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Episode 317
ABOUT THE EPISODE:
When Sally Harris’s middle daughter started down a dangerous path at 14, she did what most devoted mothers do. She fought hard to fix it. Boarding school. Rehab. Anything and everything she could think of. What she did not expect was that the hardest decade of her life was still ahead, or that the coping mechanism she reached for would quietly become a crisis of its own.
Her daughter’s story wound through some of the darkest places a mother can imagine, and Sally will tell you she did not handle it with grace. She handled it the way most of us do: imperfectly, desperately, and often in ways that made things worse. What turned everything around was not something she did for her daughter. It was something she finally did for herself.
Ten years later, her daughter is back. They speak together publicly. They laugh about things that were anything but funny at the time. Sally now coaches moms who are somewhere in the middle of their own version of this, and she brings the kind of clarity you can only get from having actually lived it.
This conversation goes to places I do not hear enough people talking about honestly: what it does to a mother when her child goes silent, the ways we unknowingly push them further, and what it actually looks like to do the work on yourself while your child is still out there struggling. Sally asks one question of every mom she works with, and I think it will stay with you.
If your child has asked for space, cut contact, or simply drifted somewhere you cannot reach, this one is for you.
You’ll learn:
- The coping mechanism Sally reached for and what finally made her put it down for good
- Why honoring a requested pause is harder than it sounds, and what happens when we do not
- What Sally means by “father wounds” and how often they show up in the families she works with
- The one question she asks every mom she coaches, and why the answer changes everything
- A practical tool she calls a personal board of directors, and why your friends probably should not be on it.
EPISODE RESOURCES:
- Sally Harris YouTube Channel
- Sally Harris website
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Get our free, 4-video course, Hope Starts Here, and access to our Limited Membership here
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Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol
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[00:00:00] Hey Sally, thank you so much for hopping on with me today for a little chat about all things oof difficult with our kids. Right, right. Exactly. Well, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to talk with you. I know we’ve been talking about doing this for a long time and it’s a topic that, as you know, is not easy to find people who are really versed in I think there’s a lot of people with experience in, but not versed in how to navigate having an estranged child and we can talk about what that means, sort of mm-hmm for different people but just thank you for making the time. It’s so nice to see you and seeing too your, your growth, was it your YouTube channel or something just recently hit like some milestone? I did. I did. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been a wild ride, but it’s really good and I’m glad that it’s blessing a lot of moms. It’s just some more knowledge, right. If we need the knowledge on how to work through
[00:01:00] this, so Absolutely. We need all the help we can get. Yes. Well, let’s start with some background on you and your family to whatever degree you’re comfortable, because I know there are some similarities with our community. I think people will really get to know you a little bit more and understand where you came from. So, mm-hmm. Why don’t you fill us in on kind of where your family’s been, and then we’ll get to where you are now. Absolutely. We have been all over the place. Yes. So I have three girls and my middle daughter, so when she was about 14, started taking a bad path in life, et cetera. And so when her life started spiraling out of control in every which way, mine did the same and so as a mom, any mom listening can relate to what that could have felt like and you know, as you know, like a lot of, we go through and we do the rehab, we do boarding school. We did, you know, anything and everything we could possibly think of to help her.
[00:02:00] So she would graduate high school. You know, wasn’t really on track for that necessarily. So we did what we thought was best and hindsight’s always 2020. There’s some things I regret and that I wouldn’t do again, but at the end of the day, it was our responsibility, right? She was 14, 15, 16, so up until 18 and so forth. But we were estranged. The big word estranged. We’ll talk about that. Right? So from start to finish, it was a decade. Oh, it was 10 years and she is spoiler alert. She’s fantastic. She is doing great. She’s been back with us for about five years. Wow. And actually we do some speaking together and so forth. So it’s a dream come true. God was, has totally blessed us and just so grateful for that. But like I said, when her life spiraled, so did mine and so I didn’t handle things well. I always say I wish I could say I was just so faithful and handled everything with grace. I’m like, I was the total opposite. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t really have any guidance. Yeah. There was
[00:03:00] nobody like me or any of the other coaches or therapists out there that talk about this now. There really wasn’t any of that and so it was a lot of hit and miss and unfortunately I turned to alcohol because I needed to numb out. A lot of this because it was very, very difficult to handle. Yeah. So I learned a lot of hard lessons along the way, and so I understand what moms are going through and I do only work with moms because, ’cause that’s me. Right. So a lot of dads are going through this too, and I totally understand that. But for me, my focus is the mom because I truly can empathize and understand what she’s feeling. Yeah. But all that said, you know, we navigated through this whole path. My daughter, just to summarize just a little bit with her, you know, like I said, she started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and that doesn’t take long before that ends up really sideways. Thankfully she wasn’t an addict, praise God for that because it could have very easily happened because she obviously used, but she was trafficked and she she was
[00:04:00] in prison for a while. It was just a wild road, but it’s all been restored and so it’s okay now, but it was just a very difficult time and as a parent something, I would say worse nightmare other than losing your child, you know? Right to death. I don’t know what could be worse. I don’t either and there’s so many different roads. I wanna go down on that, on your synopsis there. The first is, let’s go back to your coping mechanism, which was drinking. Mm-hmm. Because I think that doesn’t get talked about enough in the world where we have kids struggling no matter what it’s from, right? Mm-hmm. If it’s mental health, if it’s substances. If it’s, you know, having, knowing that your child is being trafficked, and I know several moms in particular who have come across that, and how in the world do you cope with that? Mm-hmm. So what did that look like for you? Tell me a little bit about what, how
[00:05:00] life changed for you had alcohol been in your life before or was this something new? Yeah, it had been in my life, but you know, pretty socially, it really wasn’t that big of a deal to me but then I started realizing that, I couldn’t seem to cope with, we’d go through one hurdle and then I think she’d be okay, and then we get through another hurdle and it was just, you know, up until the time that she left home at 17 and a half and then she had ran off and that’s when all that happened. But, I started numbing because I was isolating. Yeah. And I think that’s the biggest thing and had I reached out for help and really sought it. I really sought it. I did see a therapist for a few years and I say, you know, I loved her so much and some days she kept me alive, to be honest but other than that, she really couldn’t help me. She had toddlers. She was younger, but it was someone to talk to outside of family. Mm-hmm. As moms, like, we can burn our friends out pretty quickly. Yes, we do. Because they don’t have, they don’t have the answers for us, but yet we put these
[00:06:00] expectations on them like they’re supposed to know it all and tell us everything correct to do and it doesn’t work that way. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, I appreciate you saying that because I do believe, ’cause I’m always talking about the need for community and the need for connection and sometimes what I think I forget to do is relate back to why that’s so important and so what you talked about there with the isolation, yeah, it is easier to turn toward unhealthy coping mechanisms, whether that’s over drinking, overeating, over shopping, over working, whatever it is but alcohol seems to be because it is so socially acceptable. Yeah. And also how many times, I don’t know how many times I had my friend say, oh girlfriend, you better go get a bottle of wine and go sit on your couch tonight. Right? Yep. Like that’s. Sometimes the advice that you get and it’s so normal and people are like, oh, you deserve it. Like, yeah, it’s okay. So, so how did that impact your relationship with her? Like, did she see that and
[00:07:00] say, well, you were drinking, like, no, she was already gone because she had gone to boarding school for a year and then came back and then went to rehab, and then came back. It was just, she was so in and out. And then I had an older daughter who was going off to college at the exact same time. Yeah. So it was devastating to, it was like I became an empty nester overnight for very, for different reasons. Right, right. And so yeah, the isolation, it’s funny you mentioned the alcohol. It’s not funny, but I think about it now and I don’t know what the milliliters are, but you know, like just a regular wine bottle. Yeah. And I got to the point where I was drinking one of those a night and I remember saying to my friend, I’m like, oh my gosh. Like before I was just drinking one or two glasses. Now I’m drinking the whole bottle. She’s like, it’s okay. It’s only like three and a half glasses, like what’s the big deal? I’m like, yeah, you’re right. Well, fast forward. I ended up drinking one of the bigger ones every day. Oh yeah. Which is equivalent to like two and a half or three of those. So it became a problem. Yeah, that was very functioning.
[00:08:00] Yeah. Went to work every day. You know, I, all of that good stuff. But yeah, the isolation creeps in.I sat there, honestly, the best way I can describe it is, especially ’cause my daughter was in trouble with the law and I wasn’t trying to rescue her from consequences. I wanted to keep her alive and so I did a lot of research and I always say, you know what? Worried mothers do better work than the FBI. Oh, yes. ’cause I sat there with my laptop and my bottle of wine and I would stalk her on Facebook. I would stalk her, you know, these quote unquote friends. I just wanted to know she was a live yeah. Because she had blocked all of us, all the family. So I didn’t have the communication with her and I was scared to death of what was happening to her. Absolutely. I mean, I have boys and I was worried to death about them. I, and I know this sounds terrible, but I just can’t imagine if it was a girl. I just think they feel so much more vulnerable. And I know guys can also have horrible things
[00:09:00] and do have horrible things happen to them, but there’s just something about, you know, my friends that have girls who are out there and doing things, and I’m just like, oh, it’s just terrifying. Yeah. So that makes sense to me that you would, you we do become FBI qualified. Mm-hmm detectives like, oh, you wanna find someone, give it to one of us because mm-hmm. That’s right. We’ll figure it out. So then more related to her, did you know why she was really struggling and pulling away from you? Was there something that you knew had happened? Or was this just sort of like, woo, like we’re going through the teen years? Just what was that experience like? Yeah, there’s, I think there was just a lot of things. Some of it is, was like, oh, you know, the teen years, this one decides to take this path. The other one takes this path, you know? My ex-husband had signed his rights off to them when they were eight and 10. Mm-hmm. My two biological girls and my husband adopted them, and they have a great relationship with
[00:10:00] him but there’s something to be said also, and I’m not saying this is all of it, but this was a piece of it. That I identified a long time ago and it’s a fact and she admits that now, but after she was able to work through all of that. But there’s a hole in your heart that you know for sure. Like when I got divorced, I thought, I can be mom and dad. I can be mom and dad. I can do this. I’m a single mom for six years. Like I got this. Yeah. And it’s great when they’re little, but they still need that biological parent. We’re wired that way. Mm-hmm. And so it ended up being fast forward many years. It took me to realize that even though they had a great dad, because he did adopt them, it’s not the same. Yeah, it doesn’t lessen anything from my husband, but it’s, you know, only the Lord can fill that it, and they don’t want necessarily the biological dad. So that’s fine, but. They needed God and that’s exactly how this turned around is she did find her faith again. Mm-hmm stronger than ever ever than what she even had as a
[00:11:00] child. It was just really turned her life around. Wow. Yeah. She’s quite the story, the parent thing. I think because divorce is so common now that we underestimate the impact of what happens. ’cause I know for my son, our divorce was a major source of his struggle. And man, it’s, you know, I think it’s one of those things that it’s so hard because do you stay together and have your kids see an unhappy relationship? Right. Do you divorce and then they have to deal with the family falling apart. I mean, it’s just an agonizing, agonizing decision. Yeah. Nobody wins in that. It’s horrible. I think the kids, yeah, they just. It just implodes them to some degree right. And we, mm-hmm no matter what we do, like how do we fill that hole, right. That they’re feeling. It’s just so devastating for them. And interestingly enough, actually, you know, because I do coaching, I would say, I mean, I don’t have a hard number, but truthfully, I would
[00:12:00] say at least probably 60 to 75% of the moms that I work with, their child has father wounds, whether dad died. Dad wasn’t present, or maybe dad wasn’t present, but he wasn’t really emotionally there doesn’t matter what the reason is. If there’s a void there, that child acts up. It’s so interesting. So interesting. Mm-hmm. Oof. Well note to self, make sure and keep all of those. I mean, you know, I am a, a divorced and then remarried as well and navigating that whole thing is, that’s a lot. It’s a whole lot. That’s a whole nother podcast. But, yeah, so she moves off at 17 and a half and has just, does she just shut you out at that point and you have no contact? Very little. Yeah, yeah. But because there was a lot of things that happened with the law that she blocked us and so forth. But we did have contact periodically. We then moved
[00:13:00] actually to a different state. Oh. I think she was about 19 at that point. When we moved, we had the opportunity to move and I was like, let’s go. I gotta get outta here. Yeah. It was just too hard. Yeah, we lived in a smaller town and it was just, it was a constant reminder plus we wanted to move, so it was a good, it was a win-win but we’re all down here in the same area now. So it was a total, God, it was a whole plan. There’s that worked out beautifully. A whole plan circulating there. Love that plan. So you really didn’t know where she was or what was going on or how, like how were you navigating through. Sounds like that was years of that. Mm-hmm. Well, once she was incarcerated, I knew where she was. Yeah. Then you knew and I did get to see her occasionally I did go to see her and we tried to work on things but the thing that I realized the most as a mom and what I do is that until I worked on
[00:14:00] myself, because I did, I needed to quit drinking, I mean, I wasn’t a perfect mom, but I wasn’t a bad mom. Yeah. And that’s the thing, a lot of moms feel like, oh my gosh, my child walked away or even, we’re just having a hard time communicating. I must be a horrible parent. It does not mean you’re a horrible parent. There could be commune just, it could be sometimes, literally it’s as simple as communication. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a big topic, but it can boil down to that and perception. Right? So there’s a lot of things that happen in every family, but I do think that, yeah, we just have to realize that no matter where our kids are at, whether we’re speaking with ’em, there’s limited contact or no contact. Like ours was ebb and flow. We would, especially in the beginning, there was none and then, you know, she needed me a little bit more when other stuff happened and I participated in what I wanted to and didn’t enable. I refused to do that. That was one thing I did right. I didn’t enable, yay everything else I did wrong,
[00:15:00] so, so that’s interesting. How did you, I’m curious about how you sort of grasp the concept of I need to work on myself, I need to change myself. I don’t wanna help her continue in this lifestyle that she’s in, was there a program or Al-Anon or something that you went to, or how did you start to shift your mindset on that? Yeah. Well, I knew that alcohol was destroying me. Yeah, I also had gained 70 pounds. Wow. And I was just extremely unhealthy and I had gone to the doctor one day and I had some tests done and I had a diagnosis scare, and literally brought me to my knees and I remember going home that night and I’m like, alright, Lord. Like I have tried to quit drinking on my own countless times over the years. Like I just. I just couldn’t, it would last maybe a day or two max. Yeah. But then you get to the point where you don’t tell anybody. ’cause you know it’s might not last. So I got to the point where I was like,
[00:16:00] okay, I have to quit drinking. I had so much inflammation in my body. Mm. And when you have breast cancer, or I’m assuming any type of cancer, the, the blood supply is formed prior to having a tumor. It prepare your body’s that great. Like it Yeah, it prepares it before that even happens and that’s what was happening to me. Mm. And I knew that if I didn’t quit drinking, it wasn’t gonna be good. Wow and I literally hit my knees that night and just surrendered. That was the biggest thing. I surrendered her, I surrendered my health, I surrendered the alcohol. I was like, I will do whatever, like. I truly, I feel like I did that other times too, where I’m like, you know, I’ll just surrender her. Like I’ll give up control because I know I’m not in control of all of this anyway. But as moms, we like keep taking it back. Keep taking it back, right. Yeah. We can do it. Yeah. But this time it was beyond me, way beyond me. So that
[00:17:00] was 10 years ago and I’ve not had a drop of alcohol. Wow. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That’s amazing. Yeah, it was literally a miracle. So was different. Yeah, way different and it stuck and so then I was able to, lose my weight, heal myself, day to day, stay the course and all of that. So that’s what started it and then I realized, I’m like, okay, this isn’t even just physical, this is emotional. So I had, I went through some trauma therapy myself. Good. Yeah. And did things like that and I just realized that there’s so much more that, each individual has to do. Yeah. You know, for themselves, for the relationship and as a mom, like it was all good intent. But I was one of those helicopter moms, kind of, I always say half helicopter, half drill sergeant, like, you know, yeah. I wanna rescue them so they don’t, nothing hurts them because probably because of the divorce, you try to protect more single mom, right? Like, you know what it feels like. Mm-hmm. And you just, nobody prepares you for that
[00:18:00] because nobody wants to go through that, but. Yeah. Wow. So in that is just so fascinating and thank you for sharing that. I think there’s a lot of moms in particular listening to this, but also in our community and all around who are trapped in that cycle of, we are kind of obsessed with, we’re almost like we’re addicted to our kids’ problems. Mm. And then that, because we’re just like, we’re so desperate to save them. And so I’m always fascinated when I hear somebody tell a story like that. ’cause it’s like, whoa, wait a minute. What happened? Mm-hmm. That you turned away from that and it’s not easy, especially when, at the time it’s not like everything was unicorns and, you know rainbows with your daughter. So it wasn’t like, okay, now everything’s good over here, so now I can fix myself. You did it while she was still struggling. I did. Wow. But it actually helped our relationship too. I’ll never forget the time when she told me, she said, you were so
[00:19:00] needy and at first I was like, oh, me what? And then I was like, you know what? I think I was, I was so engrossed and probably codependent with my kids that their, my happiness depended on their happiness. If they were doing well, I was doing well. And some of that is being a mom. Yeah. But we can take it to an extreme. And I think I did take it to an extreme. Yeah. So that’s what it for your daughter, when she said you’re so needy, you think that was her feeling from you, like you needed her to be good, you needed her to be healthy in order for you to be good and healthy. Is that a true statement? That’s true and then also, you know, the periodic times where I would reach out to her when she was gone, and very few times would she respond back. But I had my workarounds on how to get to her and so every now and again she would respond and I would be
[00:20:00] begging so teaching moms how to communicate with their kids without putting pressure, without begging. Oh my gosh. It’s night and day, night and day and I was doing that though. I was putting a lot of pressure on her. Why do you hate me? Why won’t you come home? I can’t believe it’s Christmas and you are not even like thinking of us. You know? It’s none of it makes logical sense. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not even to her back then, you know? Or right now she does. She’s like, why did I do that? But that’s just where she was at. Yeah. And so yeah, it all those kinds of things and we would communicate about that stuff now and we can laugh about it now, thank God. But it was a rough road. But now I can pinpoint that stuff in moms, like you say, like, okay, now I see, now I see the kind of the patterns that people are stuck in and can help them get out of it. Because life on the other side of that is just night and day. Yeah, it’s night and day. Okay. I
[00:21:00] wanna go back to the sort of needy thing, but what are a couple of other patterns that you see when, you know the clients that you work with when they have this relationship that is fractured and it’s not working and they’re not communicating besides this sort of like neediness and why aren’t you talking this kind of desperate mm-hmm. Outreach. What else do you see? Yeah. Well, nowadays kids are notorious for saying, I need a pause. I need a break. Mm-hmm. Some will give them a timeframe. Literally, they’ll say, I need 30 days, or I need six months, or, don’t contact me for a year. Mm-hmm. That’s hard to take as a mom, but what I love is when I am able to work with people right away before they make all these other mistakes. So one mistake that they’ll make is not honoring that. Oh yeah. And all they’re doing is pushing them away further. Because you have to keep in mind that we’re talking about adult kids, not 15 year olds.
[00:22:00] Right, right. Yeah. 16-year-old. You know, these kids are out on their own. They’re doing their own thing, good, bad, or indifferent. Right. Whatever they’re doing and honestly, a lot of these kids are not necessarily living a bad life. Many are very successful, and they get to the point where they realize, I can’t trust my mom. I can’t communicate with my mom. My mom doesn’t listen. That’s the other one. Mom does not hear me. Hmm? So I always say we need to seek to understand because their perception of some things might be completely different than yours, and that’s okay. You’re not gonna change someone’s perception, and I wouldn’t even try. Not gonna happen. No, no. It’s not gonna happen. My, we all, we all remember things differently. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And you know, even if you’re trying to change somebody’s beliefs, which I don’t even know if it’s worth the
[00:23:00] effort, you have to have a rock solid relationship before you’re gonna be able to do that, right? Mm-hmm. Like you have to be in a place where you totally trust each other, respect each other. You have a very healthy relationship and then maybe you can say, well, would you be willing to listen to this or mm-hmm would you be willing to consider, but you can’t do that from a place of like distance and, not even having any kind of a relationship. I would imagine. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Those are some good, very common patterns is knowing when to back off, when to focus on yourself. I always say any mom in this type of situation has two roles and number one is to literally start taking care of yourself. Yeah. Because I always say, who do you wanna be when they come back? Because if you have some of, like me, if my daughter would’ve came back and I would’ve still been drinking and she would’ve saw that version of me, she’d have been like, see ya. Bye. Right,
[00:24:00] exactly. But in my case, not that it was like completely perfect, but the timing was impeccable. Like she came back, I was healed. She was healed pretty much like she did, still did more work and it’s like now you have two healed people who can actually move forward in the relationship and in the family. Mm. That’s amazing. Yeah what is this trend? Because I see this especially on social media. This I’m going no contact with my parents or my mom is, and I think, you know, there’s obviously extremes. There’s both ends of the pendulum and that, and I think in some cases that’s probably pretty healthy. ’cause I know there’s a lot of very unhealthy relationships and maybe that young person is protecting themselves and their family and their sanity and at the other end, I feel like it could be a very selfish thing of like, well, I just don’t like. You know, the things that they do or their beliefs or their political thing. Mm-hmm or their religious thing or whatever. Yeah. So they’re not
[00:25:00] willing to come together and respect each other’s differences. So those are sort of the polar ends of that. But is like, where did this come from and are you seeing, I mean, you said you do see some of it, but Wow oh yeah. All of that like I can tell you 2020 was I’m still dealing with moms with ramifications from what happened there. Oh, for various reasons, like you said, is that can’t where it started. I wouldn’t say that’s where it started, but it definitely escalated then. It’s like they can’t, nobody can agree to disagree on anything anymore. Yeah. It’s my way or the highway. So you can just imagine like all of those conversations. But it’s so sad because I’m like, oh my gosh, like family is so much more important than any of that. Yes. Any of that. Yes. And, but what I do see is it’s one in three, depending on who you ask, one in three or one in four families will be affected by estrangement.
[00:26:00] Hmm. Dr. Phil says 25%. So one in four are currently. So a lot of that is, like I mentioned, some of the most recent, in the most recent years, but I believe it is social media. Especially TikTok, probably even more than Instagram, but TikTok for sure. Okay. I don’t know, but our read it TikTok, so I, yeah, I haven’t seen anything there, but I Instagram’s a lot of, yeah. Hashtag toxic parents. Hashtag toxic parenting, so basically these other affiliations and just people in general, adult kids who maybe we’re wrong by their parents, but rather than just moving forward with their own life, they kind of set out on this path and there’s mothers that do this too. I’ve seen, seen some that play the victim so much and just completely smear their kids online. But as far as the kid perspective is
[00:27:00] more of lines of the hashtag toxic parenting because my parents, my mom or dad or everybody doesn’t either agree with me, the perception is different. They refuse to see that. But honestly, what I think a lot of it is, ’cause a lot of the cases that I see where I’m able to help these people, these mom, the mom and the child come back pretty quickly is the communication gap. But it’s also in those cases, these particular kids are not chasing those hashtags, chasing the trend. ’cause that’s what it is for these young kids. They feel like their parents are emotionally unavailable and rather than dealing with the drama in the family. And some of it, like you said, there’s legitimate reasons and I see a lot of that and I understand and I don’t blame ’em. But the average family that there was no abuse or anything like that. This is all misunderstandings or perceptions, that kind of thing. It’s more along the lines of, yeah, I don’t really wanna deal with
[00:28:00] that right now. So I always say they just put mom up on the shelf. I’ll deal with her later. Mm. Meanwhile, mom’s over here being told I have a pause and I can’t talk to them for a year and if I do, boy, they come down. They come down hard at mom. Yeah. Unbelievably so, so it really, it’s, no two families are the same. There really is so many unique differences in how that all happens. But it’s just, it’s sad. It is an epidemic. It is so sad and what I kind of think about is in the case where either sort of the kids are like, huh, you know, I want this six month pause, or one year pause, or whatever it is. That I can’t even really wrap my head around that. Like I can’t, I’m trying to imagine doing that with my parents and I just can’t imagine that, but okay, so let’s say we do that and then how devastating that would
[00:29:00] be to a parent, but it also hopefully they find someone like you to say, okay, let’s take this time, let’s take this pause. And make the best of it that we can. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you see sometimes moms, ’cause you work with moms, and I know dads do this too, but I’m just saying mom, ’cause that’s who you work with, sort of not being willing to lay down their ego or sometimes, you know, as moms we have this martyr syndrome where it’s like, oh, oh, you know, like, oh, this is all on me and this must all be my fault. When maybe legitimately, I know a lot of young people, you know, we deal with substance use a lot of people in early recovery, they will say, I need a year to just focus on my recovery. Now, that’s specific to a substance use issue, but do you see sort of the ego getting in the way or there’s this martyr syndrome of like, oh, I can’t believe this is that a thing? Oh, it is. So a thing, I don’t work with those
[00:30:00] moms though because I can’t help them. They’re not willing to say, okay, let me try these things that you’re sharing with me. They’re pretty much on one sided by the time they come to me, they’ve already decided what side of the fence they’re on. Yeah. And I don’t get too many like that because they aren’t gonna waste the time to talk to me. Yeah, right. Yeah. So usually it is the mom led, you know what, I don’t know what happened. Some of ’em know, some of ’em don’t know, but like, if I don’t know what happened, but I know that I need to work on me and I wanna be better for her or him when they come back and I wanna be better for the relationship. And I call that a path to authentic connection. Mm. I love that. Because I always say, okay, this is bad enough that this happened, but this cannot happen again. Yeah. So therefore, if we don’t get to the root of it, I see it where people will be like, it happened again. Or I’ll meet someone and be like, this is the third time I’m like, something wasn’t resolved. Mm-hmm. And that I can’t, that’s devastating.
[00:31:00] Completely devastating. And a lot of grandchildren involved too, right? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. That adds a whole nother layer. Mm-hmm. Do you think when or even the first time, is it typically a matter of miscommunication and or is it typically there was an event that happened or something happened and that was the fracture and then the lack of communication skills sort of exacerbated that it, do you have a sense of what which those, it might be, I think a lot of times there is an event, but almost always that event. It wasn’t that event. It’s kind of like it was never the cookie, whenever you know the stories about the cookie, it’s like it really wasn’t about the cookie. Yes, yes. It’s about something else and it’s so much deeper and usually most of the time it’ll be something like kids will tell us periodically throughout their life. And a lot of times we don’t listen. Mm and not because we’re don’t love them, but it’s, yeah. You’re raising kids, you’re working, you’re, you know, doing all the things. And they might have been trying to express
[00:32:00] something and we didn’t hear it. We didn’t catch it. And then finally they crack and they’re like, I told you, you never hear me. Right. You never listen to me. So then they’re like, I’m done. So that’s one. That’s just one example. But yeah, no, I could see that and I think sometimes that’s because we don’t wanna see, right? We don’t wanna see what they’re trying to tell us and maybe as they’re growing up and they’re younger, they don’t have the words, or they don’t have the ability to say, look at me. I mean, this is what I hear from every therapist that I ever talk to about why kids, you know, get in trouble or do these things and they say, because. Parents don’t allow them to be who they really are is one of the biggest reasons and so I can see how that would be like, come on mom, I’m 20 years old and you know what I mean? I can see how that would just get to the point of like, I’m done or I need a break. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. There’s
[00:33:00] that side of it and then there’s also a lot of entitlement and a lot of people enable their kids and give them everything under the sun and then when it’s time to cut that off, when mom’s like, I can’t do it anymore. And then I’m like, well, they’re, you’ve trained them, they don’t understand. Now sudden you’re cutting ’em off. So there’s that, there’s so many different scenarios and situations and they’re all so difficult, but they, if you’re willing to stay the course, which I don’t know what mom isn’t most, I do, well, I take that back. I do have some moms that for their own sanity. They’re like, I don’t know how long am I supposed to hold out the hope? Yeah. Always, always, always. I think you and I are in alignment on that one. Yes. Like you have to and it’s not easy because a lot of times there is not evidence for hope. Right. In when, if you’re only looking at them. Right. Right. If you’re only looking at your child, you might not see evidence for hope, which is why we have to sort of
[00:34:00] be part of a community, have our spiritual practices, have our own self care practices. Right. Because it’s gonna be hard to find some days. Mm-hmm. What was your, like, how did you hold out hope when your daughter is in a pretty dire situation, it sounds like? Yeah, I didn’t do real well there for a while, but once I started turning it around, I started literally, like I said, we moved to a different state and I remember. Looking at my dining room table one day and you know, she had never been here obviously before. And I remember thinking, she’s gonna be here one day. She will be here. Mm-hmm. And I started speaking that literally. And I would picture her sitting there at family dinner and I thought it was a little crazy at first. And then I was like, where is this coming from? And then I started doing it and I started doing it all the time. And fast forward. We had family dinner and I sat there and wept and they’re like, what’s your problem? What’s mom’s problem? I’m like, you don’t know how long I’ve pray for this. Oh my gosh.
[00:35:00] So it is, it’s kind of like planting a seed, you don’t see the growth. Yes. Right and we have to remember that, first of all, we’re not the ones in control. We can control us and our behavior and our self-care and our, you know, all the things and our side of the equation. But all in all, most of the kids really just want a good relationship with their family. Yeah. When it boils down to it. Yeah. Just have to get them there. Yes. I love the sort of that visioning it.I tell people that all the time, like take a mental picture in your brain of your child healed and whole and happy, and it does make a difference. It does sound a little kooky, but you really? But it’s a choice. It’s a choice we create. I literally sent an email today that it was all about you create your own reality. Mm-hmm and if we continually in our minds,
[00:36:00] see them as gone, sick, mad, unhealthy, whatever, right. I mean, that’s what, how can you expect it to be any different? Yeah, yeah. We, we will create that. So even though it does sound a little crazy, that is a really, I’m so glad you said that because I do think, I dunno if you wanna call it a tactic or a tool or a right, but it’s something that you can do. It’s free. It’s positive. Right? Right. It’s like you can do that any other tips you wanna share for a parent who might be in that situation that you’ve either leaned on yourself or you see your clients leaning on? Yeah, I think the visualization piece like we just said, but also the power of your words. For those that pray, we were just talking about this in my group this last week. When we pray, and we say we’re trusting God, that for this restoration or for healing, or whatever it is and that’s all great and then 10
[00:37:00] minutes later we’re on the phone with our friend and we’re like, they’re never coming home. And I, you know what I mean? It’s like you gotta pick a side. Mm. Don’t be double-minded. Mm. And that too, is a choice. It just takes effort but once you start doing it, it’s becomes very natural. Yeah, but it’s worth checking yourself on that because it’s powerful. Oh yeah. It’s so powerful. Yeah, it’s, it’s easier to complain if everybody wants somebody to complain to. Yes, it is. Right. It’s so much easier. Yeah. But like you said, I think that also, kind of going back to what we said in the beginning where we can burn out our friends and if, mm-hmm are in this for the long haul. You were 10 years, you know, I was six years. You wanna make sure that you are not burning out your friends. ’cause they’re, if they’re good friends, they’re important. Right. And I know I had friends that were like, every single time I see you or I talk to you, that’s all you talk about and it’s, I
[00:38:00] get it. It’s like the most important thing in your life. But having and maybe you could tell us a little bit about how you work, ’cause I, what I’m imagining is if I have you and or group that you’re running, I have you two talk to about this so that when I’m going and talking to my girlfriends mm-hmm. I don’t have to always talk about that. Yeah. ’cause I’ve got a safe place. So what does it look like? What are some of the things that you do? Yeah. It’s funny about the friends. I always tell my clients to keep your friends for fun because you’re gonna need it. Oh yes. I lost several friends, but I don’t have, you know what I mean? Like, the relationships aren’t the same because I did burn them out. Yeah. And I feel horrible for that, but I was so hyperfocused and, you know, I’m still friends with them, but for that time period, it just wasn’t the same. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I understand. I understand. I would say, as far as what I teach people is, you know, as far as getting in a community of sorts. Right and I do what’s called a personal board of directors.
[00:39:00] Ooh. Tell that everyone has. Yeah there’s a handful of different titles of people that you would name in your world. You know, one’s a mentor, like a spiritual guide, who’s your health person? Your health coach? Mm-hmm. Like who’s your go-to for you know, for health and wellness, for example, like is it your massage therapist? Is it a chiropractor? Like who’s your people that you think of? As soon as you’re like, okay, I’m struggling right now, who do I need to contact? Yeah. So if it’s physical, like who are you gonna call? I love that. So there’s a myriad of those, but that is something that, you know, and usually your friends are not on that list and sometimes your spouse is not on that list. Mm mm-hmm. And that’s okay because you guys are gonna probably be on different pages. Mm. Same goal, but different pages. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, that’s something we didn’t even get into. That’s another podcast too, is the relationship with the spouse and yeah, that can get complicated. Okay love the personal board of directors. That is genius. I think everybody needs that, but
[00:40:00] especially if you’re in this situation where things are sideways, so. Right. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for this, this is so helpful. I know. So many moms are going to be going to the show. So go to the show notes. ’cause you’re gonna be able to get a link to Sally’s group, to her website so that you can, and YouTube. Yeah, you’re huge on YouTube. So I wanna make sure people find that because it is really, it’s like having a kiddo who’s struggling with substances until you have experienced it, you can’t right understand it and so, right. You’re somebody who understands that pain and the loss and the grief and all the things that you go through with that. Right? So we so appreciate your work and thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you. Thank you, Brenda. Thank you for having me. Thanks.
[00:01:00] this, so Absolutely. We need all the help we can get. Yes. Well, let’s start with some background on you and your family to whatever degree you’re comfortable, because I know there are some similarities with our community. I think people will really get to know you a little bit more and understand where you came from. So, mm-hmm. Why don’t you fill us in on kind of where your family’s been, and then we’ll get to where you are now. Absolutely. We have been all over the place. Yes. So I have three girls and my middle daughter, so when she was about 14, started taking a bad path in life, et cetera. And so when her life started spiraling out of control in every which way, mine did the same and so as a mom, any mom listening can relate to what that could have felt like and you know, as you know, like a lot of, we go through and we do the rehab, we do boarding school. We did, you know, anything and everything we could possibly think of to help her.
[00:02:00] So she would graduate high school. You know, wasn’t really on track for that necessarily. So we did what we thought was best and hindsight’s always 2020. There’s some things I regret and that I wouldn’t do again, but at the end of the day, it was our responsibility, right? She was 14, 15, 16, so up until 18 and so forth. But we were estranged. The big word estranged. We’ll talk about that. Right? So from start to finish, it was a decade. Oh, it was 10 years and she is spoiler alert. She’s fantastic. She is doing great. She’s been back with us for about five years. Wow. And actually we do some speaking together and so forth. So it’s a dream come true. God was, has totally blessed us and just so grateful for that. But like I said, when her life spiraled, so did mine and so I didn’t handle things well. I always say I wish I could say I was just so faithful and handled everything with grace. I’m like, I was the total opposite. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t really have any guidance. Yeah. There was
[00:03:00] nobody like me or any of the other coaches or therapists out there that talk about this now. There really wasn’t any of that and so it was a lot of hit and miss and unfortunately I turned to alcohol because I needed to numb out. A lot of this because it was very, very difficult to handle. Yeah. So I learned a lot of hard lessons along the way, and so I understand what moms are going through and I do only work with moms because, ’cause that’s me. Right. So a lot of dads are going through this too, and I totally understand that. But for me, my focus is the mom because I truly can empathize and understand what she’s feeling. Yeah. But all that said, you know, we navigated through this whole path. My daughter, just to summarize just a little bit with her, you know, like I said, she started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and that doesn’t take long before that ends up really sideways. Thankfully she wasn’t an addict, praise God for that because it could have very easily happened because she obviously used, but she was trafficked and she she was
[00:04:00] in prison for a while. It was just a wild road, but it’s all been restored and so it’s okay now, but it was just a very difficult time and as a parent something, I would say worse nightmare other than losing your child, you know? Right to death. I don’t know what could be worse. I don’t either and there’s so many different roads. I wanna go down on that, on your synopsis there. The first is, let’s go back to your coping mechanism, which was drinking. Mm-hmm. Because I think that doesn’t get talked about enough in the world where we have kids struggling no matter what it’s from, right? Mm-hmm. If it’s mental health, if it’s substances. If it’s, you know, having, knowing that your child is being trafficked, and I know several moms in particular who have come across that, and how in the world do you cope with that? Mm-hmm. So what did that look like for you? Tell me a little bit about what, how
[00:05:00] life changed for you had alcohol been in your life before or was this something new? Yeah, it had been in my life, but you know, pretty socially, it really wasn’t that big of a deal to me but then I started realizing that, I couldn’t seem to cope with, we’d go through one hurdle and then I think she’d be okay, and then we get through another hurdle and it was just, you know, up until the time that she left home at 17 and a half and then she had ran off and that’s when all that happened. But, I started numbing because I was isolating. Yeah. And I think that’s the biggest thing and had I reached out for help and really sought it. I really sought it. I did see a therapist for a few years and I say, you know, I loved her so much and some days she kept me alive, to be honest but other than that, she really couldn’t help me. She had toddlers. She was younger, but it was someone to talk to outside of family. Mm-hmm. As moms, like, we can burn our friends out pretty quickly. Yes, we do. Because they don’t have, they don’t have the answers for us, but yet we put these
[00:06:00] expectations on them like they’re supposed to know it all and tell us everything correct to do and it doesn’t work that way. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, I appreciate you saying that because I do believe, ’cause I’m always talking about the need for community and the need for connection and sometimes what I think I forget to do is relate back to why that’s so important and so what you talked about there with the isolation, yeah, it is easier to turn toward unhealthy coping mechanisms, whether that’s over drinking, overeating, over shopping, over working, whatever it is but alcohol seems to be because it is so socially acceptable. Yeah. And also how many times, I don’t know how many times I had my friend say, oh girlfriend, you better go get a bottle of wine and go sit on your couch tonight. Right? Yep. Like that’s. Sometimes the advice that you get and it’s so normal and people are like, oh, you deserve it. Like, yeah, it’s okay. So, so how did that impact your relationship with her? Like, did she see that and
[00:07:00] say, well, you were drinking, like, no, she was already gone because she had gone to boarding school for a year and then came back and then went to rehab, and then came back. It was just, she was so in and out. And then I had an older daughter who was going off to college at the exact same time. Yeah. So it was devastating to, it was like I became an empty nester overnight for very, for different reasons. Right, right. And so yeah, the isolation, it’s funny you mentioned the alcohol. It’s not funny, but I think about it now and I don’t know what the milliliters are, but you know, like just a regular wine bottle. Yeah. And I got to the point where I was drinking one of those a night and I remember saying to my friend, I’m like, oh my gosh. Like before I was just drinking one or two glasses. Now I’m drinking the whole bottle. She’s like, it’s okay. It’s only like three and a half glasses, like what’s the big deal? I’m like, yeah, you’re right. Well, fast forward. I ended up drinking one of the bigger ones every day. Oh yeah. Which is equivalent to like two and a half or three of those. So it became a problem. Yeah, that was very functioning.
[00:08:00] Yeah. Went to work every day. You know, I, all of that good stuff. But yeah, the isolation creeps in.I sat there, honestly, the best way I can describe it is, especially ’cause my daughter was in trouble with the law and I wasn’t trying to rescue her from consequences. I wanted to keep her alive and so I did a lot of research and I always say, you know what? Worried mothers do better work than the FBI. Oh, yes. ’cause I sat there with my laptop and my bottle of wine and I would stalk her on Facebook. I would stalk her, you know, these quote unquote friends. I just wanted to know she was a live yeah. Because she had blocked all of us, all the family. So I didn’t have the communication with her and I was scared to death of what was happening to her. Absolutely. I mean, I have boys and I was worried to death about them. I, and I know this sounds terrible, but I just can’t imagine if it was a girl. I just think they feel so much more vulnerable. And I know guys can also have horrible things
[00:09:00] and do have horrible things happen to them, but there’s just something about, you know, my friends that have girls who are out there and doing things, and I’m just like, oh, it’s just terrifying. Yeah. So that makes sense to me that you would, you we do become FBI qualified. Mm-hmm detectives like, oh, you wanna find someone, give it to one of us because mm-hmm. That’s right. We’ll figure it out. So then more related to her, did you know why she was really struggling and pulling away from you? Was there something that you knew had happened? Or was this just sort of like, woo, like we’re going through the teen years? Just what was that experience like? Yeah, there’s, I think there was just a lot of things. Some of it is, was like, oh, you know, the teen years, this one decides to take this path. The other one takes this path, you know? My ex-husband had signed his rights off to them when they were eight and 10. Mm-hmm. My two biological girls and my husband adopted them, and they have a great relationship with
[00:10:00] him but there’s something to be said also, and I’m not saying this is all of it, but this was a piece of it. That I identified a long time ago and it’s a fact and she admits that now, but after she was able to work through all of that. But there’s a hole in your heart that you know for sure. Like when I got divorced, I thought, I can be mom and dad. I can be mom and dad. I can do this. I’m a single mom for six years. Like I got this. Yeah. And it’s great when they’re little, but they still need that biological parent. We’re wired that way. Mm-hmm. And so it ended up being fast forward many years. It took me to realize that even though they had a great dad, because he did adopt them, it’s not the same. Yeah, it doesn’t lessen anything from my husband, but it’s, you know, only the Lord can fill that it, and they don’t want necessarily the biological dad. So that’s fine, but. They needed God and that’s exactly how this turned around is she did find her faith again. Mm-hmm stronger than ever ever than what she even had as a
[00:11:00] child. It was just really turned her life around. Wow. Yeah. She’s quite the story, the parent thing. I think because divorce is so common now that we underestimate the impact of what happens. ’cause I know for my son, our divorce was a major source of his struggle. And man, it’s, you know, I think it’s one of those things that it’s so hard because do you stay together and have your kids see an unhappy relationship? Right. Do you divorce and then they have to deal with the family falling apart. I mean, it’s just an agonizing, agonizing decision. Yeah. Nobody wins in that. It’s horrible. I think the kids, yeah, they just. It just implodes them to some degree right. And we, mm-hmm no matter what we do, like how do we fill that hole, right. That they’re feeling. It’s just so devastating for them. And interestingly enough, actually, you know, because I do coaching, I would say, I mean, I don’t have a hard number, but truthfully, I would
[00:12:00] say at least probably 60 to 75% of the moms that I work with, their child has father wounds, whether dad died. Dad wasn’t present, or maybe dad wasn’t present, but he wasn’t really emotionally there doesn’t matter what the reason is. If there’s a void there, that child acts up. It’s so interesting. So interesting. Mm-hmm. Oof. Well note to self, make sure and keep all of those. I mean, you know, I am a, a divorced and then remarried as well and navigating that whole thing is, that’s a lot. It’s a whole lot. That’s a whole nother podcast. But, yeah, so she moves off at 17 and a half and has just, does she just shut you out at that point and you have no contact? Very little. Yeah, yeah. But because there was a lot of things that happened with the law that she blocked us and so forth. But we did have contact periodically. We then moved
[00:13:00] actually to a different state. Oh. I think she was about 19 at that point. When we moved, we had the opportunity to move and I was like, let’s go. I gotta get outta here. Yeah. It was just too hard. Yeah, we lived in a smaller town and it was just, it was a constant reminder plus we wanted to move, so it was a good, it was a win-win but we’re all down here in the same area now. So it was a total, God, it was a whole plan. There’s that worked out beautifully. A whole plan circulating there. Love that plan. So you really didn’t know where she was or what was going on or how, like how were you navigating through. Sounds like that was years of that. Mm-hmm. Well, once she was incarcerated, I knew where she was. Yeah. Then you knew and I did get to see her occasionally I did go to see her and we tried to work on things but the thing that I realized the most as a mom and what I do is that until I worked on
[00:14:00] myself, because I did, I needed to quit drinking, I mean, I wasn’t a perfect mom, but I wasn’t a bad mom. Yeah. And that’s the thing, a lot of moms feel like, oh my gosh, my child walked away or even, we’re just having a hard time communicating. I must be a horrible parent. It does not mean you’re a horrible parent. There could be commune just, it could be sometimes, literally it’s as simple as communication. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a big topic, but it can boil down to that and perception. Right? So there’s a lot of things that happen in every family, but I do think that, yeah, we just have to realize that no matter where our kids are at, whether we’re speaking with ’em, there’s limited contact or no contact. Like ours was ebb and flow. We would, especially in the beginning, there was none and then, you know, she needed me a little bit more when other stuff happened and I participated in what I wanted to and didn’t enable. I refused to do that. That was one thing I did right. I didn’t enable, yay everything else I did wrong,
[00:15:00] so, so that’s interesting. How did you, I’m curious about how you sort of grasp the concept of I need to work on myself, I need to change myself. I don’t wanna help her continue in this lifestyle that she’s in, was there a program or Al-Anon or something that you went to, or how did you start to shift your mindset on that? Yeah. Well, I knew that alcohol was destroying me. Yeah, I also had gained 70 pounds. Wow. And I was just extremely unhealthy and I had gone to the doctor one day and I had some tests done and I had a diagnosis scare, and literally brought me to my knees and I remember going home that night and I’m like, alright, Lord. Like I have tried to quit drinking on my own countless times over the years. Like I just. I just couldn’t, it would last maybe a day or two max. Yeah. But then you get to the point where you don’t tell anybody. ’cause you know it’s might not last. So I got to the point where I was like,
[00:16:00] okay, I have to quit drinking. I had so much inflammation in my body. Mm. And when you have breast cancer, or I’m assuming any type of cancer, the, the blood supply is formed prior to having a tumor. It prepare your body’s that great. Like it Yeah, it prepares it before that even happens and that’s what was happening to me. Mm. And I knew that if I didn’t quit drinking, it wasn’t gonna be good. Wow and I literally hit my knees that night and just surrendered. That was the biggest thing. I surrendered her, I surrendered my health, I surrendered the alcohol. I was like, I will do whatever, like. I truly, I feel like I did that other times too, where I’m like, you know, I’ll just surrender her. Like I’ll give up control because I know I’m not in control of all of this anyway. But as moms, we like keep taking it back. Keep taking it back, right. Yeah. We can do it. Yeah. But this time it was beyond me, way beyond me. So that
[00:17:00] was 10 years ago and I’ve not had a drop of alcohol. Wow. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That’s amazing. Yeah, it was literally a miracle. So was different. Yeah, way different and it stuck and so then I was able to, lose my weight, heal myself, day to day, stay the course and all of that. So that’s what started it and then I realized, I’m like, okay, this isn’t even just physical, this is emotional. So I had, I went through some trauma therapy myself. Good. Yeah. And did things like that and I just realized that there’s so much more that, each individual has to do. Yeah. You know, for themselves, for the relationship and as a mom, like it was all good intent. But I was one of those helicopter moms, kind of, I always say half helicopter, half drill sergeant, like, you know, yeah. I wanna rescue them so they don’t, nothing hurts them because probably because of the divorce, you try to protect more single mom, right? Like, you know what it feels like. Mm-hmm. And you just, nobody prepares you for that
[00:18:00] because nobody wants to go through that, but. Yeah. Wow. So in that is just so fascinating and thank you for sharing that. I think there’s a lot of moms in particular listening to this, but also in our community and all around who are trapped in that cycle of, we are kind of obsessed with, we’re almost like we’re addicted to our kids’ problems. Mm. And then that, because we’re just like, we’re so desperate to save them. And so I’m always fascinated when I hear somebody tell a story like that. ’cause it’s like, whoa, wait a minute. What happened? Mm-hmm. That you turned away from that and it’s not easy, especially when, at the time it’s not like everything was unicorns and, you know rainbows with your daughter. So it wasn’t like, okay, now everything’s good over here, so now I can fix myself. You did it while she was still struggling. I did. Wow. But it actually helped our relationship too. I’ll never forget the time when she told me, she said, you were so
[00:19:00] needy and at first I was like, oh, me what? And then I was like, you know what? I think I was, I was so engrossed and probably codependent with my kids that their, my happiness depended on their happiness. If they were doing well, I was doing well. And some of that is being a mom. Yeah. But we can take it to an extreme. And I think I did take it to an extreme. Yeah. So that’s what it for your daughter, when she said you’re so needy, you think that was her feeling from you, like you needed her to be good, you needed her to be healthy in order for you to be good and healthy. Is that a true statement? That’s true and then also, you know, the periodic times where I would reach out to her when she was gone, and very few times would she respond back. But I had my workarounds on how to get to her and so every now and again she would respond and I would be
[00:20:00] begging so teaching moms how to communicate with their kids without putting pressure, without begging. Oh my gosh. It’s night and day, night and day and I was doing that though. I was putting a lot of pressure on her. Why do you hate me? Why won’t you come home? I can’t believe it’s Christmas and you are not even like thinking of us. You know? It’s none of it makes logical sense. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not even to her back then, you know? Or right now she does. She’s like, why did I do that? But that’s just where she was at. Yeah. And so yeah, it all those kinds of things and we would communicate about that stuff now and we can laugh about it now, thank God. But it was a rough road. But now I can pinpoint that stuff in moms, like you say, like, okay, now I see, now I see the kind of the patterns that people are stuck in and can help them get out of it. Because life on the other side of that is just night and day. Yeah, it’s night and day. Okay. I
[00:21:00] wanna go back to the sort of needy thing, but what are a couple of other patterns that you see when, you know the clients that you work with when they have this relationship that is fractured and it’s not working and they’re not communicating besides this sort of like neediness and why aren’t you talking this kind of desperate mm-hmm. Outreach. What else do you see? Yeah. Well, nowadays kids are notorious for saying, I need a pause. I need a break. Mm-hmm. Some will give them a timeframe. Literally, they’ll say, I need 30 days, or I need six months, or, don’t contact me for a year. Mm-hmm. That’s hard to take as a mom, but what I love is when I am able to work with people right away before they make all these other mistakes. So one mistake that they’ll make is not honoring that. Oh yeah. And all they’re doing is pushing them away further. Because you have to keep in mind that we’re talking about adult kids, not 15 year olds.
[00:22:00] Right, right. Yeah. 16-year-old. You know, these kids are out on their own. They’re doing their own thing, good, bad, or indifferent. Right. Whatever they’re doing and honestly, a lot of these kids are not necessarily living a bad life. Many are very successful, and they get to the point where they realize, I can’t trust my mom. I can’t communicate with my mom. My mom doesn’t listen. That’s the other one. Mom does not hear me. Hmm? So I always say we need to seek to understand because their perception of some things might be completely different than yours, and that’s okay. You’re not gonna change someone’s perception, and I wouldn’t even try. Not gonna happen. No, no. It’s not gonna happen. My, we all, we all remember things differently. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And you know, even if you’re trying to change somebody’s beliefs, which I don’t even know if it’s worth the
[00:23:00] effort, you have to have a rock solid relationship before you’re gonna be able to do that, right? Mm-hmm. Like you have to be in a place where you totally trust each other, respect each other. You have a very healthy relationship and then maybe you can say, well, would you be willing to listen to this or mm-hmm would you be willing to consider, but you can’t do that from a place of like distance and, not even having any kind of a relationship. I would imagine. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Those are some good, very common patterns is knowing when to back off, when to focus on yourself. I always say any mom in this type of situation has two roles and number one is to literally start taking care of yourself. Yeah. Because I always say, who do you wanna be when they come back? Because if you have some of, like me, if my daughter would’ve came back and I would’ve still been drinking and she would’ve saw that version of me, she’d have been like, see ya. Bye. Right,
[00:24:00] exactly. But in my case, not that it was like completely perfect, but the timing was impeccable. Like she came back, I was healed. She was healed pretty much like she did, still did more work and it’s like now you have two healed people who can actually move forward in the relationship and in the family. Mm. That’s amazing. Yeah what is this trend? Because I see this especially on social media. This I’m going no contact with my parents or my mom is, and I think, you know, there’s obviously extremes. There’s both ends of the pendulum and that, and I think in some cases that’s probably pretty healthy. ’cause I know there’s a lot of very unhealthy relationships and maybe that young person is protecting themselves and their family and their sanity and at the other end, I feel like it could be a very selfish thing of like, well, I just don’t like. You know, the things that they do or their beliefs or their political thing. Mm-hmm or their religious thing or whatever. Yeah. So they’re not
[00:25:00] willing to come together and respect each other’s differences. So those are sort of the polar ends of that. But is like, where did this come from and are you seeing, I mean, you said you do see some of it, but Wow oh yeah. All of that like I can tell you 2020 was I’m still dealing with moms with ramifications from what happened there. Oh, for various reasons, like you said, is that can’t where it started. I wouldn’t say that’s where it started, but it definitely escalated then. It’s like they can’t, nobody can agree to disagree on anything anymore. Yeah. It’s my way or the highway. So you can just imagine like all of those conversations. But it’s so sad because I’m like, oh my gosh, like family is so much more important than any of that. Yes. Any of that. Yes. And, but what I do see is it’s one in three, depending on who you ask, one in three or one in four families will be affected by estrangement.
[00:26:00] Hmm. Dr. Phil says 25%. So one in four are currently. So a lot of that is, like I mentioned, some of the most recent, in the most recent years, but I believe it is social media. Especially TikTok, probably even more than Instagram, but TikTok for sure. Okay. I don’t know, but our read it TikTok, so I, yeah, I haven’t seen anything there, but I Instagram’s a lot of, yeah. Hashtag toxic parents. Hashtag toxic parenting, so basically these other affiliations and just people in general, adult kids who maybe we’re wrong by their parents, but rather than just moving forward with their own life, they kind of set out on this path and there’s mothers that do this too. I’ve seen, seen some that play the victim so much and just completely smear their kids online. But as far as the kid perspective is
[00:27:00] more of lines of the hashtag toxic parenting because my parents, my mom or dad or everybody doesn’t either agree with me, the perception is different. They refuse to see that. But honestly, what I think a lot of it is, ’cause a lot of the cases that I see where I’m able to help these people, these mom, the mom and the child come back pretty quickly is the communication gap. But it’s also in those cases, these particular kids are not chasing those hashtags, chasing the trend. ’cause that’s what it is for these young kids. They feel like their parents are emotionally unavailable and rather than dealing with the drama in the family. And some of it, like you said, there’s legitimate reasons and I see a lot of that and I understand and I don’t blame ’em. But the average family that there was no abuse or anything like that. This is all misunderstandings or perceptions, that kind of thing. It’s more along the lines of, yeah, I don’t really wanna deal with
[00:28:00] that right now. So I always say they just put mom up on the shelf. I’ll deal with her later. Mm. Meanwhile, mom’s over here being told I have a pause and I can’t talk to them for a year and if I do, boy, they come down. They come down hard at mom. Yeah. Unbelievably so, so it really, it’s, no two families are the same. There really is so many unique differences in how that all happens. But it’s just, it’s sad. It is an epidemic. It is so sad and what I kind of think about is in the case where either sort of the kids are like, huh, you know, I want this six month pause, or one year pause, or whatever it is. That I can’t even really wrap my head around that. Like I can’t, I’m trying to imagine doing that with my parents and I just can’t imagine that, but okay, so let’s say we do that and then how devastating that would
[00:29:00] be to a parent, but it also hopefully they find someone like you to say, okay, let’s take this time, let’s take this pause. And make the best of it that we can. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you see sometimes moms, ’cause you work with moms, and I know dads do this too, but I’m just saying mom, ’cause that’s who you work with, sort of not being willing to lay down their ego or sometimes, you know, as moms we have this martyr syndrome where it’s like, oh, oh, you know, like, oh, this is all on me and this must all be my fault. When maybe legitimately, I know a lot of young people, you know, we deal with substance use a lot of people in early recovery, they will say, I need a year to just focus on my recovery. Now, that’s specific to a substance use issue, but do you see sort of the ego getting in the way or there’s this martyr syndrome of like, oh, I can’t believe this is that a thing? Oh, it is. So a thing, I don’t work with those
[00:30:00] moms though because I can’t help them. They’re not willing to say, okay, let me try these things that you’re sharing with me. They’re pretty much on one sided by the time they come to me, they’ve already decided what side of the fence they’re on. Yeah. And I don’t get too many like that because they aren’t gonna waste the time to talk to me. Yeah, right. Yeah. So usually it is the mom led, you know what, I don’t know what happened. Some of ’em know, some of ’em don’t know, but like, if I don’t know what happened, but I know that I need to work on me and I wanna be better for her or him when they come back and I wanna be better for the relationship. And I call that a path to authentic connection. Mm. I love that. Because I always say, okay, this is bad enough that this happened, but this cannot happen again. Yeah. So therefore, if we don’t get to the root of it, I see it where people will be like, it happened again. Or I’ll meet someone and be like, this is the third time I’m like, something wasn’t resolved. Mm-hmm. And that I can’t, that’s devastating.
[00:31:00] Completely devastating. And a lot of grandchildren involved too, right? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. That adds a whole nother layer. Mm-hmm. Do you think when or even the first time, is it typically a matter of miscommunication and or is it typically there was an event that happened or something happened and that was the fracture and then the lack of communication skills sort of exacerbated that it, do you have a sense of what which those, it might be, I think a lot of times there is an event, but almost always that event. It wasn’t that event. It’s kind of like it was never the cookie, whenever you know the stories about the cookie, it’s like it really wasn’t about the cookie. Yes, yes. It’s about something else and it’s so much deeper and usually most of the time it’ll be something like kids will tell us periodically throughout their life. And a lot of times we don’t listen. Mm and not because we’re don’t love them, but it’s, yeah. You’re raising kids, you’re working, you’re, you know, doing all the things. And they might have been trying to express
[00:32:00] something and we didn’t hear it. We didn’t catch it. And then finally they crack and they’re like, I told you, you never hear me. Right. You never listen to me. So then they’re like, I’m done. So that’s one. That’s just one example. But yeah, no, I could see that and I think sometimes that’s because we don’t wanna see, right? We don’t wanna see what they’re trying to tell us and maybe as they’re growing up and they’re younger, they don’t have the words, or they don’t have the ability to say, look at me. I mean, this is what I hear from every therapist that I ever talk to about why kids, you know, get in trouble or do these things and they say, because. Parents don’t allow them to be who they really are is one of the biggest reasons and so I can see how that would be like, come on mom, I’m 20 years old and you know what I mean? I can see how that would just get to the point of like, I’m done or I need a break. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. There’s
[00:33:00] that side of it and then there’s also a lot of entitlement and a lot of people enable their kids and give them everything under the sun and then when it’s time to cut that off, when mom’s like, I can’t do it anymore. And then I’m like, well, they’re, you’ve trained them, they don’t understand. Now sudden you’re cutting ’em off. So there’s that, there’s so many different scenarios and situations and they’re all so difficult, but they, if you’re willing to stay the course, which I don’t know what mom isn’t most, I do, well, I take that back. I do have some moms that for their own sanity. They’re like, I don’t know how long am I supposed to hold out the hope? Yeah. Always, always, always. I think you and I are in alignment on that one. Yes. Like you have to and it’s not easy because a lot of times there is not evidence for hope. Right. In when, if you’re only looking at them. Right. Right. If you’re only looking at your child, you might not see evidence for hope, which is why we have to sort of
[00:34:00] be part of a community, have our spiritual practices, have our own self care practices. Right. Because it’s gonna be hard to find some days. Mm-hmm. What was your, like, how did you hold out hope when your daughter is in a pretty dire situation, it sounds like? Yeah, I didn’t do real well there for a while, but once I started turning it around, I started literally, like I said, we moved to a different state and I remember. Looking at my dining room table one day and you know, she had never been here obviously before. And I remember thinking, she’s gonna be here one day. She will be here. Mm-hmm. And I started speaking that literally. And I would picture her sitting there at family dinner and I thought it was a little crazy at first. And then I was like, where is this coming from? And then I started doing it and I started doing it all the time. And fast forward. We had family dinner and I sat there and wept and they’re like, what’s your problem? What’s mom’s problem? I’m like, you don’t know how long I’ve pray for this. Oh my gosh.
[00:35:00] So it is, it’s kind of like planting a seed, you don’t see the growth. Yes. Right and we have to remember that, first of all, we’re not the ones in control. We can control us and our behavior and our self-care and our, you know, all the things and our side of the equation. But all in all, most of the kids really just want a good relationship with their family. Yeah. When it boils down to it. Yeah. Just have to get them there. Yes. I love the sort of that visioning it.I tell people that all the time, like take a mental picture in your brain of your child healed and whole and happy, and it does make a difference. It does sound a little kooky, but you really? But it’s a choice. It’s a choice we create. I literally sent an email today that it was all about you create your own reality. Mm-hmm and if we continually in our minds,
[00:36:00] see them as gone, sick, mad, unhealthy, whatever, right. I mean, that’s what, how can you expect it to be any different? Yeah, yeah. We, we will create that. So even though it does sound a little crazy, that is a really, I’m so glad you said that because I do think, I dunno if you wanna call it a tactic or a tool or a right, but it’s something that you can do. It’s free. It’s positive. Right? Right. It’s like you can do that any other tips you wanna share for a parent who might be in that situation that you’ve either leaned on yourself or you see your clients leaning on? Yeah, I think the visualization piece like we just said, but also the power of your words. For those that pray, we were just talking about this in my group this last week. When we pray, and we say we’re trusting God, that for this restoration or for healing, or whatever it is and that’s all great and then 10
[00:37:00] minutes later we’re on the phone with our friend and we’re like, they’re never coming home. And I, you know what I mean? It’s like you gotta pick a side. Mm. Don’t be double-minded. Mm. And that too, is a choice. It just takes effort but once you start doing it, it’s becomes very natural. Yeah, but it’s worth checking yourself on that because it’s powerful. Oh yeah. It’s so powerful. Yeah, it’s, it’s easier to complain if everybody wants somebody to complain to. Yes, it is. Right. It’s so much easier. Yeah. But like you said, I think that also, kind of going back to what we said in the beginning where we can burn out our friends and if, mm-hmm are in this for the long haul. You were 10 years, you know, I was six years. You wanna make sure that you are not burning out your friends. ’cause they’re, if they’re good friends, they’re important. Right. And I know I had friends that were like, every single time I see you or I talk to you, that’s all you talk about and it’s, I
[00:38:00] get it. It’s like the most important thing in your life. But having and maybe you could tell us a little bit about how you work, ’cause I, what I’m imagining is if I have you and or group that you’re running, I have you two talk to about this so that when I’m going and talking to my girlfriends mm-hmm. I don’t have to always talk about that. Yeah. ’cause I’ve got a safe place. So what does it look like? What are some of the things that you do? Yeah. It’s funny about the friends. I always tell my clients to keep your friends for fun because you’re gonna need it. Oh yes. I lost several friends, but I don’t have, you know what I mean? Like, the relationships aren’t the same because I did burn them out. Yeah. And I feel horrible for that, but I was so hyperfocused and, you know, I’m still friends with them, but for that time period, it just wasn’t the same. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I understand. I understand. I would say, as far as what I teach people is, you know, as far as getting in a community of sorts. Right and I do what’s called a personal board of directors.
[00:39:00] Ooh. Tell that everyone has. Yeah there’s a handful of different titles of people that you would name in your world. You know, one’s a mentor, like a spiritual guide, who’s your health person? Your health coach? Mm-hmm. Like who’s your go-to for you know, for health and wellness, for example, like is it your massage therapist? Is it a chiropractor? Like who’s your people that you think of? As soon as you’re like, okay, I’m struggling right now, who do I need to contact? Yeah. So if it’s physical, like who are you gonna call? I love that. So there’s a myriad of those, but that is something that, you know, and usually your friends are not on that list and sometimes your spouse is not on that list. Mm mm-hmm. And that’s okay because you guys are gonna probably be on different pages. Mm. Same goal, but different pages. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, that’s something we didn’t even get into. That’s another podcast too, is the relationship with the spouse and yeah, that can get complicated. Okay love the personal board of directors. That is genius. I think everybody needs that, but
[00:40:00] especially if you’re in this situation where things are sideways, so. Right. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for this, this is so helpful. I know. So many moms are going to be going to the show. So go to the show notes. ’cause you’re gonna be able to get a link to Sally’s group, to her website so that you can, and YouTube. Yeah, you’re huge on YouTube. So I wanna make sure people find that because it is really, it’s like having a kiddo who’s struggling with substances until you have experienced it, you can’t right understand it and so, right. You’re somebody who understands that pain and the loss and the grief and all the things that you go through with that. Right? So we so appreciate your work and thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you. Thank you, Brenda. Thank you for having me. Thanks.