If you have a child who is struggling with mental illness or addiction, please do not blame yourself

If you have a child who is struggling with mental illness or addiction, please do not blame yourself. 

If your teen or young adult child chooses to stop taking their medications or self medicates with drugs, it is not your fault.

And it is not your fault they became ill in the first place.

It is also not your fault if they make decisions you don’t agree with.

You have to remember that they are their own person, not an extension of you.

As a parent, you can only do the best you can with the knowledge and information you have at hand.

And it is not helpful to you or your child to blame yourself, it is not a productive use of your energy, and it takes your energy away from helping and supporting yourself and your child.

Maybe the self blame comes from your child getting angry and lashing out and blaming you. Or from family or friends blaming you. 

If you are struggling with self blame, what can you do?

If the self blame is coming from your child blaming you, realize what is happening. Your child is angry…at their illness, at their circumstances, and may not be emotionally capable of rationally thinking through the fact that it is not your fault. You are there and safe and they are angry. But it is not about you and you do not have to accept the blame. Although the blame is out there from them but you do not have to pick it up.

If the self blame is coming from your friends or family blaming you, realize what is happening. Your family and friends may not understand mental illness or addiction. They are looking for someone to hold accountable and they assume that as a parent you have the ability to fix the situation. But people don’t have control over other people, and that includes parents. Your child is a separate being.

If you are having a hard time forgiving yourself, imagine how it would feel to forgive?  How would you feel? What would your life be like? How would it be different?

If this is hard to do, imagine yourself wanting to forgive (imagine the desire to forgive). Appreciate that you were doing all you could with the resources at that moment. Make it a practice to imagine desire until you can imagine how it would feel to forgive yourself.

Let me know if this resonates with you and if you are having any difficulties related to self blame.

Sending love and light,

Debbie