You don’t need to stop feeling guilty… What to do instead
Contrary to popular belief, guilt is not usually a problem that parents of addicted adult children need to solve.
🫨 What do you mean, Viki?! I feel guilty ALL THE TIME!
Yup, I get that. But, before I explain…
I can’t tell you how many *eye rolls* I’ve initiated in response to parents being told:
“You need to get over your guilt.” 🙄 Or…
“You need to forgive yourself.” 🙄 (Slightly better)
I actually heard a “parent coach” on some podcast say this: that parents of addicted children just need to “get over” their guilt. Didn’t say how we’re supposed to do that, of course.
So easy.
Just let it go… 🙄
I even heard an “Addictions Counselor” on Youtube once say that parents just need to “forgive themselves” for whatever they did… in parenting their now addicted adult children.
🙄 🙄 🙄 Don’t even get me started.
Now, I know that people say these things in an attempt to help. Their hearts are in the right place. So, I’m not mad at that.
What I don’t like is when “professionals” pretend that they understand a problem, or have a solution for it, when they don’t.
Just say you don’t know… It’s fine! I don’t know lots of things!
And, if you’ve “bought into” this view - that you need to “get over” feelings of guilt, don’t feel bad - it actually makes sense that you might think this.
Parents in this situation often feel guilty. 🙋 And who wants to feel that?! 🙅
It would be nice if we could just get rid of it…maybe.
On the surface, it looks like guilt or “feeling guilty” is the problem. It then makes sense that people want to help you “get over” this guilt.
Luckily, I know a lot about what’s going on underneath the surface.
Thanks to my work as a psychotherapist and being a parent in this situation myself - plus I’m just a total nerd when it comes to figuring things like this out - I’ve spent many hours dissecting the thinking and behaviors that lead to and perpetuate “guilt” in parents.
And, I’m here to tell you:
If you’re trying to “get over” your feelings of guilt… you’re trying to solve the wrong problem. 😯
Guilty feelings are not the problem here.
HOT TIP: Feelings are NEVER the problem…
In today’s post, I’m going to cover a few important things that you can come back to repeatedly, whenever you’re feeling guilty. And, even if you aren’t experiencing guilt right now, I recommend reading this at least once, so that you have a sense of what might be happening for you IF you’re beating yourself up or otherwise feeling bad about yourself, or so that you can help another parent you know.
We’ll look at:
🌟 Why trying to “get over” feeling guilty doesn’t work
🌟 “Bad advice” you may have heard about dealing with guilt
🌟 Five ways that parents make themselves feel worse
🌟 Four things you can start practicing right away to stop fueling and acting on guilty feelings
Let’s dig in, shall we?
Trying to solve for GUILT keeps you (irony alert!)... feeling guilty 🤦
When you try to solve a problem without understanding its causes, you can very easily contribute to the problem and make it worse.
Here’s an example of this from a totally unrelated issue (it can be really helpful to use something off-topic):
My SI Joint issue 😫
I’ve been experiencing SI Joint issues and pain (in the lower back) for about 3 years now. Since my muscles started feeling tight and sore, due to this issue, I was stretching them and doing different exercises to deal with the pain daily. Also, at least three physical therapists told me to keep doing these exercises and stretches - so I followed their instructions hoping it would eventually work.
For three years, I was so frustrated that nothing seemed to help or fix my issue for long. I would get a little relief, but then the pain would just persist. It drove me crazy! 😱
Finally, I found a physical therapist who taught me that all the stretches, the yoga poses, and the exercises that I had been doing multiple times a day were actually keeping me stuck in this pain cycle. Without knowing it, I had been (with the “help” of professionals) contributing to the very problem I wanted to solve. 😡
I found out that my SI Joint did not NEED any more stretching - it needed the opposite: stabilization. The problem was that it was unstable and too loose. Thank goodness I found this particular therapist, and I am now allowing my stressed out SI Joint to finally rest and heal.
But, it’s so irritating that every physical therapist did not have this information that could have saved me literally years of pain, money, and time. I had stopped doing a lot of the things that I really wanted to do because of the ongoing pain. It didn’t need to be that way!
The therapist I finally found knew what the problem was and wasn’t - so that I could address it. Before, I had been unknowingly causing my own suffering - with no end in sight.
Once I got help for the actual problem, I started feeling better in about two weeks.
Two WEEKS! After three YEARS of pain!
And, not surprisingly, he was a physical therapist who ALSO had experienced and solved his own SI Joint pain. He had been highly motivated to figure out the cause of the problem, because he was going through it himself. And he did. 🙌
Now, getting back to Guilt for parents…
When parents think that “guilt” is the problem - and it’s not - they tend to keep doing things that contribute to their guilty feelings - and even make them worse.
And, just like the different physical therapists who kept telling me to do the very things that made my pain and suffering worse…
You may hear advice or misinformation from others that ends up making you feel worse… or at best, that doesn't solve your problem. Or, you may naturally just try things for yourself that don’t help (like me with all the stretching).
Common advice you might try in order to “get over” your guilt:
Trying to convince yourself that you “shouldn’t feel” guilty - you’re a “great Mom” after all. 😇
You try to “let it all go” - just don’t think about the guilt. Put it on a cloud… 🌥️ 🤣
Working on forgiveness: for all the mistakes you made. 😏
Positive thinking and gratitude. 🙏
You may hear these types of things from others as well:
You’re a great Mom!
You shouldn’t feel that way.
You need to let that guilt go!
You did the right thing.
You need to forgive yourself.
Don’t get me wrong…
I love some reassurance that I’m a “good Mom” now and then, and I appreciate everyone who tries to make me feel better. I’m sure you do too. More importantly, I know that most people want to help, and I don’t expect them to be able to do more than say nice things. And, there is a time and a place for reassurance or “feel good” statements - you might want this from friends and family.
But, it doesn’t help us to stop feeding our guilty feelings or to work with them in a helpful way for long. The good feelings just don’t last. Once left to our own devices, parents tend to go right back to a sense of guilt that may haunt them indefinitely.
Here’s why this advice just doesn’t tend to help:
👉 When we try to control what we cannot control… like thoughts and feelings… we’re fighting a losing battle. This can lead to a Tug of War with your own mind. If you’re trying to think positive thoughts or convince yourself that you did the “right thing,” or that you’re a “good Mom,” this can devolve into a scenario like the Angel and Devil on a cartoon character’s shoulders. The Angel sings your praises 😇 but the Devil will never let that praise go unanswered. 👿
Before you know it, you’ve got an inner dialogue going on that may continue indefinitely. And, it’s not fun (understatement).
👉 You may start to feel bad about feeling guilty. Great…guilt about feeling guilt. Because you weren’t feeling bad enough. 😬
It’s important to know that EVERY feeling is valid. Yes, even so-called negative feelings like guilt.
It’s popular today to hear things like: “No more silence, no more shame!” Or: “No regrets!”
Good luck with that. 🤣
The truth is that it’s completely normal to have waves of guilt, shame, and other painful emotions. Guilt and shame are valid emotions. Welcome to being human. 😌
And it can feel very dismissive or invalidating to have someone say “You shouldn’t feel that way.” Or worse, that you need to “get over it.” 😤
Honestly, they wouldn’t say this if they knew that trying to change your thoughts and feelings tends to exacerbate them. What we resist persists.
👉 Also, when you react to your own feelings by trying to push them away, you miss the opportunity to find out more about those feelings, including what’s fueling them. It can be much more helpful to look deeply into it and see it for what it is.
👉 In a desperate attempt to not “feel guilty,” you may end up doing more of the very things that you don’t want to be doing - and thus cause you more guilt. Things like: enabling and overgiving, reacting in anger to prove you’re right, forsaking your boundaries, sacrificing your own needs, etc.
Trying to “get over your guilt” sends you right back into the Pain - Control - Stress Cycle.
So, if guilt isn’t the problem, what is?
I’m so glad you asked! 😊
It’s what we do before, during, and after we feel guilty. 🤔
Before I dive into problems and solutions, as I see them, let me just say that:
Complex “people” problems and helpful solutions to them are nuanced. It’s not as easy to express them as it is to offer platitudes or “feel-good” advice.
This blog would be much faster to write if I could just tell you:
“Let it go…” “You need to forgive yourself and get over it.” Or, “Think positively!”
See the tiny amount of space that advice takes up on this page?! ☝️
I WISH it were that easy!! 🧚🪄
Instead, real solutions to emotional and mental suffering are complex. They take a bit more effort and finesse. They overlap and depend on different variables. At first, they seem messy.
With that preface, let’s dive in. ⚠️
Five things Parents do before, during, and after feeling guilty… That keep them feeling guilty.
1. They ignore the normality of past behavior.
The vast majority of parents who have addicted adult children (AAC) have not done ANYTHING differently than parents whose children do not have addiction issues.
But, parents of addicted adult children will look for, dwell on, and habitually overanalyze everything they wish they hadn’t done (or wish they had done) with their AAC.
They question or even convince themselves that if they had done things differently, maybe their children wouldn’t have this problem. We’re talking about some good ole fashion Mom guilt.
It could be something small (like yelling at their child once or twice over something unimportant) or something “big” (like getting a divorce). But parents will take anything that wasn’t an ideal childhood experience for their kids and focus on it as a “possible cause” for what went wrong.
I always find this interesting (and believe me, I’ve done this too!) because some parents say:
“Maybe it’s because my spouse and I got a divorce.”
Others say: “Maybe it’s because I stayed too long in an unhappy marriage.”
Some say, “I didn’t do enough for my child.”
Others: “I hovered and did too much for my child.”
Ummm? 😶🌫️
They ignore the FACT that their parental behavior was perfectly normal - even if it was less than desirable/regrettable behavior. It is normal to be less than perfect as a parent.
And…It is normal to feel guilty when you do or say things you wish you hadn’t with your kids.
If the guilt stopped there…it would be normal “Mom guilt.”
But, PAAC usually don’t stop there…
Instead, the memory of their imperfect behavior is quickly followed by a LOT of overthinking: “And maybe that’s why my child is now addicted/mentally ill/homeless…”
And, this is why the advice, “You need to forgive yourself” usually isn’t helpful. Parents who have AAC usually don’t have anything extraordinary to forgive themselves for!
Parents of addicted adult children have only made the same parenting mistakes that most parents have made. Hearing from someone that they need to “forgive themselves” could even make them think that that person believes they did something “extra-bad” that they should feel guilty about. Not helpful.
2. They don’t allow feelings of guilt when they arise.
This overlaps with the first problem. If parents feel bad about doing something they wish they hadn’t done, that’s fine. And completely normal.
This is why guilty feelings are not necessarily a problem. We have feelings for a reason.
For example: “I wish I hadn’t criticized my son when he didn’t listen to me. I feel guilty about what I said.” This is fine. No problem. It actually makes sense if we don’t like how we behaved when it wasn’t very nice.
So, go ahead and feel bad, remorseful, or guilty. No big deal. These feelings, for most of us, are an ineluctable part of being human.
You don’t need to conquer a feeling. 😅
In fact, it’s helpful to accept and allow your emotions. It will fade away all by itself (in about 90 seconds, according to research) - IF you don’t use it as a jumping off point to start obsessing and overthinking.
Just accept that you made a human mistake if you truly KNOW that you did. We sometimes wish we could have been perfect for our precious children; but no one gets perfect parents. It’s just a fact of life.
If you can genuinely accept and allow your experience of guilty feelings, it’s not a problem.
What parents tend to next, though, is a problem:
3. They cross over into rumination.
This means that, instead of just accepting that you feel some pangs of guilt in the present moment, you might start ruminating - or trying to figure out what you can’t figure out in your head.
Usually this looks like taking something you feel bad about, and then adding onto it by thinking it to death.
For example: “I feel bad about yelling at my child when he kicked his sister.” “I wish I’d been more understanding.” (No problem here.)
Enter rumination:
“I wonder if this is why my child has this problem now.”
“If I hadn’t done __, or if I had only done __,” they probably wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“Maybe I caused their addiction by being this kind of parent.”
“Maybe I should be putting more effort into getting them help now.”
And, then, parents try really hard to figure these things out…
In their heads - aka, their imaginations.
They might ask their significant other if they think they were a “bad Mom.”
They imagine doing more and “making” their adult child get the help they need now.
They kind of go into a “trance” trying to figure out…
What they can never figure out 😵💫
This is classic rumination. Not fun or helpful; but it feels like it’s important to think about it - like it will somehow help you get to resolution on the topic and feel better.
It’s a trap. ⛔
Rumination is a compulsive mental activity that feels distressing and that feeds distress.
It’s a source of suffering. As a counselor who has specialized in anxiety and OCD for more than a decade, I’ve worked with rumination a LOT.
The good news with rumination is that, because it’s a compulsion, we can actually CHOOSE not to do it. Easier said than done; but with correct methods and practice, it gets much easier.
4. They don’t recognize and accept uncertainty
When parents review their past “mistakes” and think that “if only” they would have done something differently/better, they are overlooking the absolute FACT that they have no idea if that different behavior would have led to a different outcome for their addicted child.
Literally, the very thing that you WISH you had done differently…had you actually done it…could have led to something far worse! Or, to the exact same outcome.
We just don’t know. 🤷
But, instead of acknowledging that they may never know “why this is happening” to their child and then accepting that… they get up in their heads, continuously wondering if it’s somehow because of them. Or if there’s something they should be doing now.
Uncertainty can be extremely difficult to accept and tolerate when there is a lot of it. And, addiction is an illness that is fraught with uncertainty. Our minds desperately seek to KNOW what is wrong - and why - with our children. For at least 18 years, we have been instinctively and gladly seeing problems in our kids and then solving them.
Even though we cannot fix addiction problems for our now adult children, it’s like fighting biology to stop trying. Instead of recognizing and accepting the uncertainty of the agonizing situation, we get up in our heads and try to figure it all out there.
Try as we might, uncertainty exists, and we may never know the answer to ”Why is this happening to my child?!”
5. They ignore reality and invest in imagination
Parents can be relentless in their self-blaming and beating themselves up for how they must have “failed” their children, or for what they “should be doing,” but aren’t.
This is another reason why the advice of “forgive yourself” tends not to help. I will often hear from parents that they can “never forgive themselves” because they assume that they somehow did something really bad. Or…they think they are STILL doing the “wrong” things… possibly.
Fortunately, we don’t have to pronounce ourselves “forgiven” in order to be emotionally healthy.
How would we even do that? Recite it out loud and click our heels together three times? 👠👠
Let me also say that if you DO have a sense that you’ve “forgiven” yourself for past errors…
Fabulous!
But, that almost never comes from others saying that you “should” or from trying to force it.
The way I see “forgiveness” potentially being helpful is if we simply recognize that we’re human and that we’ve done or said things that we aren’t okay with, like everyone else… that we grow and change all the time (we’re not the same human we used to be)…
And that it’s NOT something unique that needs to be applied to parents of addicted adult children.
What we can do, which is usually way more helpful is to:
Look at how we leave reality and use our imaginations when we’re engaging in rumination and the “coulda, woulda, shoulda’s.”
As stated earlier, parents think a lot of “Maybe’s” and “If’s” about this situation:
Maybe I should try harder.
Maybe I was too controlling as a parent.
Maybe I was too permissive.
If only I had gotten him into therapy years ago.
What if I say the wrong thing and it makes them relapse?
✳️ I want you to notice how “Maybe” and “If” are the beginnings of imagination.
You are literally using your imagination when you use them. If you get absorbed by the “bubble” of imagination, you stop noticing reality and your real self. This causes a lot of unnecessary suffering for parents.
You may be telling yourself a very compelling and upsetting story about yourself and your child’s addiction that has nothing to do with reality.
And, when you leave reality, you dissociate from what is happening… and from your true self.
You forget ALLLLL the ways you DO help your adult child…when you can and when it actually helps. You forget that you CANNOT control another adult.
And, you forget that you are only one variable in your child’s life. And as adults, they don’t actually need you to perform any specific task for them.
Five things to do instead of trying to get over your guilt.
Now that you know what the problems actually ARE, what can you do to solve them?
Fortunately, there ARE very specific, and somewhat simple, things you can do.
Remember, you are NOT trying to “get over your guilty feelings,” which is a fool’s errand.
Instead, you are learning how to work with your mind in a way that helps you to stop contributing to the thoughts and behaviors that keep fueling guilty feelings.
Let’s dig in:
Recognize how NORMAL your parenting was 💯
When you are thinking about all the things you wish you had or hadn’t done with your adult child, ask yourself:
Did I do anything that many other parents haven’t done? Was my behavior anything truly extraordinary or unheard of?
Do I KNOW for a fact that what I did was the thing that caused - or continues to cause - my child’s current problems?
Realize that Addiction is not personal to you or your parenting style. It’s an epidemic that affects millions of people worldwide. It’s not about parenting. That’s why there are so many groups of parents and families everywhere who come together to get support.
Here’s a statistic from SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration):
“In 2022, 48.7 million people aged 12 or older (or 17.3%) had a substance use disorder (SUD) in the past year, including 29.5 million who had an alcohol use disorder (AUD), 27.2 million who had a drug use disorder (DUD), and 8.0 million people who had both an AUD and a DUD.”
I’ll also briefly state that, IF you’ve done something in your parenting that you deem worthy of an apology (and you haven’t apologized for it yet), feel free to go ahead and apologize if it’s for a specific behavior.
2. Accept “guilty feelings” - with self-compassion 🤗
When you do feel guilty or bad about something you wish you hadn’t done in your parenting experience, don’t try to escape the feelings by going into your head and ruminating, or by beating yourself up about every single “mean” thing you said or did.
Yes, believe it or not, beating yourself up can be a way to avoid uncomfortable feelings. We’d rather self-flagellate instead of facing and allowing the painful emotions that are sometimes present.
Instead, use self-compassion to get out of your head and accept guilty/bad/uncomfortable feelings.
This means just recognizing that you’re in a state of suffering right now, and that it makes sense to feel this way. If you’re remembering something unpleasant, it’s okay to feel some unpleasant emotions. Don’t push them away; bring them closer.
Don’t THINK about the emotions, just sense them in your body. Say yes to them. We are practicing staying out of the rumination I talked about earlier.
This can look something like: yes, I wish I had been nicer at that moment. It makes sense I feel this way right now. Many parents feel this way about past mistakes. I’m human and I feel things like this sometimes. It’s truly okay.
Allow the sensations that arise and stay with the feelings that are present…
Until you get bored or need/want to do something else. 🥱
If you don’t start playing out a movie about the behavior or compulsively think about it, the feelings will rise, dwell, and fall when they’re ready. In fact, you will probably become bored when you really allow and accept them. It’s kind of like meditating - the more you try to keep focusing on your object of meditation, the more your mind wants to move on.
✳️ A caveat: this may be easier said than done sometimes - like when you are highly anxious or upset. It can help to start practicing when your emotions are at a low to moderate intensity.
I help my clients do this ALL the time in my “virtual office.” Otherwise they may never practice and see how it helps. It can be difficult to do on your own, because we are so conditioned to use our thinking minds to escape our painful feelings. So, if you need help doing this, don’t push yourself and get the support you need.
3. Accept the uncertainty and the discomfort that comes with it.
If you find yourself on a mental treadmill - trying to figure out things like:
Should I be doing more for my adult child… or less?
Why are they living like this?
Why are this happening to my child?
What is it going to take for them to be “normal” and get healthy?
Recognize that you do not know the answer.
This helps because, by default, humans try to fill in gaps in knowledge with their thinking minds that won’t stop guessing and forming opinions - especially when it’s on a topic that is emotionally important to us.
We love our children more than anything, so we try to figure out all the answers. But, we just can’t always do that. It’s really important to realize this, because otherwise we can easily get into the ruminative mind spiral that increases our distress and feeds that guilty feeling.
You might feel like you “should” be able to figure it out or that you MUST figure it out, since it’s about your child’s well-being. This will keep you in your head, recycling the same old upsetting, guilt-inducing thoughts.
Instead, you can simply pause and realize that you literally do not have the information to figure many things out about this situation. This can really help you to exit the mind spinning.
4. Increase your tolerance to anxiety and painful emotions
Getting comfortable with discomfort and painful feelings is essential if you want to be a helpful parent, in my experience.
If we cannot tolerate these feelings, they will repeatedly prompt us to react in ways that we later regret - perpetuating the feelings of guilt… perhaps indefinitely.
Being able to tolerate painful feelings and anxiety can help parents with things like maintaining boundaries, and decreasing enabling or controlling behaviors that can really improve quality of life.
Many parents I’ve worked with desperately wish they could stop giving their adult children money or say “No” to them more often. They say they just aren’t “strong” enough.
In my experience, it’s usually not about them being strong or not. It’s about whether or not they’ve developed a capacity to tolerate pain and anxiety.
The pain and anxiety that can come with being the parent of an addicted adult child can be intense. So, it’s normal to want to get rid of it. But the more we try to push it away, the more it tends to stick around and even intensify.
In order to escape it, parents may keep engaging in the very behaviors they want to stop, and then they feel more and more guilty over time - sometimes leading to them just giving up. 😞
But, the capacity to tolerate anxiety and emotional pain is a skill that can be cultivated - gradually and at your own pace. If you need help, reach out to a qualified counselor who understands an “acceptance model” of anxiety.
5. Differentiate your Real Self and Reality from Imagination
When you’re feeling guilty due to various “coulda, woulda, shoulda’s” or “maybe’s” about yourself or the situation with your adult child; realize in that moment that you are actually living in your head - and in your imagination.
Ask yourself: Am I living in a story that only exists in my head right now? Or am I living in my senses and reality?
What does reality (i.e., what you can see, hear, or know) say about the situation?
When we’re feeling guilty, we tend to remember all the imperfect things we did or do as parents. But we conveniently forget the COUNTLESS things that make us loving, responsible, and helpful.
We forget who we actually ARE by going into our imaginations.
When addiction happens in our children, it shakes parents’ confidence and makes them so afraid that they’re going to do the “wrong thing.”
✳️ You may forget that you are a completely competent parent (and individual), and that you don’t need to doubt yourself or think everything you do to death.
It’s time to remember and trust in those things that you KNOW about yourself and your actions:
The thousands of times you did what you needed to do to take good care of your children.
The times you encouraged them, helped them, cared for them, talked to them with affection.
The decisions you made daily for them, big and small, gave them lots of healthy opportunities. You are the kind of person who makes decisions that make sense.
How you know your child and what will likely help them - you see with your own senses what helps and what doesn’t.
I recommend listing some of the things you did or do now as a parent - in order to remember reality instead of constantly getting to your story or your imagination.
Simple things like:
I’ve told my son I’m here for him if he wants help getting into recovery or finding a therapist.
I took my daughter to a safe school every day and signed her up for lots of good things she wanted to try.
I read to my son for years every night.
I made sure my daughter had healthy food to choose from all the time.
I sent my son to fun and wholesome summer camps.
We spent time together on vacations and doing fun things together.
My daughter knows that if she wants to live a different lifestyle, I’ll support her in ways that I can.
This will help you to remember who you are and who you were, in reality - and not in some upsetting imagination.
Finally…
Remember the reality of addiction and the reality of being an adult.
There are specific steps that our adult children must take in order to be in recovery and live a lifestyle that we want for them. There are professionals and other individuals who are ready to help.
But our adult children alone will decide if they’re willing to take these steps… or not. And, they will show us their decisions eventually (or right away!).
In summary (If you’ve come this far, you get a gold star!) 🌟🌟🌟
💖 You don’t need to “get over” feeling guilty…
💖 You need to recognize that guilty feelings are absolutely normal in this challenging situation…
💖 AND THEN, you need to do specific things that will address the guilty feelings, the stream of self-doubt, and the unskillful behavior that follows.
I know this is MUCH more complex than telling you to “just get over it.” 😅
But, the FIVE things I talk about doing here are methods that can actually help if you implement them (they’re all research-informed for the outcomes we want).
Remember: if a friend or family member tells you that you need to “get over” your guilt… or that you need to “forgive yourself”... that’s fine… you can smile and thank them. But you don’t need to do either of those things.
If a professional tells you that you need to “get over” your guilt… or that you need to “forgive yourself”...
RUN. 🏃🏃🏃
The next time you feel guilty about your addicted adult child and are caught in a negative story about yourself…
Read through these strategies. If you like, start with just one that seems most doable or that feels most applicable to your needs on the spot. Just experiment, gently, with your own mind. Get the support you need, if you need it.
If you want to increase your peace of mind, don’t let yourself marinate in guilty feelings without practicing what can help. If you do, you are training your brain to keep that habit going.
I believe in your capacity to grow and change in ways that you want - as long as you are willing to practice methods that work. And a little goes a long way. (Don’t perfectionize it!)
That’s all it ever takes - practice. 💁
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