“Stay connected with your support network” is a key item in the list of self-care advice therapists give people struggling with depression. The others are:

1. take your medications as prescribed
2. get 30-40 minutes of exercise daily,
3. eat healthy,
4. get enough rest,
5. call for help if you are at risk of hurting yourself.

I want to talk about  the idea of ‘Family of Choice’ that I hope is part of your support network. By definition, we all have a ‘Family of Origin’, the family into which we were born and/or raised. Most of us grew up knowing at least the immediate members of our Family of Origin our parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles. In our modern families, the family of origin often includes step-parents and siblings as well. Out of all our relationships in the world, often our family of origin is the most familiar to us. Here is a diagram describing the typical experience of someone who knows their family of origin and has a wide range of relationships beyond their immediate family:

In some situations, for instance people brought up and lost in a foster care system, might not know their family of origin or their family of origin is the foster care system:

In some isolating situations, someone may have very few relationships outside their family of origin:

Now let me talk about a ‘family of choice.’ We don’t have any choice in our family of origin, it is what it is. Sometimes our family or origin is destructive and dangerous to our mental, emotional, and sometimes physical well-being. Sometimes, as mentioned above, we don’t even know our family of origin. But we can look for and include people in our lives with the qualities of character and behavior to help us find safety, connection, and growth. A family of choice, might be 5-7 people with the following qualities of character:

• Listening: they have the capacity to listen and really hear what we have to say.
• Respect boundaries: they take ownership of their own thoughts, feelings, behaviors and attitudes and allow us to own our ours.
• Confidentiality: they do not betray confidences
• Honesty: they can give us accurate feedback when we ask for it.
• Accountability: when they make a mistake, they acknowledge it and work to do better.
• Loving: they have our best interests at heart

Of course, to build such a family of choice, we need to reciprocate with the same qualities ourselves. If we are lucky, some but not all of our family of choices members might be part of our family of origin:

But if nobody in our family of origin qualifies, if none of them help us feel safe, secure, and connected, there is no law that we have to include them in our circle of family of choice:

Who do you include in your family of choice? Who do you want to or need to add? Can you tell them you want them as a family of choice member? If you can, they are probably a good candidate.