The Two Most Difficult Parts of Being a Parent and a Partner

Note: The idea here was to write a two-part piece, with each part being a sort of reflection the other other, meaning, the two parts should mirror each other in tone, structure, and content. This turned out to be way more difficult than I envisioned, and so I'll likely fall far short of my original goal.

I think the most difficult part of raising kids is when they reach the 13-16 year age range, your primary job as a parent begins to change fundamentally. It's around this time that you need to begin to let go: to give them the freedom to make their own decisions. Where it gets difficult is when you find yourself watching them make decisions that are harmful to themselves, to their health, while it begins to settle over you just how little power you'll have to change this moving forward.

I consider myself lucky because I'm not talking about life-threatening decisions (like self-harm, drug abuse, or suicidal ideation). Those situations do apply here, and I've had friends who have had to navigate that set of problems with their families (particularly mid & post-pandemic), but for today, the examples I'll use fall under the class of behaviors that are "harmful over the long term, but don't put your kid in imminent danger"[1].

Think:

• Don't exercise at all: watch the incredibly harmful effects of this on the body.
• Stay in your room all day: watch the incredibly harmful effects of this on the mind.
• Be negatively influenced by the Internet, e.g.: be convinced to hate yourself by someone on a popular social-media site. Watch the incredibly harmful effects of this on the mind, body, self-image, self-esteem, etc.
• Make incredibly poor dietary choices, which, when coupled with the sedentary lifestyle, you get to watch the incredibly harmful effects of this on the mind and body.

These all fall under "the kid is not only old enough to make their own decisions, it's age-appropriate to allow them to do so [and detrimental not to]". Meaning: at a certain point, kids need to begin to flex their own judgement, a process during which said judgement is honed through successive iterations of (a) making decisions and then (b) living with the consequences. If, as a parent, you don't give your kid the freedom to engage in this process, you're technically doing them a great disservice (given you won't always be around to help them make decisions).

I've found this process to be the most difficult phase of parenting thus far. I watch, and worry, and wait, and hope. I hope for the best outcomes for my kids, while fully disagreeing with some of the choices they have made.

We all know there's a teen mental health crisis right now, so it's a great time to pay careful attention to your teens mental health. We all know how predatory the Internet is. We all know how harmful excessive screen time is to adolescents. We all know how harmful social isolation is to adolescents. We all know how harmful not exercising is. And part of what makes this difficult is (a) knowing exactly what's harming your kid and (b) knowing exactly how/why .. and yet, your job is sit on the sidelines and watch (and wait) (and hope).

It may be the case that it's all so unnerving because in a way, the outcome here may be a test of your overall parenting strategy: if, eventually, your kid figures it all out (and begins to make healthy choices), well, that's great: you may have help set up the conditions to allow this to occur, but if they don't, well, won't you always question whether you did enough, and whether you did/said the right things, and if there's anything you might have been able to do to change the outcome?

TLDR: The feeling of helplessness, of simply abiding in it, is very difficult.

I think the most difficult part of being in an intimate relationship is when realize you're watching your partner do things that are extremely harmful to themselves while you begin to understand just how little power you have to change this.

I've always known that, as people get older, their potential paths of self-destruction widen significantly. I understand it's even worse for people with a history of violence, trauma, and abuse, but I think maybe I mostly understood all of this more from an academic standpoint than from a more visceral, experiential one.

However, I've also experienced a primary, intimate, long-term relationship end due to a substance use disorder. Since then, I've been in counseling, attended a support group, and have read a handful of books on addiction and relationships to try to understand what happened.

One of those books is In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté. It's full of very helpful background information on why people with substance use disorders seem to make such puzzling decisions, such as the ones that are the most self-destructive.

A couple of of my favorite quotes from the book:

and:

(What a brutal decision)

I've found the process of watching a substance use disorder unfold to be the most difficult and painful process of any relationship I've ever been in. It might even be more painful than divorce, which was easily the previous front-runner (with no other experience on the list).

The hardest part is the helplessness you feel in this situation. You're helpless to help. You can only sit there and watch. And if your partner had the potential to be a lifetime partner (aka: you had found "your person") well, it's excruciating.

You can try to help: get the person into counseling, get them in front of their MD, get them into a recovery program, get them into a trauma support group, help them with their housing, medical expenses, and other bills, and while that sounds like a lot (and it is), it's not enough. There are profound limitations on how much you can help, and those begin with the use of the substance itself.

And anyone who has ever tried to help someone in a similar position will invariably feel guilty they didn't do enough, and there's a quote from the book that references this specifically:

Agreed (though it doesn't help very much).

You can enter into the decision to try to help someone with a substance use disorder to begin their path to recovery with eyes wide open: you know it's unlikely to work out in the end, you know they'll blame you for any relapse, you know you're going to get hurt[3], you know you're going to be lied to, and you know you're making yourself incredibly vulnerable. But even though the odds are against you, you know you couldn't live with yourself if you didn't at least try. And so you try. But even knowing all of that: in the event that it doesn't work out, it still hurts like hell.

One thing I did learn from the book is about a sort of "helplessness paradox", in which the following two dynamics are both happening simultaneously:

1. The addict herself believes they are incapable of helping themself and seeking treatment[3]. This is due to a combination of factors, such as changes to the brain over time (due to addiction), past trauma, terrible/scary/painful internal emotions, as well as feeling powerless over the disease. The point being: the addict feels powerless to change the situation.
2. The people around the addict believe they are incapable of helping the addict seek treatment. Maté agrees ("While it is natural for the loved ones of an addict to wish to reform him or her, it cannot be done"). The whole thing is so fraught that most people can't even offer to help: it's so emotionally draining and the odds are stacked against you. The point being: the people around the addict feels powerless to change the situation.

The other thing I learned is that substance use disorder is a mechanism for abandonment in a relationship. To quote Maté: "Addiction is a way to avoid intimacy." Both drug addiction and alcoholism are ways to not feel, and so under the influence of these substances, your partner also doesn't feel for you. The more your partner uses, the further away they are from you, until one day you realize they're no longer with you at all.

While it's never something I thought I'd write (because it's a cliché), but: if you lose a partner this way, you're really left all alone to pick up the pieces. That process is lonely. And sad.

Trying To Stop Writing Now

(There are a million more things to say. My guess is they will be left unsaid.)

I did some personal writing during this time, from the heart, which I'll put into a footnote below[4], as I never really intended anyone to read it.

And one last quote before I stop writing: "Addiction is the loss of self, recovery is the finding of self.". I think that's true. The 2nd step to recovery is to ask "Who am I?"

TLDR: The feeling of helplessness, of simply abiding in it, is very difficult, and in this case: excruciating.

I've read a ton about SUD in a book called "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" by Gabor Maté, and it's really helped me to understand what's happening internally in a person with SUD. The intellectual understanding is helpful, but it doesn't help heal the heart.

My overall goal in reading the book was to understand: to understand the mechanics of addiction, to understand why people behave the way they do (and why they make the decisions that they make), but mostly to understand why a person with a substance use disorder, if it progresses along far enough, ends up with burning it all down: destroying relationships, giving up on love, giving up on themselves, turning on the people who tried to help, and in a sense destroying the potential for a great future that they were able to see at some point.

I think in the end, the book did help me make some sense of things, but it didn't help with either the pain or the loss from the destruction of one of my primary relationships. I think that's just going to take some time (and honestly, I don't see that pain as ever going away).

Here are a handful of quotes from this book that really resonated with me.

• [p29] How powerful the addiction, that not all of the physical disease and pain and psychological torment can shake loose it's lethal hold on their souls.
• [p29] People jeopardize their lives for the sake of making the moment livable. Nothing sways them from their habit, not illness, not the sacrifice of love and relationship, not the loss of all earthly goods, not the crushing of their own dignity, not the fear of dying.
• [p35] Far more than a quest for pleasure, chronic substance use is the addict's attempt to escape distress.
• [p65] On the profound inability to trust someone else: "Every person I ever wanted to trust, I've been hurt by. I truly am in love with my partner, but for the life of me I can't being myself to believe that he will not betray me. It stems right back to my past trauma".
• [p69] There's a fine line between healthy boundaries and codependency, where you're just getting walked over. In the heat of the moment, it's so tough for me to discern that.
• [p116] There's a deep state of denial, contrary to all reason and evidence, you refuse to acknowledge tat you're hurting yourself or anyone else. In the denial state you're completely resistant to asking yourself any questions at all. But if you want to know, look around you. Are you closer to the people you love after your passion has been fulfilled, or more isolated? Have you come more truly into who you are, or are you left feeling hollow?
• [p175] In other words, drug addiction damages the parts of the brain responsible for decision making. When certain areas of the brain are damaged, there are predicable patterns of impaired rational decision making and diminished impulse regulation.
• [p177] In other words, people impaired prefrontal cortex function will have poor impulse control and will behave in ways that to others seem uncalled for, childish, or bizarre.
• [p180] Due to poorly regulated brain systems, they seem programmed to accept short-term gain - for example, the drug high - at the risk of long-term pain: disease, personal loss, legal troubles, and so on.
• [p202] Alcohol consumption has a similar pattern: those who had suffered sexual abuse were three times more likely to begin drinking in adolescence than those who were not. "Overall, these studies provide evidence that stress and trauma are common factors associated with consumption of alcohol at an early age as a means to self-regulate negative or painful emotions."
• [p204] As a result, in intimate relationships and in other areas of life, the afflicted individual fluctuates between idealized and degraded perceptions of himself, other people, and the world.
• [p028] Often they see no link between childhood experience and their self-harming habits.
• [p224] Substance addictions are often linked to one another, and chronic substance users are highly likely to have more than one addiction.
• [p233] It's hard to imagine how anyone would define hitting rock bottom in the cases of people who have lost all of their earthly possessions, spouses, children, self-esteem, health, and the possibility of living out anything close to a normal human life span.
• [p238] The less basic differentiation a person has attained, the more prone he is to rely on relationships to maintain his emotional balance. When relationships fail to sustain such people, they may turn to addiction as the emotional crutch. They feel hurt easily and are quick to believe that they are being rejected - and their level of drug use often hinges on what's happening in their relationships. They are often unwilling to engage in a process of recovery because their partner is unwilling to join them; they see the relationship as being more important than their own healthy self.
• [p238] These, then, are the traits that most often underlie the addiction process: poor self-regulation, lack of basic differentiation, lack of a healthy sense of self, a sense of deficient emptiness, and impaired impulse control.
• [p246] In a long-term relationship you have to face yourself. It's very scary and potentially very painful to face one's deepest fears. Replacing a negative emotion with a positive one is the core of addictive behavior.
• [p267] Addiction cuts large swarths across our culture. Many of us are burdened with compulsive behaviors that harm us and others, behaviors whose toxicity we fail to acknowledge or feel powerless to stop.
• [p358] I have blamed my wife for not satisfying my expectations instead of taking responsibility for the burdens I impose on our relationship through poor self-regulation and lack of differentiation (my capacity to hold on to a sense of self while interacting with others). That leaves me free to use the addictions for self-soothing and to justify doing so by citing my "unmet" needs. In other words. the consequences of my own willful refusal to be a mature, self-regulating adult becomes my rationale for pursuing addictive behaviors.
• [p364] The dominant emotions suffusing all addictive behavior are fear and resentment - as inseparable vaudeville team of unhappiness.
• [p365] "One cannot get rid of anything, one cannot get over anything, one cannot repel anything - everything hurts".
• [p371] Addiction confers invulnerability because it allows us to soothe vulnerable emotions like pain or fear of the aching for love with behaviors, objects, or substances whenever we choose. It's a way to avoid intimacy.
• [p390] Addiction is primarily about the self, about the unconscious, insecure self that at every moment considers only it's own immediate desires, and believes that it must behave that way. That she cannot rely on the nurturing environment becomes her core myth. The mind of the addict is beset by constant worry and soothed only by the addictive substance or activity.
• [p400] To live with an addict of any kind is frustrating, emotionally painful, and often infuriating. Family, friends, and spouse may feel that they are dealing with a double personality: one sane an lovable, the other devious and uncaring. They believe the first is real and hope the second will go away. In truth, the second is the shadow of the first and will no sooner leave than a shadow abandon the object whose shape it traces on the ground. While it is natural for the loved ones of an addict to wish to reform him, it cannot be done.
• [p401] Family, friends, and partners of addicts will sometimes have only one reasonable decision in front of them: either to choose to be with the addict as she is or choose to not be with her. No one is obligated to put up with the unreliability, dishonesty, and emotional withdrawal - the ways of the addict.
• [p401] If refusal to take on responsibility for another person's behaviors burdens you with guilt, while consenting to it leaves you eaten by resentment, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide.