Relationships in Recovery

My experience as a couple's therapist confirms my belief that relationships are difficult to navigate. There is a great deal of passionate emotion stirring around our souls when our relationships are not sailing along smoothly. Relationships in recovery are even more tricky. Not only is the relationship often in stormy seas, it's as if the person in recovery is steering two ships--that of their recovery, and that of their relationship. A few new navigational tools for our relationships can help us get all the people in our life on the same boat and steering toward the same goal: peaceful, loving, joyful and clean-living relationships.

We can start by applying the familiar recovery saying "one day at a time" to our relationships. This means looking at each other in a fresh, new way. And it involves some re-training of our brain because we tend to be "wired" by experiences we have in life, mostly when we are growing up, especially traumatic experiences. If I had a traumatic experience of a dog knocking me down when I was three years old, I will still have some wiring in my brain that reacts when I see a dog today, some 45 years later. My "thinking" brain may be able to overcome that wiring with thoughts like "I'm safe, the dog is not going to hurt me, it's on a leash." But my "old" brain is still reactive and I can feel the adrenaline course through me when I see a dog.

Likewise, our relationships are scattered with little traumas, many of which don't sound traumatic, but to the old brain, it's as if our survival is threatened when the person we love and hope loves us back is critical toward us (trauma!), doesn't respond when we ask a question (trauma!), looks at us the wrong way (trauma!), teases us (trauma!) or ignores us when we come home (trauma!). See, these things don't sound very traumatic, do they? But, that old part of our brain just wants to be loved and to have our love accepted and when this doesn't happen we feel scared. And, we begin to make a fearful pattern in our brain associated with that person. So each time we see this person, we are a bit afraid of what might happen, and we may act out in some defensive ways that protect us.

Current News:

Even Tiny Tots May Develop Mental Health Problems

Countering the belief that you have to be "older" to suffer from mental illness, a new report says there's actually no lowest-age limit.

Infants and toddlers can be affected, but they often go without treatment that could prevent them from suffering long-term problems, according to the researchers.

There's a "pervasive, but mistaken, impression that young children do not develop mental health problems and are immune to the effects of early adversity and trauma because they are inherently resilient and 'grow out of' behavioral problems and emotional difficulties," they wrote in the February issue of American Psychologist. The issue includes a series of articles about mental health in children under the age of 5.

In fact, infants can develop mental health problems as they deal with their goals and emotions, the authors of another article wrote.

"Infants make meaning about themselves and their relation to the world of people and things," they said, but that process can go wrong. "Some infants may come to make meaning of themselves as helpless and hopeless, and they may become apathetic, depressed and withdrawn. Others seem to feel threatened by the world and may become hyper-vigilant and anxious."

In a third article, researchers reported that insurance may not cover mental health treatments for kids younger than 3.

What to do? Researchers from Louisiana State University and the University of California, San Francisco advocate more early screening, better training and education of people who deal with children. They also urge better coverage by private insurers and Medicaid.