Substance Use in the Family & Children's Mental Health

Mental health status isn’t just diagnoses and medication: mood, thought processes, and behavior are all factors of how someone is doing. Like all development, one’s lifelong mental and behavioral health begins early in childhood. As much as we wish the opposite was true, unpleasant emotions and events are unavoidable even in childhood. These events may have a very deep impact since children are constantly learning about the world around them.

PTSD is largely associated with combat veterans or other survivors of physical violence, but many life events can result in post-traumatic stress. PTSD is often thought to result from singular or isolated events that the person no longer directly interacts with but can’t fully leave behind. Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is differentiated by the repeated exposure to trauma over time and most often develops in early childhood. Repetitive traumas may be more embedded in their lives or overlooked in the present because it is part of their norm. Stress and trauma are shown to change the trajectory of brain development on a structural level, especially in the fight-or-flight response and in assessing their environment for danger. Examples may include a parent or family member with an addiction or serious mental illness, going through a divorce, or other periods of time characterized by uncertainty or instability.

Having someone with an addiction in the family system often breeds codependency. Codependency is a learned relationship pattern that undermines individual self-esteem and personal boundaries in favor of enmeshment and self-sacrifice in the interest of the dysfunctional person. Enmeshment describes weak personal boundaries that feel permeable or unclear between people, including their mood having direct impacts on one’s own. It’s important to note that codependent behaviors are exaggerations of normal behaviors. Leaning on and supporting loved ones is part of being a family, but it shifts at doing so to the point of detriment.

Children who grow up in these systems are not taught healthy coping mechanisms or how to establish an independent identity separate from the family unit. These environments teach family members that it is not ok to have personal feelings, problems, or even to enjoy a life of their own. Children with codependent relationship patterns may believe they are not good enough, nor inherently deserving of love, which leads kids to see affection through a scarcity mindset. These kids learn that stressful events or behavior are somehow their fault. Foundational expectations of themselves and others like these will outline how kids form their future relationships.

Kids notice and take on more than adults perceive, including substance abuse or other behavioral health struggles in the family. Growing up with a close family member with an addiction has been linked to higher rates of behavioral health struggles like mental illnesses or their own substance abuse. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness among children as they affect about 13 percent of kids in America, and children of people with addictions are twice as likely to develop an addiction themselves. However, people can unlearn unhealthy relationship patterns to support their own self-esteem and independence. Assert your boundaries by making them clear to others and holding yourself to them. The short-term consequences of the other person being upset are uncomfortable, but it gets easier. Remember that other people’s feelings are not your responsibility to fix or manage.

Reflecting on one’s participation in a relationship is a way to heal codependent relationship patterns. Kids won’t necessarily be able to verbalize what the dysfunction is or how it affects them, but adults in their lives that can may be able to guide them. Personal reflection on the adult’s part must come first. Look into your own relationships: how are boundaries respected? Are there clear lines between where one person’s issues/feelings end and another’s begin? What do you do to prioritize yourself and safety? Knowing this about yourself makes it possible to break the cycle for yourself and, in turn, model those around you.

If you’d like to share a story of resilience surrounding behavioral health, consider submitting an anonymous entry to Stories from the Strong at valleycarecoalition.com.