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Category: Realizing Recovery Blog

Parenting Teenagers in Recovery

The role of being a parent again, in recovery, has been such a blessing! I missed so much of my kids’ lives due to active addiction and I never thought I would have the opportunity to raise children again. I am so grateful I have a second chance at being a mom, of having the honor to help raise my partner’s now young teenagers. However, parenting teenagers isn’t particularly easy for anyone. Add to that us both being in recovery, my current mental health journey, both of our kids having behavioral health challenges, and us being a lesbian couple, and it makes the dynamics even more complex. As we navigate the path of parenthood and recovery together, it’s been crucial that we’ve established open communication, built trust, and continue to foster a supportive environment for our teenagers.

Be the Change

I can remember many times walking past a person experiencing homelessness. The thoughts that came to mind brought feelings of shame. Something inside me wanted to give to them, but I was taught they were dangerous, morally defective, and fully capable of making money if they wanted to. As time passed, I stopped looking at “them” but could never shake the feeling that something was amiss with my actions or lack thereof. The poverty around me made me wonder what kind of person I am to pass community members experiencing homelessness. Yet, I was going home, deciding which show to watch, Seinfeld or Friends.

Volunteering

When we are not well, we don’t have the opportunity to get to know ourselves. We are consumed by our own darkness. Once we begin the journey of recovery the light begins to find its way in and we often begin to ask, who am I. What do I like? What do I want to do with my time, my life? We may find we need to let go of friends we hung out with. We may find we have lots of extra time to fill but unsure how to fill it. This is where I encourage the idea of volunteerism.

Service Work and Volunteering

Throughout my life service work and volunteering were something I regularly did without a thought. I did it because I wanted to and cared deeply for human beings in general, even just having met them. I can remember volunteering was something I started doing as a young girl. My mom and I would drive from our small town to the bigger city with Wal-Mart or Payless, to buy shoes for children in our community through a non-profit that ran off donations. Or volunteering to help with children in classrooms, buying food for the homeless population, or giving clothes away that I no longer needed to someone who did.

Service Work and Volunteering is Sacred

For most of my life, I didn’t put much time and effort into things unless it was self-fulfilling, of some sort. I always have had a big heart and loved to help feed, support, and be there in any way I could for family and loved ones, but past that, I didn’t do much that was out of my way of comfort, and added to my own status or towards a goal that was for my own selfish needs. As I grew older, I was taught that we do what we can for others, with boundaries. I wanted the acceptance of others and turned into a “Yes” person very early in recovery. I got sober in a program that believed in incentives. It taught me as an adult, that there was appreciation and meaning in going out of my comfort zone to help others.

Embracing the Power of Service Work: A Journey of Recovery and Giving Back

Service work and volunteering hold a profound place in the hearts of individuals in substance use and mental health recovery. As someone who has embarked on a personal journey of recovery for the past 7.5 years, I have come to appreciate the transformative power of giving back. Though many people in substance use recovery will see service work and volunteering through the lens of 12-step programs, there is purpose and value in volunteering outside of the 12-step communities too, especially for those on a different recovery pathway.

Radical Acceptance

When I did this month’s webinar on the topic “Radical Acceptance”, one of the comments was on the word radical paired with acceptance. Radical commonly can be referred to a person who is an extremist in their advocacy on topics that are less than traditional. So, the thought was, I understand acceptance in life and as events happen that are less than acceptable, but how I am expected to radically accept these events as something I am putting an “I am ok with this happening to me” stamp on it?

Illustration of a girl holding a heart with rainbows and clouds around her.

In the Pursuit of Truth

Radical acceptance is like waking up in the middle of a dream and clearly looking at life for the first time. The reality of what I had created while I was asleep in my addiction was startling. The truth that I was unwilling to look at had built momentum, and the consequences of those choices were overwhelming. Recovery demands honesty; every courageous action forward balances authenticity and vulnerability. It meant I could no longer play the victim of life; I needed to be responsible for the life I could create with a willingness to work hard to heal and forgive.

Hands holding paper faces with emotions drawn on them.

Radical Acceptance Without DBT

We most often hear about radical acceptance in the context of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) but the concept can be applied with other therapies as well. Part of radical acceptance is acknowledging our thoughts about ourselves even if we aren’t in the right space to challenge those thoughts directly as with DBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

Painting of a young woman in the water

Radical Acceptance Opens the Door to Self-acceptance

Radical acceptance comes in moments of clarity, where denial transforms into connection. The test of my commitment to radical acceptance shows up when I try to fix, control, ruminate about the past, predict the future, or avoid pain.

Radical Acceptance

When I think of radical acceptance, I think of when my only brother passed away. I was in Montana’s Women’s Prison and didn’t have a chance to go to his services. It hurt, and I was sober for the first time since I was a teenager. I was sober, but I wouldn’t say I was in recovery, because I was still living in a way that had many, many character defects.

Radical Acceptance – A DBT Distress Tolerance Skill I Still Utilize

I have struggled with mental health challenges and substance use for most of my life. In my early 20’s I was in and out of psychiatric hospitalizations frequently. I felt everything very intensely and my 20’s were filled with misery, agony, and despair. Though I don’t look back on that time of my life fondly, my difficulties opened the door for me to participate in DBT therapy.

Technology and Mental Health

You have probably heard that computers, phones, social media, and other apps are bad for your mental health. That can definitely be an issue as many things in our lives can affect our mental health. In general, too much of just about anything can be problematic. There are various ways in which technology can adversely affect us but there are great things that technology can do for us.

Mental Health: The Most Important Conversation

Mental Health Awareness month, what a beautiful way to bring awareness to a very important topic. Growing up I considered mental health to be very extreme mental health disorders. For example, depression/suicide, substance abuse/addiction, or diagnosis/personality disorders. Also, feeling statements that were commonly heard and used were simply happy, mad, and sad. Mental health is so much more complex than the ones I listed. I now believe those are the extremes, because mental health hasn’t/hadn’t ever been addressed. Navigating something within ourselves, without the knowledge and words, leads to a recipe for disaster.

The Inner Child and My Mental Health Disorder

What people see on the outside is just a hint of what is happening within. Moving through life and feeling the world while my trauma weaves stories about my emotions creates a mental storm legitimized by science as a mental health disorder. Some people call this empathic or highly sensitive, being tuned into what my immediate circle feels and carrying the unspoken weight of our disease. Mental health goes back as far as I could research in my family; it is the generational pattern that has been transferred from mother to child; it manifests as the burning of the internal turmoil in the middle of my life and replaces the peace my heart came here to feel.

Mental Health Awareness Month

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and as someone who is in recovery from substance use disorder and mental health issues, I am grateful for this opportunity to share my story and help raise awareness about mental health. I live in Billings, Montana, and even here I’ve found that it can be challenging for people in our community to find the resources and support they need to manage these conditions. That’s why I feel it’s essential to talk openly about mental health to help reduce stigma and encourage people to seek help when they need it.

A Journey to Wellness

I recently learned about the 8 Dimensions of Wellness. Before I dive into these, I first want to define what “wellness” means. Wellness is the “act of practicing healthy habits on a daily basis to attain better physical and mental health outcomes.1” For many people, wellness is associated with physical health, but not necessarily with mental health. I know that was true for me for much of my life. By taking stock of different areas of my life and consciously making a plan for how to improve these various aspects, I can increase my quality of life. I am just starting this journey myself and have a ways to go, but I believe with guidance from these dimensions, I can make some improvements in myself.

The Importance of Mental Health Awareness

When I started getting diagnosed with mental health conditions, I was still a teenager. I was ashamed, scared, and felt like I was doomed. I come from a family that has both mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders, so I was aware of what they both can look like. It hit me hard, and even though I had seen struggles within my family’s dynamics, I still held shame and guilt from my situation. I later learned that the shame and guilt was not mine to carry, but before that, I carried it like I was packing luggage around, everywhere I went.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month!

Check out stickers and other resources for Mental Health Awareness Month and Children’s Mental Health Acceptance Week!

8 Dimensions of Wellness Wheel

Mental Health Awareness Month 2023

I have, over the past couple of years, been homing in on specific dimension of wellness and working on the dimension for an entire year. Each of these dimensions plays a key role in my overall mental health.

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