Quick Answer
When your child is misusing drugs or alcohol, it’s natural to feel like life is unfair. However, pity, bitterness, and resentment don’t give you anything positive in return. Instead, give yourself permission to feel emotions fully for 5-10 minutes, then look for the lesson in your hardship and rebalance where you invest your emotional energy.
Key Takeaways
- Feelings of victimhood, pity, and resentment don’t provide any positive return on your emotional investment
- Allow yourself 5-10 minutes to fully feel difficult emotions in private, then visualize placing them in a small box
- Life often sends signals and lessons disguised as hardship and pain – look for what you’re meant to learn
- Years of generational dysfunction and trauma can end with you
- Use a pie chart visualization to see how much mental space your child’s issues are consuming
In this article
Episode Resources
- Listen to this episode on Hopestream
- The Stream Community
- Brenda Zane Email List
- Hopestream Resources
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About the guest: Brenda Zane · Website
Brenda Zane is the host of Hopestream podcast and creator of The Stream online community for mothers of children struggling with substance misuse. Through her work, she intersects with parents at the most raw and painful parts of their parenting journey, offering support and practical guidance.
The Sacred Work of Parenting Through Substance Misuse
Parenting a child who is misusing drugs or alcohol often feels isolating. As one parent described it, “I look at what I do as sacred work, I get to intersect with you, at the most raw, most real and sometimes the most painful parts of your life.” This recognition of the profound nature of your struggle is important, but it doesn’t make it easier when you feel like life has dealt you an unfair hand.
‘The reality is people who don’t have a child at risk, or a child who’s doing really risky things. They don’t have this giant chunk of their brain and heart that is consumed with the ideas and questions and shame and frustration that you do.’ — Brenda Zane
Why Life Feels Unfair
When you’re watching your child make dangerous choices, it’s completely natural to wonder why this is happening to your family. The reality is that most people simply don’t carry the same burden you do. They aren’t consumed with the same level of worry, shame, and frustration that fills your thoughts day and night. This disparity can make the situation feel profoundly unfair.
The Cost of Victim Mentality
While acknowledging your feelings is important, staying stuck in victim mentality comes at a cost. As one parent reflected, “I have figured out that pity, and bitterness and resentment, which all come with feelings of victimhood, or that life is unfair, do not give me anything positive in return.” These emotions are heavy to carry and don’t move you or your child forward.
The key question becomes: if these feelings are an emotional investment, are they really worth it? Rather than letting bitterness take root, there are more productive ways to process your pain.
‘I have found that life has a way of sending us signals and lessons disguised as hardship and pain.’ — Brenda Zane
Finding Lessons in Hardship
One powerful shift is to look for the lesson within your struggle. Life often brings difficulties that carry hidden wisdom. For some parents, the lesson might be profound: “Maybe the lesson is that years of generational dysfunction and trauma can end with you.” For others, it might be developing greater empathy, patience, or a deeper relationship with another child.
Writing down the positive things that have emerged from your struggle can reveal unexpected growth. Many parents discover they’ve become more compassionate, healthier, or found more meaningful work through their experience.
Rebalancing Your Emotional Investment
A helpful exercise is to visualize your mental and emotional space as a pie chart. How much of it is currently consumed by your child’s substance misuse? For many parents, it’s the majority. The goal isn’t to eliminate that space, but to gradually rebalance it.
When difficult feelings arise, give yourself permission to feel them fully for 5-10 minutes in a private space. Then stop. Visualize placing those remaining feelings in a small box. This practice prevents rumination while honoring your emotions.
Small Steps Toward Positive Change
Once you’ve identified how much space your child’s issues are taking up, pick one small positive thing to add back into your life. It might be as simple as a walk, a coffee with a friend, or ten minutes of reading. These small additions begin to replace some of the negative space with something nourishing for you.
‘If those feelings creep up, ask yourself, if that’s an emotional investment, that’s really worth it.’ — Brenda Zane
The work of parenting through substance misuse is indeed sacred work. It requires tremendous courage to face each day. While you can’t control your child’s choices, you can control where you invest your emotional energy and how you move through this difficult chapter.
Connect with parents who get it
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is it normal to feel like life is unfair when my child is misusing drugs or alcohol?
Yes, it’s completely normal. People who don’t have a child at risk don’t carry the same burden of worry, shame, and frustration that you do. This disparity naturally makes the situation feel profoundly unfair.
How can I process my negative emotions without getting stuck in them?
Give yourself 5-10 minutes in a private space to fully feel your emotions, then stop. Visualize placing the remaining feelings in a small box. This honors your emotions while preventing rumination.
What’s wrong with feeling like a victim when my situation is genuinely difficult?
While your situation is difficult, pity, bitterness, and resentment that come with victimhood don’t give you anything positive in return. They’re emotional investments that don’t move you or your child forward.
How do I find lessons in something as painful as my child’s substance misuse?
Life often sends signals and lessons disguised as hardship. Write down any positive changes in yourself – perhaps you’ve become more empathetic, patient, or developed a closer relationship with another child. The lesson might even be that generational dysfunction can end with you.
How can I rebalance when my child’s issues consume most of my thoughts?
Visualize your mental space as a pie chart. Notice how much your child’s substance misuse occupies. Then pick one small positive thing to add back – a walk, coffee with a friend, or reading. These small additions begin replacing negative space.
What should I do when feelings of unfairness keep coming back?
Ask yourself if these feelings are an emotional investment that’s really worth it. Recognize that while you can’t control your child’s choices, you can control where you invest your emotional energy.
AI Answer Summary
When parenting a child who misuses drugs or alcohol, feelings of unfairness are natural but staying stuck in victim mentality is costly. Pity, bitterness, and resentment don’t provide positive returns. Instead, allow yourself 5-10 minutes to fully feel emotions, then visualize placing them in a box. Look for lessons in your hardship – perhaps greater empathy or breaking generational patterns. Use a pie chart visualization to see how much mental space your child’s issues consume, then add one small positive thing back into your life. Ask yourself if victimhood feelings are worth the emotional investment.
Transcript
Brenda Zane: Welcome back, my friends, how are you today, I’m so glad to have this space to talk with you. And just to connect to say hello to send you a virtual hug. It’s really really special to me. And I want you to know that I don’t take it for granted. I look at what I do. as sacred work, I get to intersect with you, at the most raw, most real and sometimes the most painful parts of your life. The parts you may not let many others if any others into. And I get to come alongside you when you’re exhausted and confused, hurting and scared, angry and resentful, and share ideas and information with you that hopefully give you a new perspective and hope that things can change. And things can change. I also get to celebrate with you when those changes happen. Big or small. And that’s amazing. That lights me up. And it keeps me doing this every single day. So the fact that you have me in your ears, walking or driving, or doing things around the house is an incredible honor. And I do consider it sacred. I have been thinking lately about the idea of fairness. I think many of us struggle at some time wondering Why me? Why do I have this burden? Why isn’t my child healthy, and doing all the things that they’re capable of doing? And life could start to feel really unfair? And we could start to slip into a victim mentality. And that sounds selfish. So we don’t really voice it out loud very often. I mean, it sounds kind of pathetic to say, This is so unfair. Why do I have to have this in my life, it’s not fair that I don’t get to have the same experiences other people have with their kids, enjoying fun and meaningful times with each other, watching them blossom and grow. And just doing the normal stuff like going to brunch on Mother’s Day or chatting about a dentist appointment. It’s not fair that I have to worry about him or her constantly that I have this underlying nagging anxiety and fear in my body. The reality is people who don’t have a child at risk, or a child who’s doing really risky things. They don’t have this giant chunk of their brain and heart that is consumed with the ideas and questions and shame and frustration that you do. And it’s hard to imagine what that would be like to not have this section of yourself lopped off and taken up by these difficult issues. So we swallow it and try not to think about how unfair life feels and how we’re really victims of Some unfortunate fate, we don’t want to sound petty, and we try to stay positive and all of that. So this concept of fairness, can sit and brew inside of us, which isn’t very healthy. Just like any negative emotion that sits and brews, it can start to infect our entire being our way of thinking, our outlook on life, our way of interacting with other people. And then we can become that person. And I have air quotes around that person, who people avoid because we kind of dripping negativity and pity and no one wants to be around that. So what can we do with this concept of fairness and victimhood mentality? And how can we reframe it so that it doesn’t consume us with negativity, so that we approach life more as a survivor than as a victim? First, give yourself permission. When the burden gets too much. To spend a few minutes fully feeling everything inside of you. Find a quiet space where you can be alone, closets, and cars work really well for this. And let yourself just feel it all. You might need to cry, or draw or write a letter or a text message. And if you do that, don’t send them you may need to scream or dance or run or pray. But set a time limit on this. Maybe it’s five or 10 minutes. Don’t go much longer than that, or it can become rumination. So for those five or 10 minutes, just let it all out. Don’t try to hold yourself together. Don’t try to employ any skills or restraint. Just let it out, it will feel amazing. Then when your timer goes off, pull yourself together and see what feelings are still remaining that you weren’t able to let go of. Those are the ones that you’re going to need to put away for now. So visualize a small box, make it whatever color and material you want. And take those remaining feelings and place them gently and lovingly in the box and close the lid. Some days, you may to put a mental padlock on your box. And some days, you can just let it be. Now that that’s done, see if you can consider the possibility that everything that happens to you is an opportunity to expand into a fuller potential, and a more powerful and meaningful life. And I know this is big thinking my friends, I know, especially if you’re in the thick of it with your son or daughter. So go easy on yourself if this seems impossible, but it might surprise you if you just let yourself go there for a few minutes. So if you can jot down in your phone, or in a journal or notebook, what things have changed about you for the better since you’ve been experiencing this challenge. Some ways that I changed through the pain of my son’s experience are that I am a much more empathetic person to all kinds of people now. I’m also physically healthier because I had to be to survive. I’m more patient. Because once you see your child’s health and safety at risk, those little things in life really become much less stress-worthy. I also have a closer relationship with my younger son, I have a much more fulfilling career, I have met the most incredible, amazing people that I would have otherwise never met. And there are way more but you get the idea. So spend a few minutes just writing down how has this experience brought something good or positive to your life. Right now there may be only one or two. And you may have to kind of eke them out of the corner and they may seem tiny. Or you might have a long list like mine. But either way, it’s the act of being conscious of it and making it real by writing it down. That’s important. And then ask yourself, What am I supposed to be learning from this? I have found that life has a way of sending us signals and lessons disguised as hardship and pain. And if you want to pull yourself out of the negativity trap that can come from a victim mindset or attitude of unfairness Look for the lesson. This isn’t a self-blame lesson or a way to make yourself feel bad. It’s playing back the edges just enough to find that nugget or nuggets that you can take with you, really through the rest of your life. Maybe the lesson is that you’re stronger than you ever thought you could be. Or that your child is stronger than you thought they ever would be. Maybe you’re learning that you’re great at compassion, that horrible at communication, or that you have a unique gift of empathy. Maybe the lesson is that years of generational dysfunction and trauma can end with you. Maybe you now know without a shadow of a doubt that your faith is the foundation and solid rock in your life. Maybe you now know that you married the right person. So now you’ve taken your five to 10 minutes to feel the feelings, you’ve let some of them go and then lovingly placed some of them back in your imaginary box. You’ve written down the silver linings or the benefits that these experiences brought you. And you’re considering the lesson or the lessons that have come from this current challenge. Now, what? Now, I would say to take a really deep breath, wherever you are, completely fill your lungs, hold your breath at the very edge of where you can. And then exhale as long as you can, ideally longer than your inhale was. Do that two more times, I’m going to give you the time to do that. So this upcoming silence is not a recording glitch. Really, really take these two breaths. Okay, so now you’re breathing, now ask yourself is the energy that you’re investing in this concept of unfairness worth the return that you’re getting on it? I am terrible at math and finance, and all of that stuff. But I have figured out that pity, and bitterness and resentment, which all come with feelings of victimhood, or that life is unfair, do not give me anything positive in return. Like if it was a stock, nobody would be buying it. There’s absolutely no return. In fact, there’s a definite loss, and we know there’s a loss. It’s just a really unwise investment to make. So if those feelings creep up, ask yourself, if that’s an emotional investment, that’s really worth it. And then go back to the idea of the space that this is taking up in your head. And in your heart. Think of it as a pie chart. In the pie chart, you have all the aspects of your life. And there’s a slice for your child and their issues. And I want you to imagine how big that slice is right now. I’m guessing that slice might be pretty big, and that’s okay. Or you might be in a place where that slice is manageable now. And it isn’t crowding out any of the other slices. If your slice is big, and it’s crowding out the other important pieces of the pie, try to think of what you would replace it with if your child was suddenly great today, if you didn’t need to worry about them, or make all the phone calls or try to figure out resources. If all of that magically just went poof and disappeared. What would you slide in there? Maybe you’d get out on the bike that’s collecting dust in your garage, or you’d pick up the paint brushes that have been sitting idle for the last year. Or maybe you’d go on a date with your partner or spouse or your younger child. Maybe you’d reconnect with the friends that you used to hang out with. Or maybe you would just take a bath. I know it’s not realistic that you are just going to swap out that slice of the pie for all these great things that have taken a backseat to the current challenge in your life. I get it. I’ve lived it. And I hated it when people would give me recommendations that weren’t realistic. So pick just one small thing and slot it into your pie chart by temporarily shrinking the victim or unfair section that’s taking up too much space. Notice the word temporarily. If you can make this permanent, awesome, do that. But just as an experiment, see what happens with just one small thing. So your pie chart of life now has a slightly smaller slice for the pity and resentment and victim mentality. And it has a new slice for something that you love that brings you happiness and peace. Try holding on to that for a week or two, and just see what might happen, you might find that you can take an even larger slice for yourself, once you get used to it. And that it will start to crowd out the feelings of unfairness and being victim to your situation. It won’t make it go away. But it can rebalance your attitude and way of being so that you’re no longer dragging around this weight. So to quickly summarize, it’s very common to feel like life is unfair and to have a victim mentality when you’re experiencing really, really difficult things in life, but we can shift this thinking by: Taking time and space to experience your feelings in full color. But in limited doses, not all day, every day. Writing down the positive things that have come to you as a result of this struggle, Finding the lesson that lives in this experience. Deciding if feelings of victimhood and unfairness are smart emotional investments that will give you a positive return and readjusting our personal pie chart to replace negative, unfair, and victim feelings with something positive that brings you joy. I’m so glad that you took the time today to look at this part of what might be bubbling up inside of you at times. And of course, I will say that it is much easier and more fun to work through this stuff with other people who are all going through similar things. This is the kind of stuff that we do and the work that we do in The Stream , the online community that I host for moms. So if you like the podcast, you will really like the tribe of women who are all focused on positive change, and making the best of a really, really hard time in their lives. You can hang out with us after each of these episodes at www.TheStreamCommunity.com, it is free for two weeks, so you can check us out and see if we are your kind of people. And after that, you pay whatever works for you. Also, if you want to get on my email list, so you can get the email every Wednesday that I send out just as a way to support you and what you’re going through you can go to Brendazane.com/email and just drop your email there and I’ll send you a short kind of one-pager email on Wednesdays, and I would love to be able to do that for you.
