version of myself for my family, for my future generations.
That bridge of the duality allowed me to let go of this idea of, who do I blame? Who do I blame for all of this happening? And when you realize that there's just too many people to blame, it's too many intersections and complexities and cultures and religion, and just so many layers of it that at some point you understand it, and that's good to have that understanding, but at some point you got to be like, okay, now what am I going to do with that understanding? And, then you move forward and say, okay, now that I know this to be true, I free myself to focus more on what does a healthy relationship look like? How do I have that? How do I construct that? How do I live that? How do I embody that? And that takes so much time, Juleyka, that you don't have time to be angry at your grandfather's grandfather, grandfather anymore. You can let him rest in peace and you start just really focusing on how do you construct the best life possible for yourself presently?
Lantigua: Nathalie, I felt from our conversation, like she was at a crossroads where she either had to focus on her own mental, emotional health and sort of accept, the way that you're saying this is what happened, but what do I do with this information, but also really yearning to have that closeness and to help to repair, especially some of the damage that may have been done to her brother whom she suspects, or they know has been diagnosed with mental illnesses and her sister who is a little bit distanced from her family. So is there an implicit choice when we're trying to be our best selves and understand the context in which we became who we are?
Fortich: The choice ends and begins with you. At the end of the day, these other people you're in relationship to, they have choices as well. So, she can reach out, she can do what's within her control, but ultimately they have to meet her somewhere in the middle. If she is always the one repairing, always trying to connect, always trying to be the one that moves closer and closer to trying to do that repair without it being reciprocated, that can lead to some resentment and further dilute the relationship. It really is her having to check in with herself and seeing, what is it that I want out of this relationship? What could I do to influence? You can't control other people but you can influence them with the way that you approach them, the way that you talk. If she's willing to be vulnerable, she can continue to show up as vulnerable if she feels that she can, but the other person has to also kind of meet her somewhere in the middle at some point.
Lantigua: Thank you for that. This is definitely going to help so many people.
Fortich: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Lantigua: All right. Let's recap. What we learned from Catalina. Find the windows. When looking back at your family's dominant narrative, identify the exceptions to the rule. Those windows, that point to resiliency, strength, and empowerment, and would help tell a more complete story of your experience and who you are. Embrace the duality. Once you let go of the idea that you must choose one side or the other, you free yourself to focus on the present and move forward in your relationships.. And remember, check in with yourself. As you do the hard work of reaching out, connecting and repairing your relationships with others, stay tuned to how you're doing and what you're getting out of this process and the relationships that you're working to heal.
Thank you for listening and thank you for sharing us. Thank you for being here week after week. We love sharing these interviews with you. We love making the show for you. How to Talk to Mami and Papi About Anything is an original production of Lantigua Williams and Co. Virginia Laura is the show's producer. Kojin Tashiro is our mixer. Manuela Bedoya is our social media editor. Cedrick Wilson is our lead producer. Jen Chien is our executive editor. I'm the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @TalkToMamiPapi. Please follow us and rate us on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Bye everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua-Williams, Juleyka, host. “‘We’re A Broken Family.’” How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] About Anything, Lantigua Williams & Co., July 19, 2021. TalkToMamiPapi.com.