The Hidden Struggles You Can't Name: Navigating Grief and Hyper-vigilance When Your Child Struggles With Addiction, Part One, with Cathy Cioth

EPISODE DESCRIPTION:

Sometimes, the hardest parts of our journey are the feelings we can't quite put our finger on, when you can tell something feels off but can't really articulate exactly what's wrong. In this two-part episode, Cathy and I dive deep into four of those sneaky, often invisible struggles that so many of us experience when parenting through substance use and mental health challenges.

PART ONE:

In part one, we cover the kind of grief that doesn't get a funeral, the common response of hypervigilance and the exhaustion it creates, we share personal stories about the physical toll this emotional marathon has taken on us, and the importance of giving yourself permission to feel it all.

Key Takeaways:

• You're not crazy, wrong, or alone in experiencing these hidden struggles
• Grief for dreams and expectations is real grief, even when your child is alive
• The difference between helpful vigilance and exhausting hypervigilance
• Practical strategies for managing overwhelming emotions without numbing them
• Why your nervous system needs intentional care and how to provide it

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Transcript

Cathy: 0:03

I remember they would have support calls and I'd be on these calls and you'd hear some parents say, well, I am so happy. Oh, I can finally relax and breathe. And I'm sitting here on my end of the call saying, I just wanna. Throw up, you know, and I, you know, was so sad and, you know, didn't, couldn't believe this was the life.'cause I had two kids gone at the same time. So our house felt incredibly empty and quiet. I.

Brenda: 0:44

Welcome to Hope Stream, the podcast for parents of teens and young adults struggling with substance use and mental health. I'm Brenda Zane. I've walked this path with my own child's addiction and high risk lifestyle. Each week we help you gain clarity, learn new skills, and most importantly. Find real hope in what might feel helpless. You are not helpless and you're not alone anymore. Find more resources@hostingcommunity.org. Hey Kathy, welcome back. Welcome back to the us. You were in Mexico for a little bit and welcome back to the podcast.

Cathy: 1:36

Well, thank you very much. Yeah, it was really, it was so nice. Just little vacay with the family and, oh,

Brenda: 1:41

so

Cathy: 1:42

I left because there's a little, little storm coming in, so I always like to be. Back in my home when rain.

Brenda: 1:49

Yes. Yes. And I am also on a little, I'm on a workcation. Is that a thing where that is where I get to work from A place that feels like vacation in the desert in California. So that's really nice. It's nice that I have friends with houses in warm places. Very fortunate for that. Although it is gonna be 108 this weekend, so I, I, I need to tap into my friends who live in hot places and like, what do you do? You can't really go outside, can you?

Cathy: 2:18

I was in Montreal years and years ago, and I was so impressed because they had underground malls. And that's where people would go when the bitter cold. But I don't think there really is such a thing of attest. No, I have no, it's outdoors.

Brenda: 2:33

I've not seen one of those. I think you

Cathy: 2:34

just stay inside with the ac.

Brenda: 2:35

Yes. Okay. Well that has nothing to do with our topic for, for this week, but no. Interesting. Nonetheless, you know, Kathy and I spend a lot of time on Zoom together and talking, and we also peruse. What's going on? Just keeping a pulse on the community and what's going on in the stream. And there were some things that we thought about that might feel a little hidden, meaning you maybe feeling some of these things, but not really being able to put your finger on them. Like, you know, something feels off or something feels uncomfortable, but you can't exactly articulate why. And also hidden because. People from the outside looking into your life probably do not see these things or can't understand 'em.

Cathy: 3:26

I would definitely say that. Well, because they were things that also we felt right during that time so long ago.

Brenda: 3:32

It's

Cathy: 3:33

one

Brenda: 3:33

of the many little things that goes along with substance use with our kiddos sometimes. You know, I remember I would at one point open up to somebody and say, yeah, you know, my son's struggling with addiction, and they really just think about, oh, that her kids like drinking too much or using pills. They don't see the ripple effect of. How that impacts, uh, so many people's lives around the person. So if you're experiencing these things, you're not crazy. We promise it's not fun, but you're not crazy. It's not wrong, and you definitely not alone. We've got hundreds of beautiful, amazing moms in the stream who are going through it, so we know it's real.

Cathy: 4:25

We do, come on over and find your tribe because it, it can be a really lonely place and God, you're so not alone. Yeah.

Brenda: 4:34

Yeah. Come join us. Yes. So we're gonna try and get through four of these. We don't know how long it's gonna take us.'cause you know, every once in a while we go on a little tangent down at cul-de-sac that we weren't planning on. But we'll start out with the first one, which is all about grief. And this is the kind of grief that is so confusing, and I did not recognize this when I was in the middle of the crazy, like, if somebody would've told me, oh, you're, you have grief? I'd been like, no, I don't. I'm, I'm just right. I'm angry, I'm confused. But it's the kind of grief that doesn't get a funeral, which I think is really important. What do you, what do you think about this one?

Cathy: 5:20

Well, it's interesting when you said you couldn't name it, I couldn't name it either. Mine showed up as just incredible sadness. And I remember a therapist said to me like, well, you're, you, you are experiencing grief. And I thought, what is she talking about? You know, my kids are here. And, and then I was starting to realize what that grief was for me. You know, the, that sadness was all these dreams that we had, you know, for. Our kids, you know, and expectations and all of that. And you know, personally too, right? In my relationship with my husband and everything, and. Those things just kind of weren't happening the way I planned them. Maybe when I was, when I was, when I was getting ready to get married and thinking, oh, we're gonna have the just this amazing little life with 2.2 kids and blah, blah, blah. You know? I wasn't that.

Brenda: 6:16

Yes, I know,

Cathy: 6:18

but you know what I mean?

Brenda: 6:19

Yes. 2.2 kids in a golden doodle.

Cathy: 6:22

Check. Well, yeah, exactly right. You gotta

Brenda: 6:24

have the doodle.

Cathy: 6:25

You gotta have the doodle. But yeah, it, it is, gosh, that really was so tough and, and you know, still experiencing it at times, right?

Brenda: 6:34

Yeah, for sure. I think it's that, uh, it's complicated. I think everybody understands if you lose somebody and they pass away, that's grief, right? There's a, that's a simple equation. When your child is still in front of you, but they do not look like your child, nor do they act like your child. And often they act like a person that you really don't wanna associate with. That is a kind of grief that's so complicated and vague, which is why we wanted to talk about this because I remember. That showing up for me is anger. Like I would see my son, he was super skinny. He dressed like a thug. He talked in some language that I didn't understand, the street gang language. He was rude and all of these things, but I'm like, but I gave birth to him like he's my kid. Right? And, and I originally took that as anger and it wasn't until. I started learning more about grief that I, I really was grieving. It's that ambiguous loss that I think Pauline Boss is very famous for talking about ambiguous grief or ambiguous loss that you're grieving somebody, but they're standing in front of you. Right. And so they're not gone. But they are gone and it's, it's just, it's super hard. So you've got that plus, like you said, the expectations. Mm-hmm. And the things that are, are gone now.

Cathy: 8:15

It's, yeah. It's truly just the, you know, you're grieving your situation, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's truly what it is. And then how is it for you, as far as you know? Yeah. Friends or family, if you were open with that, how did they, you know, how were they with you? You know? Because when you think of like, when you lose a parent or you know somebody in your family, someone does actually die, right? People respond differently, right? You get the cards. You get lots of calls. Sometimes someone will bring over a casserole or whatever. Right? Yeah. You feel like people are coming alongside you, right. To share that grief. Right. And I think even though they might feel uncomfortable, right, because grief is just a complicated emotion. Truly. Yeah. I mean it, it's complicated like you said earlier, but when it's this situation, you're not, people aren't showing up with. A nice comforting soup that they made and saying, Hey, here's some great soup with some warm, crusty bread. No, we know that your child didn't come home last night or whatever that is. That's not happening.

Brenda: 9:24

Right? That is not happening. No. It is grief that goes unrecognized. And I think it's potentially even more confusing for your friends and family because they don't know what to say. Right, right. Like who, who has the. The Hallmark card for your kid just ran away on a drug deal to another state. I don't think there is one. So people don't know how to react, which leaves you on your own to deal with it. And uh, I know, I have heard people say, gosh, it's so hard because, you know, I've been dealing with this for so long and now my kid is in treatment and. That's a, that's a different kind of grief because they're, maybe they're away from you and they've never lived away from you. Maybe they're a teenager, right. Or whatever. And so I. People on the outside are like, you should be happy right now. You should be relieved that they're in treatment. You should be relieved that they're in early recovery and inside of yourself, you're just like, ah, you know, you can't find your feet. And it's so, it's just really hard. And we see this in the community too, that it's just it's grief and then. Freak out and then total confusion and then something good happens and it's like, oh, okay, I have some hope. I think things are gonna be okay back on track. And then the very next day it's back to something crazy. And so it's this just constant up and down of grieving and celebrating and being scared outta your mind and all of those things at once is just. It's, it's so much. Which is why we wanted to call it out because I, I, I just, I know there's people listening who have not really identified this as grief.

Cathy: 11:20

Yeah. Yeah. And that physical response. Right. It's a physical response too. I know that I had a lot of just. Tummy, tummy issues and everything. And you know, and it, it just, when you were just talking about that, when your kid goes to treatment, and I remember they would have support calls and I'd be on these calls and you'd hear some parents say, well, I am so happy I, I can finally relax and breathe. And I'm sitting here on my end of the call saying, I just wanna throw up, you know? Yeah. And. I, you know, was so sad and, you know, didn't, couldn't believe this was the life.'cause I had two kids gone at the same time. So our house felt incredibly empty and quiet.

Brenda: 12:07

Yeah.

Cathy: 12:07

And then you're right. I then starting to feel that little bit of hope and then feeling guilty because maybe I shouldn't be feeling good. You know, my kids are. In the middle of the desert dealing with their own stuff and anyway,

Brenda: 12:20

yes.

Cathy: 12:21

So complicated.

Brenda: 12:22

It is. It is so complicated. I think what's really important when you are feeling that heavy, heavy grief, like you said I wanted to throw up mm-hmm. Is to not try to make it go away. Yeah. I think we really have to say, I am feeling. Maybe you wanna call it grief, maybe you wanna call it something else. But don't try to then immediately think, okay, how can I get out of this? I can go on a walk, I could do yoga, I can talk to my friend. Like, we don't, those aren't good things to do, but not at the expense of letting yourself feel what you're feeling. Your child is in danger or they're gone, you know, at treatment or whatever it is. You should be feeling this way. Don't try to get yourself out of it immediately. I spent a lot of time, I still have to wrestle with this of, wow, I am feeling a huge emotion right now. And my first instinct is, how can I get out of it? How can I make it go away? How can I lessen it? How can I tamper it? And that is not always what we need to do. I'm sure. We should probably say this again for the millionth time. Kathy and I are not therapists. We are, we don't play therapists on tv, on a podcast nowhere. We, we are not therapists. So I am sure that there, if you wanna explore this more, a therapist would have much more information for you. But I have found that it is helpful to, for a little while, and I'm talking maybe an hour or two, not days or weeks or months, let yourself feel that. Intensity, like you said, like I might grow up or I might curl up in a ball in my closet. Let yourself do that. Don't try to just push it away.

Cathy: 14:15

I absolutely love a really good cry and that was honestly something that really helped me get through a lot of. What we were dealing with as a family and you know, it just felt so great. And you know, I was one of those people that used to laugh when I cried because I felt so uncomfortable around it, you know, that I was letting this emotion out. And also, I was always such an easy crier when I was young, so I kind of was a little bit teased. Now it's just, I embrace it and it really is, you're right, we are not therapists. Everybody just one protest, but cry. If you have to. Cry, if you have to shout, scream, hit a pillow, you know, these are all things that are just, it's just so great. It's energy that moves to your body and it's super, super helpful. I used to say all the time too, you can go to the party. Cry party, pity party, whatever you wanna call it. Just don't be the last one to leave.

Brenda: 15:19

I love that. Yeah, it's, it's important. You can, you can hold those two things. I think that's another part of growth that I've experienced is I can hold two things at once. I can be grieving and I can still be hopeful. Like you have to be able to hold both of those at the same time if you're a member in the stream. Patty, our lovely, amazing Patty, she is one of our coaches and facilitators, and she, I. She's an expert, actually. She's a grief counselor, grief coach. We have people like that who have these very unique talents and specialties, and so she recently did a session, I think it was called like Grieving More Than Death or something like that. Like all the grief. That doesn't include an actual death. That's a resource that you can tap into. Hey, I wanna pause for just a sec to talk about something that has been life-changing for so many women who started right where you might be by listening to the show. If you're feeling the isolation, the exhaustion, like nobody gets what you're going through, there is a place designed specifically for you. The stream is our private community for moms and female caregivers for parenting teens and young adults through substance use and mental health struggles. And when I say private. I mean completely confidential. It is not connected to Facebook or any other platform, or your business could become everyone's business. What members love about this stream is that you can be as visible or as anonymous as you want. Some moms jump right into conversations and calls. Others like to read and learn quietly in the background. Both are perfect. It's not social media. It's genuine community focused on learning growth and breaking through the isolation. That might be keeping you from moving forward right now. Whether your child is in active use in treatment or early recovery, you'll find practical strategies and tools that actually help motivate healthier choices. Because we know you wanna see positive change in your family. Check it out@hopestreamcommunity.org. We would love to welcome you into this village of support and understanding. Okay, back to the show. Hyper vigilance. And exhaustion.

Cathy: 17:54

Hi for vigilance, first of all, that just that name, that, that word itself, I, I don't know. I'm sorry. It's just the perfect word. It's 'cause it truly is exactly right. Yes. Of who we were living in this constant state of alert on the scale of hypervigilance. What number were you?

Brenda: 18:16

I was high on the scale, although I think today. Parents have the ability to be even more hypervigilant because of technology. So when I was going through this in 2013 to 18 mm-hmm. I'm sure that you could probably track people's locations on your phone. I did not know that. So I never my son, so I wasn't hypervigilant in that way as far as like. On a phone tracking the location, but what I would do is I would go into FBI mode and there was a few, there was a cast of characters that I knew were not the characters that my son needed in his life, and I thought for some reason that if I could find them and I could let them know that they should not be dealing drugs to my son anymore, that that would be a helpful thing. I guarantee you it is not, I would not recommend. Not recommended for any, anyone not

Cathy: 19:27

very safe what you did either. Not very safe. Also not

Brenda: 19:29

safe. Also not safe. Yeah. And my ex-husband, who was also doing this with me and a very good partner at it, I will, I wanna make sure and mention you know, he got to the point where he was like, I am going to go find them and I'm gonna beat them up. And I've heard that from so many dads. I'm gonna find the dealer, I'm gonna tell them what's up and I'm gonna beat them up, or I'm gonna whatever. Right. So that doesn't work. Spoiler alert, there is more than one drug dealer in your city. So, but from a hypervigilant standpoint, for me it was, it was a little bit more of that. Like, I'm gonna track these guys down and I'm gonna talk some sense into them. Don't ask me what I thought That was a good idea. And also for me it was this. Over checking, you know when he would come home like, are you high? Just a million questions. It kind of goes into that, like all of the communication landmines that we talked about, just, just being obnoxiously. Vigilant, I would say hyper vigilance could be replaced with obnoxious vigilance because that was, that was the level I gotta, and, and the exhaustion that comes with that, because you have that crazy hamster wheel going in your brain of like, well, what if this happens? Well, what if that happens? You just make yourself nuts. What about you? It's so

Cathy: 20:53

hard. Yeah. It's so hard to turn off. Well, so for us, we were a little few years after you and I do recall that yes, there weren't apps like Live 360, but we did. We did have location services on, I think. But I will say this, that you know, one of my children who will re be named, I will not name, okay? One of my children was incredibly brilliant and was able to drop pins, you know, where this person was not. So, oh, incredibly brilliant. I'm telling you, you these, these, these, and I'll never forget, oh, they're, they're so good. They are so good. And, and you know, now we can laugh about it, right? But at the time it would just drive you absolutely crazy. Of course, I thought that child was the crazy one, not me, for looking at the location all the time because I, I truly felt that knowing location, knowing where. Our kids were all the time that we could prevent a lot of what was going on. You know, spoiler alert, that also doesn't happen. Right. And, you know, they could be in their apartment, they could be in your house, they could be with the, you know, great friends, whatever that they could be in a park. It doesn't matter where they are, you know? Anyway.

Brenda: 22:25

Yes.

Cathy: 22:25

So, yeah, so I, I. We lived with that for a little bit of this brilliant person being just an incredible tech savvy. Uh, I, I don't know how they did it, but anyway, it was pretty, pretty funny now that I think about it, but also something that would just drive us crazy. But yeah, I mean, I remember waking up at two in the morning, three in the morning and saying, you know, where are they? And I still to this day have this little feeling of. When my kids are home at on the holidays,'cause they both, they're adults and they live on their own and you know, they come into town, they visit their friends and when I hear the door open and close at night, my body, I feel it relaxing. And I think I. Holy cow. This has been over nine years and I still have this reaction when I hear that little click, they're home. Ah, I can relax. Yes, boy. You know, it just shows you this has been over nine years that this has gone on. Yeah. So anyway.

Brenda: 23:30

Yeah. Well the other, the other way I think that I was hypervigilant was in. Searching his room or searching. Oh, for substances? Yeah. Okay. And I think the point of all of this is what it, what are you gonna do with that? Right? It's not necessarily that it's bad to track or to search or whatever, but before you do that, I, I just didn't have any forethoughts, so I would just be in crazy mode tearing apart his bedroom. And closet and bathroom and, you know, and I, I hadn't stopped to think, okay, what am I gonna do if I find something? Mm-hmm. And what is my intent here? Like, that's right. So I think thinking through that ahead of time is a really good idea because if you are tracking them and you could, you could tell yourself, well, I'm doing it for their safety. Right? If I see that they're at this location at three o'clock in the morning. Are you gonna go drive there? And maybe you are, maybe that's what your decision is, then that's fine. But just think about what it is that you're gonna do with that information. Because it's kind of like the analogy of you have, you're living in a constant state of one foot is on the brake and one foot is on the. Gas pedal and that's how fun side back, that's how I learned how to drive. My dad taught me how to drive a stick ship and I literally did have one foot on the gas pedal and one foot on. It was so crazy and, and we almost had whiplash from it, but but it's, it's like that, it's this just constant state of. Of just back and forth and up and down and left and right, and your body is just so exhausted. Right? And it's just not healthy. Although I do think early on when you first become aware of the problem, you do need to be vigilant. And I think there's a difference. What, what I wanna make sure people understand is the difference between hyper vigilance or obnoxious vigilance and. Helpful vigilance. Right. Which really can be helpful in the beginning to be vigilant about what are you reading and consuming and you know, what are you doing that is actually helpful. That's fine. And being vigilant about looking for some of the early warning signs, things like that. It's when you go into overdrive. You start acting crazy, like going to find drug dealers, that's when you know you need to just pull back and your body will tell you when that is. You know? Right. It'll tell you like, oh, girlfriend, you, you need to stop. Just stop. Yeah. You know?

Cathy: 26:22

Yeah. And I know this came up too in our community of. Folks saying, well, I have other kids that live in the home, so I am gonna search their room. And you know, and I, and that's understandable, right? And so then, then, you know, we won't go there today, but we get into what boundaries are and all of that. And so I. What's lovely is, you know, today going through all this, there are such wonderful folks out there, like parent coaches that can actually help, you know, help you really get solid on what boundaries are and what to do in those situations. And you know, I, I love what you said too about you can be really obnoxious about your vigilance and. And then also like, you're right. What are you gonna do with it? Because I know we were into really searching the rooms too, and we never had a plan, right? We would go through the rooms like crazy, find something, and then all hell would break loose because we just didn't have a plan, frankly. Yeah. And we realized we were parenting completely out of fear. That was the other thing that was just so bad for us. So.

Brenda: 27:31

Ooh, we should, we should make that another topic. If we do a part two of this, the parenting out of Fear, that would be a really good one, because that's another sneaky one. Yeah. So, okay. We'll put a, we'll put a little pin in that one. We'll have to come back to that one. But I think one of the downsides really of this hypervigilance is what it, how it impacts. Your body, your brain. Mm-hmm. Your sleep goes. And we know sleep is that first domino. And when that first domino goes down, the rest of them go down. This and that. This actually made me think of a really interesting, and now I can laugh about its story. When my son was in the second hospital after his, over his last overdose, he was in two different hospitals and he was in the second hospital and the parking garage. Was a million miles away. You know, from a hospital you have to go down you and out. And it took, it was forever, so far away. And I was, he was complaining about the hospital food. And so I said, I will go get you a burger. And so I went down from the ho, from his room, got all the way down to the car, didn't have the keys. So I had to go all the way back. All the way back up through the security, you know, the whole nine yards. Got up to the room, couldn't remember what I had forgotten. So I'm standing there. I had to do this four times because oh my, my God. By the third time I went down, I had forgotten my wallet. And so, you know, my brain was just offline. Yeah, because I was so. So stressed out and so, and talk about a place to be hypervigilant in the hospital. You know, I'm like, are they doing all this? Are they doing that? Have they checked his, you know, IV or whatever so you can, you can literally make yourself sick. So of course it's, it's not a good thing, but, but being vigilant, so just finding that balance between vigilant and hyper. Is, is a really good thing because we, we have enough stress in our body, so we don't anymore.

Cathy: 29:44

Uh, yeah, absolutely. And you know, and recognizing too, if you're being hyper-vigilant, right? I mean, for me, I, I started to recognize it pretty early on. Like, wow, I'm, this is crazy. I have a really great partner so that, you know. My husband and I would talk about it a lot, and so we would kind of toss the potato back and forth. So 'cause it, it will absolutely drive you crazy. But I know one of the things we did when you were talking about what do you, you know, what would be helpful and I remember, I remember talking to one of my kids 'cause they wouldn't come home often during curfew. So I just said, Hey, if you're not gonna come home. Could you let us know by 11 o'clock? And that child was really great, you know, and always let us know. And I felt like at that point then I felt like I could sleep, which was really great. Who knows what was going on when they were out there, but at least I felt like, okay, I'm not waiting for that door to crack open and close. I'm not waking up in the middle of the night wondering where they are. So anyway, yeah. But yeah, those, those were tough times.

Brenda: 30:55

Those are tough times. Yeah. Being aware of it is really important. Mm-hmm. And your body will tell you, right. You'll get the racing heart, the mm-hmm. You know, just that constant like crazy brain. And I think, you know, we, we spend a lot of time with our moms in the community talking about finding that thing that really brings your nervous system back into check. Even if it's just for a little bit, it doesn't have to be forever, but Right. Whether that's meditation, getting out into nature. Whatever it is can be really helpful. Even just pressing the pause button, right? Just like. Give it a nice long press, just

Cathy: 31:33

yeah. Find something that works. I always like to suggest find something that works for you because you might have a few things, right, and, but if you're at three in the morning, getting outside might not be the thing for you. Right, right. But find that thing that you could do 24 hours a day if you had to. And you know, whenever that is. So usually for most folks, it's meditation or prayer or some kind of. Breathing. Intentional

Brenda: 31:58

breathing.

Cathy: 31:58

Intentional breathing is so, so helpful, so yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it works too. I know, I know that some of our moms said, yeah, well I got out there and it didn't really help, you know, but you, it is something that like any habit, you just kind of have to do it and all of a sudden one day you'll say, wow, I do feel a little better when I. Take, you know, do box breathing, or I feel better when I take that, you know, five minute walk around my block. It just really makes you feel better.

Brenda: 32:28

Okay, my friend. If you want the transcript or the show notes and resources from this episode, just go to our website, hope Stream community.org, and click podcast. That'll take you to all things podcast related. We even have a start here playlist that we created, so if you're new here, be sure to check that out. Also, if you're feeling anxious and confused about how to approach your child's substance use, we have got a free ebook for you. It's called Worried Sick, A Compassionate Guide for Parents of Teens and Young Adults Misusing Drugs and Alcohol. It'll introduce you to ways that you can build connection and relationship with your child versus distancing and letting them hit rock bottom. It is a game changer and it's totally free. Just go to Hope Stream community.org/worried to download that. You are amazing my friend. You are such an elite level parent. It is an honor to be here with you and please know you're not doing this alone. You've got this tribe and you will be okay sending all my love and light and I will meet you right back here next week.