Taking care of you.

Core beliefs.

The deep rules a person never chose — I'm not enough, I'm a burden, if people really knew me they'd go. Installed early, running quietly underneath everything.

What it looks like at home:

• Someone who believes they're a burden will not ask for help at the exact moment they need it most.
• Someone who believes they're unlovable will test whether you'll leave, over and over, until you do.
• You have them too: "if I'd been a better parent," "if I'd noticed sooner."

What helps:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy is the work of dragging those beliefs into the light and checking whether they're true. Not chanting affirmations — checking evidence.
• Check yours against evidence as well.
• Listen for the absolutes — always, never, everyone, nobody. That's usually a belief talking, not a fact.

The books for this one: Mind Over Mood — Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky. A workbook, not a read; it is the CBT one. And No Bad Parts — Richard Schwartz, if the internal family systems idea lands for you.

Go deeper: CBT · Internal family systems, which works with the different parts of a person that want different things · IFS Institute · Dual diagnosis treatment

Grief and loss.

You're grieving. Not a death — a version of a person. The kid you thought you'd have, the marriage you planned, the years this took.

The stages our family program uses: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, acceptance. Built on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' original work.

What it looks like at home:

• Grief doesn't run on a schedule and it isn't a straight line. People move back and forth, skip stages, and hit them out of order.
• Most families never give themselves permission to call it grief at all.
• It ambushes you at odd times. A photo, a song, somebody else's good news about their kid.

What helps:

• Acceptance isn't approval. It's stopping the fight with what already happened.
• If the heaviness doesn't lift — most days, for weeks — talk to someone. Families get depressed too, and they almost never treat it.
• You can grieve who they were and love who they are at the same time. Both are allowed, in the same week.

The books for this one: Beautiful Boy — David Sheff, a father's account of his son's addiction. The one to hand someone who thinks no other family has been here. And Maybe You Should Talk to Someone — Lori Gottlieb, on what therapy is really like, if you're weighing your own.

Go deeper: Depression · Individual therapy · NIMH on depression · The Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation

The eight dimensions of wellness.

Emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, spiritual. Sobriety is not a life.

What it looks like at home:

• A person who has stopped using but has no work, no friends, no money and nowhere to be has not arrived anywhere yet. That empty space is where relapse lives.
• Most families of someone in treatment are down to about two dimensions: the crisis, and work.

What helps:

• Run the list on yourself, not just on them. Two dimensions isn't sustainable, and your family member can feel it.
• Pick one dimension, not eight. One friendship, one walk, one appointment you keep for yourself.

Where it comes from: SAMHSA, the federal agency for substance use and mental health.

Go deeper: Building recovery communities in Austin · The Austin social scene in recovery