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Life does not always give us what we are expecting and can bring many challenges that make us question our ability to handle the pain. When Debbie’s oldest son, Alex, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder at age seventeen after being hospitalized for nearly a month and then became addicted to drugs and alcohol, she wasn’t prepared for how to deal with what she would be up against over the next nine years and the fear, anxiety, and grief she would experience. read more

Wondering how you can take care of yourself during challenging times?

Loving yourself and taking good care of yourself is always important, but it can become a real challenge when you have a teen or adult child with mental illness and/or addiction.

Here are some things you can start doing right now that can really make a difference in how you feel-

💫Self-compassion – be gentle, kind and patient with yourself, realize your limitations, and don’t blame yourself for not being able to fix your child’s illness

💫Forgiveness of yourself and your child allows you to prioritize your relationship and your own healing and well-being

💫Setting boundaries with love to protect your emotional well-being and allow you to trust yourself to be prepared to handle challenges

💫Staying true to your authentic self – this may even come up when communicating with friends and family who don’t understand what you’re going through

💫Honoring your needs and not neglecting them

💫Good self-care – taking care of you on a physical, emotional, and spiritual

Don’t know where or how to begin?  Take this action step – make a list of how you can honor your needs during challenging times.

Sending love and light,

Debbie

Posted: February 8, 2024 by asiadmin

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Is denial standing in your way of finding peace?

I recently posted about when your child has mental illness and addiction, you may need to grieve the loss of who they were and how life was before illness.  Not doing so can prevent you from finding peace.

One thing that may stand in your way of grieving is denial.  Denial is refusal to believe or accept something as truth; fooling yourself about the reality of your situation.

Denial may not be purposeful, in fact it’s probably something you do subconsciously as a protective mechanism.

Denial may seem to protect you from painful feelings but it doesn’t really because when denial causes you to temporarily not feel the grief, the reality of life is still happening and your feelings are still there, they are just buried and will resurface at any time.

The only way out of your difficult feelings is through them.  Become aware of any denial.  Allow your feelings.  It doesn’t mean you have to stay in your feelings, but you don’t want to deny your feelings or deny the reality of what is happening.

Sending love and light,

Debbie

Posted: January 13, 2024 by asiadmin

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Grieving the loss of how your child was and how life was prior to their mental illness and addiction

If you have a child with mental illness and addiction, you undoubtedly know that life is different now than it was prior to their illness and addiction. They may seem like a different person. You may have a different relationship with them. You probably have different thoughts and struggles. They may not be on the same path with their lives that they once were or that you hoped for them.

All of this may be causing you pain, sadness, anger, overwhelm, hopelessness.

What I realized when my son was still here and struggling with his illness and addiction, is that there was a loss that I needed to work on grieving. Even though he was still with me at the time and we had a close relationship, there was a loss I was experiencing. He had such a normal childhood and early teen years and many friends and accomplishments and I had high hopes for him. Life didn’t turn out the way I had hoped or expected. His actions and reactions, behaviors, and choices were different. I sometimes wondered where that little boy and young teen was…was he still there inside? All the childhood memories came flooding back and I began to grieve the loss of who he was before his illness and addiction. I knew his heart and soul were the same, but his behaviors, thoughts, actions, and abilities were different.

Everyone’s child is unique. And everyone’s loss they are experiencing is unique. But most likely it is advantageous to work on healing your grief over the loss of how life with your child was before mental illness and addiction.

There is a loss you are dealing with and it is so important for your well-being to acknowledge that loss so you can work toward healing it. Because most likely it is causing you to have some level of pain and suffering.

Grief is a reflection of the love you have for your child. The goal is accepting the reality of their life now and remembering your child prior to illness with more love than pain.

You may be dealing with denial, anger, and sadness that become too difficult to feel, but the only way to move through these emotions is to feel them. Make friends with these emotions. Bring in lots of self-love and self-care. Acceptance of a new reality does not mean you have to want this, it just means you are acknowledging the facts of the situation and not focusing your energy on why it should not be that way – you stop the battle within you to fight against what has already happened.

Sending love and light,

Debbie

Posted: January 8, 2024 by asiadmin

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Finding Peace and Purpose amidst the Tears