Codependent Doctor
Podcast focusing on codependency. Learning how to create healthier relationships, healthier self and healthier lives.
Codependent Doctor
60: Loving Someone with Addiction: How to Set Boundaries Without Shame
What if helping someone you love is actually hurting you? In this episode, Donna Marston shares her journey as a mother of a child in active addiction—and how she learned to set boundaries, release shame, and reclaim her life.
We talk about the difference between support and enabling, the grief of parenting through addiction, and how healing begins when you choose yourself.
Learn more at www.sharingwithoutshame.com
Grab her free resource: 5 Boundaries and Breakthroughs
This episode includes a paid partnership with BetterHelp. Click this link, betterhelp.com/drdowney, to get 10% off your first month.
📗 My Books: Enough as I Am (codependency recovery) Enough as I Grow (365 day guide journal). Affiliate disclosure: I am an affiliate parner with Amazon and therefore receive a commission at no cost to you.
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🎵 Music: Touching The Air by Graceful Movement
Before we dive in today, I want you to take a deep breath because this episode is probably going to hit close to home for a lot of you. We're talking about the kind of helping that slowly drains you. The kind done out of fear, guilt, and love all tangled together. We're going to hear about the emotional toll of loving someone through addiction, what it really means to set boundaries without shame, and how to start reclaiming your life, even if you've lost yourself along the way. If you've ever felt like helping someone meant abandoning yourself, this episode is for you. So let's get into it. Welcome to the Codependent Doctor, a podcast where we unpack the messy, beautiful journey of healing from codependency. If you're burned out from people pleasing, stuck in unhealthy patterns, or just tired of putting yourself last, you're in the right place. I'm Dr. Angela Downey, a family doctor and fellow codependent, and I'm here to help you reconnect to your authentic self, one honest conversation at a time. Here we go. Hello to all my wonderful podcast listeners, and welcome to the 60th episode of the Codependent Doctor. I'm your host, Dr. Angela Downey, a family doctor and fellow codependent, here to help us untangle our patterns, heal our hearts, and reclaim our peace. For today's episode, we have a guest with us. Donna Marsden is a certified recovery support worker, energy healer, and founder of Sharing Without Shame. Drawing from her personal journey as a mother of a child in active addiction, she empowers families to heal, set healthy boundaries, and reclaim their lives. Donna is also the author of four books and is sought-after speaker and workshop facilitator in the recovery and wellness community.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome, Donna. How are you doing today? I'm good. Thanks, and thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02:I'm grateful to have you on the show. Your story is one that so many of my listeners are going to be able to see themselves in, especially those who've poured everything that they have into helping someone that they love only to lose pieces of themselves along the way. The way that you speak about shame and boundaries and reclaiming identity is really healing. And I know a lot of people are going to resonate with that. So I'm honored to have you in our space.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. I'm honored to be here.
SPEAKER_02:Donna, one of my traditions on the show is that we discussed what we're grateful for because when we stop and think about what we're grateful for, it helps our brains focus on what's working instead of what's missing or what's broken. So I'd like to ask you, is there anything that you're especially grateful for today?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm I'm grateful for the journey that I have been on that started with my son's addiction when he was 15 years old and who's now he's gonna be 43. Because there was a lot of bumps and bruises, a lot of heartache, tears in the fetal position. But what it did, it showed me how resilient I am. I found I have a strength I never knew I had. And it brings has brought me to a place where I'm able to take what once was my mess and make it my message in hopes to help other parents and family members who love somebody in active addiction.
SPEAKER_02:That takes a lot of healing to get to where you're at right now. That is a long journey, and um yeah, you've definitely done a lot of work to be able to get to where you're at. For myself, my my dad had a heart attack like two days ago, and um it is just shocking to me because my dad, he's my superman, and I'm just so grateful that that he's okay. It's shocking how how life, it's you know, it's not this infinite thing, and things change so fast sometimes. And we had a bunch of stuff planned for the day, and you know, we'd been stressing over getting all these things ready. And as soon as my my mom called to say that my dad was in the hospital, he'd had a heart attack, everything just went away. And that was my my main priority. It's a little scary, but I'm I'm grateful he's well, and I thank all the staff, you know, who are able to help him. And um yeah, I'm I'm glad that he's still with us.
SPEAKER_00:I was there many, many years ago with my father, so I I know what that feels like, and it's not a good time.
SPEAKER_02:But no, but I'm grateful that everything worked out okay. Let's start by having you introduce yourself and tell us about your journey.
SPEAKER_00:Well, my name's Donna Marston, and I have a son who's a person in long-term recovery. And as I mentioned earlier, it brought me to my knees when I found out. For the first five years, I suspected something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was. So it went on for 10 years. So 15 to 20, I suspected. You know, mother's instinct. One thing, listen to your gut, believe it, because we're usually our gut instinct tells us the truth. The last five years was an absolute nightmare. It's when I found out um he was an active addiction. I thought as a mom I could save him, I could love him into recovery. I found out that I couldn't. It's a horrible, horrible thing to live with when you're watching your child slowly kill themselves and there's nothing you can do. And so this journey, as I said, it brought me to my knees, but it also brought me on a spiritual journey that I never thought that I would go on, which helped me. I didn't do the traditional Al Anon and that sort of stuff. Well, I I didn't, I didn't. Um, and the reason I didn't, because when I went to Al-Anon, they kept telling me to come back, and in my mind, I didn't raise my son like this. And so just give me the answer so I can go home and save him. Because my kid's not like your kid, just just so you know. Right? A mother's denial is a wonderful thing. And and so, um, and it it was a very lonely place because your phone stops ringing, it's like you have cooties and people don't want to be associated because if they you know the kids hang out, and so you know, you're kind of blackballed a little bit. So there's all these emotions and stumbling and trying to figure this out and in rescue mode. Uh, you know, we're in fight or flight mode 24-7, and what happens is we get depleted. And so when that happens, we have nothing less left to give. And I just I made a mess because I didn't know better. And and it took me years of heartache and and and like punches to the gut, you know, emotional punches to the gut, for me to to get to a place where I hit my enough. And when I hit my enough, I was able to start working on me. And the way I did it is I saw a um an emotional scale, and it was number one to twenty two, and I was twenty two, I was bottom of the list, and I thought, how did I get here? What what brought me to this place? And um, and that's what made me realize how emotionally sick I was.
SPEAKER_02:So, what was the moment that you realized that helping your son was starting to cost you your own well-being? Was there one big triggering event?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. We had a bad day, and yeah, I was always very close to my son. And he had said to me once, he goes, Mom, as much as I love you, when I need to get high, stay out of my way. Because I will walk over you, I will step on you to get to go get high. And this particular day, this is how sick I was. I went out and bought a red light, it's like therapy that you use, using these red infrared lights, and it's supposed to help people with cravings to calm them down. And so I wanted to give him a session because I knew something was going on, and I knew he needed to get out. And so that so this is how it started to snowball. And um the phone rang, my gut said this isn't good. I felt like it was a drug deal, uh it was, and he he went to leave, and it it got it just wasn't pleasant, and and um he got a little physical with me, which is highly unusual for him. And he left and we was missing for about eight hours, and then Saturday night was always date night with my husband. And so we were getting ready to go out for dinner, and my son came in and I was so happy, I was like, So I told his dad he's home, let's take him to dinner, and he said, I'm not sitting across the table from from him. He's high, I don't want any part of it, and figure it out because I can't do this with you anymore. And as I'm walking down the stairs, calling him every name in the book in my head, by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs there was some clarity. And I gave him a a note and I said, Listen, this place has a bed. I can't do this with you anymore. Like I I'm empty, I'm emotionally and financially depleted, and I hope you'll get the help that you need. And he did. He ended up going to treatment the next day, which was Mother's Day. But I also found out eight years later, I think it was eight years later, that he tried to commit suicide that night.
SPEAKER_02:And um after you kind of set a boundary with him.
SPEAKER_00:When I set a boundary, he tried to take his life by overdosing. And when he woke up, he thought, well, maybe there's a plan and maybe I should go to treatment. So Mother's Day of 2008 was the greatest gift. Because that's when he went to treatment and he's been in recovery ever since.
SPEAKER_02:So it was just that that one night everything started happening and you set that boundary, and that was the only way that he made a change.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and to be you know, to be perfectly honest for for your listeners, he went to get me off his back. He didn't go because he wanted treatment. And that's how it rolled with him. He was in and out of treatment, and when I I was getting too close or too heavy or too too too much in his face or whatever, that's when he would go that's when he would go to treatment. And and then he'd go to treatment, and then within, you know, he'd slowly start using again. One of his treatments he started drinking that that night. Because drinking for my son would weaken his senses, so he'd go back to out to heroin. He was an Ivy heroin user.
SPEAKER_02:You've talked about helping and unhelp unhealthy helping. So can you explain the distinction between them and how it tends to show up in in the parent-child dynamics?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So over the years, you know, people used to say, you're an enabler, you're doing this, and you're doing that, and you're codependent, blah, blah, blah. That is shameful language. And people were shaming me for loving my son so much, for trying to parent him as a teenager and a young adult. I was doing my job because I took it serious. I don't like those words. I don't like that we shame and blame parents for loving their kids. So I had taken a class through this craft program, and it's about using love and being kinder. And and so instead of calling saying to somebody, oh, that's codependent behavior or that's enabling, let's talk about unhealthy helping. What does that look like? I'll see their their their shoulders are all relaxed, they're not so uptight, and you know, an unhealthy helping is doing for your loved one what they can and should do for themselves. Period. It's just that simple. What worked for me may not work for somebody else. Everybody's unhealthy helping is different. I have parents that do drug deals with their kids because they think they're keeping them safe. They keep they think allowing them to do drugs in their home will keep them alive. That's unhealthy helping. Because many times they have found their children dead in the morning. And and how do you live with that? That guilt. And plus you're you're participating in a drug deal. They're putting yourself in a really scary situation that could cause some legal ramifications. So unhealthy helping basically is doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
SPEAKER_02:What are some healthy helping mechanisms?
SPEAKER_00:Setting boundaries. So I'll give you an example. So there was this mom that used to come to my um, I used to run um Family Sharing Without Shame support groups in New Hampshire. I had two in different parts of the state that I ran. And so her son was homeless. He was I think I want to say early twenties maybe. And she was remarried. Stepdad did not want him in the house. And she's beside herself. I I want to make sure he's he's eating, blah, blah, blah. And it was summertime. And I said, Well, did did your husband say he could he couldn't come on the property? Or did he say he can only not be in the house? She said, No, he n didn't ever say anything about the property. He just said he can't be in the house. You know, you and you make a meal and you bring it out to a picnic table, and you can have feed him and then send him on his way. You don't give him money, but you might give him a blanket, you know, something to keep him warm or cool, or maybe uh uh some ice in a bucket, a cooler. Things like that. That's being supportive, but you're not giving money that they can use some drugs. You don't give them anything that they can sell for drugs. My son was so creative that he would go my husband had a business, so he would go fill up my husband's truck, and I could see the the receipt and it matched the bank account, same thing. In his recovery, he explained to me he was meeting his dealers at the at the gas station. He was filling up their cars with the gas in exchange for drugs. Okay. They're very creative, and they're always three or maybe ten steps ahead of us. That's why you don't give them bank cards or um merchandise cards or anything like that. Anything like that they can sell.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So what other forms of enabling are there? So you talk about don't give them money, things that they can sell. What are other ways that we enable people?
SPEAKER_00:Um with just anything or just talking with with drugs.
SPEAKER_02:With any kind of addiction.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean we pay their bills, we pay their mortgages, we, you know, reel them out of jail, we um I mean, anything that you can possibly imagine that you're supposed to do as an adult, we do for them, thinking that we're helping. And what it what it actually is is we're prolonging their addiction, we're helping prolong their addiction. So I'd pay my car my son's car payment, uh, we would pay his rent or his bills or whatever, you know, bail him out of jail, did it all. I did, my husband didn't. It was all on me. And so and I'd walk on eggshells, you know, because I was afraid if I said the wrong thing, I would be his excuse why he needed to go get high. So, you know, I would try to zip my lip, not rock the boat, and try to love him so we'd he would want to be in recovery, and but then there were times where I couldn't keep my mouth shut and I would say things trying to shame and blame him into recovery. And that doesn't work either. There's this craziness, there's this insanity that goes on. And it's a cat and mouse chase. There's a thing called the cycle of addiction. And when my son is newly in in active addiction, my gut's going, Mm, something's off. And as the allergy of the body and the obsession of the mind start to take over on him, my body's ramping up, going, Something's really wrong. And then he's, you know, goes out on binges, and now I'm getting angry because I don't know where he is, and something's like really, really wrong. And then natural consequences start. He gets arrested, right? Or he goes to treatment. And when he gets arrested, he has the same name as his father. His father was in the car business, and my son got arrested once for going into unlocked vehicles and you know, getting stuff out of those. And they have this big headline, they don't say he's 18 years old, they don't say he's a junior. And you know, there's there's that humiliation. So there's all this stuff that you that you do to protect them and thinking it's all in the name of love, but really it's um it's enabling their addiction. And again, we walk on eggshells.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. If you have a child who's living in your home, your son his addiction started kind of when he was 15, but that it continued after. So once they're 18, you know, they're not contributing to the household bills. They're not, they don't have a job, let's say. All their money goes um to to drugs, they're not contributing to bills or rent or anything like that. I can't imagine what things must be going through your mind when you're like, I my child lives in my home, he's not paying rent. How do you kick him out? I can't imagine being in a situation like that. Is that something that you've ever had to face?
SPEAKER_00:No. He would he would move out on his own and I would help him, and I couldn't get him out quick enough. But it's a different worry when they're not under your roof. But then there is a time, and here's my self-centeredness. I wanted him to live under our roof so I could keep an eye on him. I needed to know he was alive. Because when he wasn't living with us, that wonder of where the heck is he? What's he doing tonight? Is he safe? It's horrible. It's uh it just you're just never in peace, whether they're living with you or not living with you. But an important thing to note, this is uh I can only talk for New Hampshire, but I had parents who would try to evict their kids, adult children. What we learned is that when your adult child lives with you, that you should have an agreement. You should have a um, they should pay at least like ten dollars a week something, a monetary amount, and have an agreement. You can do I do a family living agreement, and on it, they are a tenant at will or a guest in the home. And that way you can eject them out of the house. Right. You can do an ejection, not an eviction. So it's really important for people to know that if their bills are coming to your house or you know they're contributing a little bit, you cannot just evict them.
SPEAKER_02:So I can only imagine having somebody who's got an addiction, um, a drug or alcohol or whatever addiction in your home, how disruptive that must be for other family members who are living in your home.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, your entire family life starts revolving around that one person.
SPEAKER_00:Well, uh, you take on family roles. So I was the unhealthy helper, and then I have another child, and so he he at some times might have been the scapegoat with the angry child that's in the house, or the lost child who just kind of gets out of the way and stays quiet, and then there's the mascot, the one that's always making jokes about everything and make make jokes about the person who's an active addiction, which m only enhances their shame or it gets messy. So I think there's like six or seven roles that we all take on, and what it is is we're trying to balance the family. And so if you can think of like a three-legged chair, my son's sitting on that, standing on that chair, I'm standing in front of him and he has his hands on my my shoulders because I'm the unhealthy helper, so I'm keeping him balanced. And then my husband, my other child, or depending on how many family members, we're all like circling around, and everybody's trying to get my attention. I'm the mom. Right? I'm the wife. And and it just it the whole family dynamic gets out of sorts. And and then this the sober siblings, they're hurt too. And they don't often they're not old enough sometimes to have the verbal skills to tell you what emotions they're feeling, and and we forget about them. I was so hyper focused on saving my son from his addiction that I wasn't available for anybody else that was healthy in my life. And there's a lot of guilt that I carried when I figured that out. Because how unfair was that. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:And all these other family members who are taking on these roles, they start developing codependent patterns themselves. They're no longer allowed to be children, they're having to parent somebody else or or be something for somebody else. You know, it affects their future lives. Shame is this like invisible thread that is tying us to codependent patterns. How are some of the ways that shame showed up in your life and what helped you begin to untangle from that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the shame is like, you know, I was like a prisoner in my house. I didn't want to go out, you know, because people look at you. People when people find out you have a child, an active addiction, they say some of the meanest things to you. It's horrible.
SPEAKER_02:Like other people are saying these things to you. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And the thing is, some of them I knew that their kids were doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe they just didn't know about it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. It's uh it's just you know, it's just real hard stuff. But shame shame is like a ball and chain around your ankle or handcuffs, right? It just keeps you just down and out and until I was able to work past it and realize hey, I'm not the one doing this stuff. I can't make my son do drugs. I can't I'm not that powerful. And so it's not my thing. It's not my problem. It's I have nothing to be ashamed of. My son has a brain disorder, his brain functions differently, it's wired differently than mine. Period. And and that I think it's time that they have a team of doctors, just like anybody who has a heart condition or has uh diabetes or anything like that, because it's it just affects their brain. Like I said, their brains are wired differently than ours.
SPEAKER_02:One of the things that often gets overlooked is this silent grief of loving someone with an with an active addiction. So how did that grief show up for you?
SPEAKER_00:It kept me just in a place of this perfect sadness, you know. Um you there's a there's there really is broken heart syndrome, and all of this stuff just piles on, and you just get sicker and sicker and sicker emotionally. We mimic each other's behavior in a way that when my son's an active addiction, I'm active in my unhealthy helping, right? And it's like this triangle. It's just coming out right. There we go. And so at the top of the triangle, I enter it, and I'm gonna be his rescuer, and I'm gonna rescue him from the dealers, from himself, from his drugs. And when I work harder doing that, and it doesn't work, and then I go down to the the bottom, and now, you know, I'm the victim. How could this happen to me? You know, what did I do to deserve this? If you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when I get sick of being emotionally sick, then I become the the persecutor. You SOB, how dare you do this to your father and I. We've given you a good life. You had a you had a nice household, we didn't we weren't, you know, abusive, we didn't swear around our children. We're parents who showed up. And when I couldn't bring him to his knees and get him sober, I would ping around in that triangle. Well, my son's in the same triangle. He's at one point of it and he's trying to detox himself. I think he has the flu. He's up in his room, and when that doesn't work and he has another craving, he goes to be, you know, into victim role. If there was a God, this wouldn't be happening to me. And when he gets sick of being sick, then he becomes a persecutor. And who does he persecute? The unhealthy helper. If you bought me designer clothes in sixth grade, I wouldn't have been bullied. If you did this for me, I wouldn't have had to do this. If you did this, if you did, and it's all my fault. So we mimic each other's behaviors.
SPEAKER_02:How do you get out of that pattern?
SPEAKER_00:It's like a hula hoop. You gotta stop and drop. You know, the hula hoop has all our crap hanging off of it. Every um I have all my son's stuff that I've added to my hula hoop along with my own emotional stuff. And at one point I hit my enough when I saw that emotional scale, I dropped my hula hoop and I stepped outside. I picked up one thing, and for that day, just that day, I started to work on me.
SPEAKER_02:And how did you do that? Did you contact a counselor? No. I did not. But you knew you knew some tools if you were able to set that boundary. Was there something helping you along that way?
SPEAKER_00:It hit my enough, and I had started going to um like spiritual groups and learning how to meditate. I started to journal. I started to do those tools, and I did eventually go to Codependence Anonymous, and it was a great group. It was all women, and we did a lot of we read out of the Melody Beattie books, and we were allowed to share our emotions and cry and and speak openly. You didn't have to only speak about what you were reading. So that was that started to catapult my healing. And then I I started I became a Shambhali Reiki master, started doing energy healing, all that type of thing. So I kind of did the non-traditional way of healing, but I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've been doing this for a lot of years, and I still still work on the healing piece because something shows up. Because guess what? It's not about the drug or the alcohol, it's not about the unhealthy helping and all that stuff. It's the why do we do what we do? There's something in us, we do it because it makes us feel better. Trying to help somebody else. That's what I had to work on. My people pleasing. Right? We start to throw all this this stuff, this mess that's going on, these emotions come up from from our childhood. And all of a sudden, when we're starting to unload and think we're unpacking for because our loved one's an active addiction, all this other stuff starts coming out, and then we the real healing starts to begin.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I have a PhD in people pleasing. That is something I've I've struggled with for a really long time. And I love that you brought up Codependence Anonymous and that that was part of your journey. It's part of my journey. It is a fantastic group, and I learned so much by going through Codependence Anonymous. I'm happy that you brought that up. So thank you for sharing that through all these sessions that you're going through, you're starting to reclaim your identity. And this is becoming part of your healing journey. So, what parts of yourself did you rediscover after stepping out of the caregiver role?
SPEAKER_00:That, you know, everybody has to do it their way, not my way, which one of the greatest things I learned was um, and this really irritated me at the same time when I learned it, is nobody has to live up to my expectations. It's like, what? Yeah. And what I learned is when I put my expectations on my son and how he did his recovery, I set myself up for disappointment. I had to learn that. I rediscovered that I was stronger than I ever knew that I could ever possibly imagine, that I'm resilient, and that we teach people how to treat us. And it's a shame we don't teach our children that at young ages. Because a lot of addiction, whether it's shopping, love, you name it, it's because it's it's fill it fills a void, right? It fills like a hole in our soul. So whatever it is, we just fill it with something that makes us feel better. Keep yourself busy so you don't have to feel anything.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure. So you found it sharing without shame. What inspired that name?
SPEAKER_00:Because that's what I carried for so long, and and that's what we need to do. Because it I think when we share without shame, whatever it is, we we eliminate the stigmas, we start to bring awareness to it, and when we bring awareness to it, then people are educated, and then people hopefully the thought process is gonna be different and better and healthier.
SPEAKER_02:One thing I'm thinking about um that I'm curious, so you've mentioned a couple of times that people around you were judging you um and and would say terrible things about your son and your relationship with your son, and you kind of felt a little bit isolated from your friends and and your support groups. Did those people ever come back? Did you ever did you manage to to work on that relationship with them?
SPEAKER_00:Here's what I realized. At one point, I remember praying and saying, take all of the all the negative people out of my life. I don't want to deal with it anymore. I only want to be around positive people. I want to be around people who love freely, who are kind, and and just just they're just good all around. And what I noticed is and I woke one day I was like, ah, like, where is everybody? I got what I wished for. I got what I wished for. They all left. And as I moved forward by myself, I realized it it was okay. Took me a while. Because it's you know, loneliness the um gets loud, right? That silence gets loud. But I work through it and I f um I have people in my life that are just more authentic. They're not takers, you know, and I don't have to pretend to be somebody else so that they won't abandon me or not like me anymore. What you see is what you get, and if you don't like it, that's okay. 'Cause we're not meant to be friends. And that's okay.
SPEAKER_02:So so these people that kind of weren't part of your life anymore, would you say that these are people who your relationship with them just probably wasn't healthy to begin with?
SPEAKER_00:I think some of 'em were uh you know, i I I would go along because I would keep my mouth shut so they'd be my friend. Even though they would hurt me. I just I stuffed it. And I don't have to do that anymore. So out of my all of this mess, uh you know, this this person who's more honest with herself has come come forward. Because we when we get honest with ourselves about what's going on, then we can start to to get better and do things better and make better choices and have people in our lives that are healthy. Right.
SPEAKER_02:And then you find people who like you for the person that you are, the honest, authentic person that you are.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And that's and that's good. It's a win-win, and that's how I want to live my life. I'll it needs to be wins from now on. And I don't have to I don't have to put up with someone disrespecting me to be their friend.
SPEAKER_02:What were some of the most unexpected emotions that you had to face in your recovery? Not just from your son's addiction, but from your own patterns of overfunctioning and being a caregiver.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that I am enough. So all my life I was told, oh, you're too sensitive, let it go. So I all my life I thought I had a character defect. And um, you know, a few years ago I was in my late sixties, I'm in my seventies now, but in my late sixties, which is so sad that I carried that around, that I that I just I wasn't enough and I let my emotions get in the way.
SPEAKER_02:And like you said, that we're all a work in progress and we're still working through through all these things, and that's that's a lot. You're also an energy healer. How has energy work helped you from energetic imprints of trauma, shame, or chronic caregiving?
SPEAKER_00:So I don't practice like I used to, but I d I continue to have energy healing for me. I I work with crystals and a pendulum and you know, things like that, but I don't do the hands-on anymore. But for me, it I just found this new woman in Conquer, New Hampshire, who is fabulous, who helps you um unblock like the mother wound, right? I had a real mother wound going on and and we worked on a and this was like three weeks ago, and my mom is 96 now, and there was resentments because I was taking care of her and and she could be demanding, and and after I had this healing with her, we're laughing when I'm with her. You know, we're having fun finally. So and it this woman just it's called Access Code. She helps break um blocks that we have. And I've had two sessions with her and she's been amazing. So I I still do different things. I went to a um a sound bath and you floated in a pool with with the uh this the singing bowl, the sound bowls, yeah, you know, stuff like that. Those are stuff I recommend. So I try to get a find a lot of stuff so I can when I'm working with clients, I can make suggestions to them because we're uptight. When we're dealing with all these emotions, we're in fight or flight mode. Shoulders are up, right? We're uptight, and and this just relaxes the whole body. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Energy work isn't something I've ever tried before, but it's it's very interesting, and I definitely hear a lot of very good things about it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'll tell you, Reiki saved my life. And because when I was in the throes of it all, I went to a Reiki session and it was amazing. And I started to have lightness in my heart. I felt a little a little bounce in my step. I smiled and laughed that day, and I hadn't done that for a long time. That's amazing. Reiki's really good. It's very good for cancer patients as well.
SPEAKER_02:So if someone is listening right now and feeling trapped in a cycle of enabling or emotional burnout, what's one small step that they can take towards change?
SPEAKER_00:Breathe.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Something so simple, right? We've been doing it our entire lives, but in truth, when you're stuck in this fight, flight, or freeze response, you're kind of shallow breathing. You're not taking that big deep breath to cleanse yourself. Calm, you can use breathing to calm your nervous system.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and I found in many of the parents I worked with, we we we would catch ourselves holding our breath. I literally had to rem like breathe, stop, stop doing that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because that's what we do. We're holding our breath, we're waiting for the next thing to happen.
SPEAKER_02:And just learning to breathe out and exhale all of that pent-up nervousness and anxieties, it can be really helpful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you know, you mentioned the nervous system, and when somebody for whether you know, we're the unhealthy helper or the person with a substance use disorder, it affects the nervous system. Find something, whether it's a chiropractor or energy healer that can work on your nervous system, and that can make a huge difference.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure. Donna, where can people find you?
SPEAKER_00:They can go to www.sharingwithout shame.com.
SPEAKER_02:That's amazing. And you offer therapy sessions nationwide?
SPEAKER_00:I do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay, fantastic. I love therapy. I've been in therapy my whole life. Well, not my whole life. Adult life, I would say. And and I I keep going because it's just such a great way to keep everything aligned and and keep your body well and your mind well. You also have a freebie, so you have five boundaries and breakthroughs. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so you know, when especially when parents are new to addiction and and there's just so much confusion going on, this gives them a guideline. So here's some five boundaries that you can utilize with your teen or adult child who's an active addiction, and here's some breakthroughs that you know can happen. So it's just it's a it's a free guide that you can get on my website. Perfect.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm gonna make sure that the links to that are in the show notes. So if anybody wants to have that, they can click on the link in the show notes and they can contact you as well for therapy. So I'll make sure that your website's up on the show notes as well.
unknown:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Donna, thank you so much for being on the show and for sharing your story with such honesty and vulnerability. And I really appreciate your willingness to speak openly about the hard parts of life because it makes it easier for others to feel seen and feel less alone. So it's been a gift to have you on the show. And I really appreciate your wisdom and for being here. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And thank you for everyone who's hanging out with us today on the codependent doctor. If you like the episode, I'd love it if you would share it with someone who needs to hear it and heck, just share it with the whole world. I'd love to help more people out there. I'd also love it if you'd be so kind as to follow and maybe leave a comment while you're at it. I'm most active on Facebook at the Codependent Doctor and Instagram at DRAngela Downey. I wish you all a great week as you learn to foster better relationship with the most important person in your life, yourself. I'm going to talk to you again in two weeks with Codependent Doctor. Take care for now. You've got this. Thanks for spending time with me today. I hope something in this episode resonated with you. If it did, hit follow, subscribe, or share it with someone who needs to hear it today. The codependent doctor is not medical advice and doesn't replace speaking to your healthcare provider. If you're in a crisis, please go to the nearest ER or call 911 or reach out to your local mental health help line. I'll be back here next week with more support, stories, and strategies because we're healing together.