Episode 82: A Mother learning to effectively parent children with mental health and addiction challenges

Maureen tells her story of learning to be an effective parent to four children with mental health and addiction struggles, and her own recovery process from codependent parenting styles. She shares details of three of her children who all grappled with their mental health in different ways. One child engaged in self-harm, another suffered drug-induced episodes with suicidal tendencies, and a third child hiding out in her room isolated, hiding from everything and everyone. Maureen expressed each time she was hoping for a break to catch her breath, there was another crisis, which gradually took a great toll on her. It got to the point where she didn’t know where to go or who to turn to, what help to ask for and where to get help. Maureen described feeling isolated and frightened. She explained her process was on repeat, where she felt the need to rescue a child from an incident, direct the next steps, and before she knew it there was another crisis at hand. In this process, she was extremely fatigued, until it led her to completely deplete, feeling numb and immobilized. She explained that she felt like a failure, because in her work as a nurse, she was able to manage crises and solve problems that came her way, however, this was not the case with her family. Her role in the family felt like a case manager, where she developed a fear of rest, no concept of self-care, took to emotional eating, all until she was able to take a step back and look at herself, the possibilities, and rediscovering parts of herself that were neglected due to her attention being focused on her children. Her key message to the listeners is that: you’re not alone, you don’t need to do it alone, even when you feel alone, go seek treatment; for parents think terrible things when their children are unresponsive - maybe you just need to change the parenting; you are not responsible for creating the problem, even if you played a role in creating the chaos; there’s help out there.