CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - I Can't Fix This with Kirstina Kuzmič

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

I read the book I Can Fix This by Kristina Kuzmič and immediately knew I needed to get her on the show. In this episode, we talk about what it's like to have a teenager with a mental health diagnosis, surrendering to the fact that we cannot control it, and how to help them and yourself. This is the perfect episode for anyone who has felt clueless, helpless, and out of control in the face of a loved one's mental health struggles. (I also say the one thing that she wishes people would stop saying to people who speak about their mental health publicly). Get Kristina's book here. Join The Family Cyclebreakers Club: www.callinghome.co/join Have a question for Whitney? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at 866-225-5466. Follow Whitney on Instagram: www.instagram.com/sitwithwhit Subscribe to Whitney's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whitneygoodmanlmft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. www.ca slash YMX. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Collegone podcast. I have an interview episode today, and I am so excited for you to hear this episode.

I was able to interview Christina Kuzmik, who is the author of the book, I Can Fix This. And I loved this book. When I read it, I knew that I had to interview her. And in this book, she details the story. of her son's mental health struggles as a teenager, how she navigated it, the things she did right, the things she did wrong. Her son also writes a chapter in the book, and I just think that she did such a beautiful job of illustrating how challenging it can be to have a child with a mental health issue or a family member, what it's like to surrender to the fact that

you don't have control over everything, and to really get to know the unique needs of the person in front of you that needs help. So without further ado, let's get to the show. The first thing I wanted to ask you is just like, how did you get yourself to the point where you were going to write this book about your experience? I think it's incredibly brave. So it was actually thanks to my son, who the book is about, it's about me trying to, learning how to support him through serious mental health struggles. We were driving back from a second residential center that he had been at. Before that, he had already been hospitalized. He had been another residential center.

We had been through so many therapists and adjusting medication, all this stuff, years of this. And so now we're driving back. It's an eight-hour drive home from the second one. And we just started talking about what's helped him the most, because this is. when I really saw the biggest change in him. And he said, you know, what helped me is hearing from people my age because kids are constantly hearing from parents and teachers and therapy. Like, they're constantly hearing adults giving them advice. And he said, sitting for all those weeks in groups with kids who are verbalizing exactly what's going on in my head and making me feel

less crazy. Yeah. Really helped. And so we basically had a discussion then during that drive about maybe him doing a video where he would just kind of share his experience and maybe it would help other people who are not in families that talk about it as openly. And I, he was 17 at the time. I waited until he was 18. I gave him like 10 months to change his mind because it's been on social media for a while and I know how awful people can be. And he just stuck with, he's like, no, I want to do this. I think we should do this. By the way, he's like a super private person. He doesn't even use social media. So this was like really him putting himself out there. we shot this video

I was like a two-hour conversation he didn't even want to plan it he's like don't tell me what you're going to ask me just want to sit down on the couch and have a talk with my mom and we post this video it immediately went viral and then my I had already had one book out so my publisher came to me and say you know what about turn this into book and he's the one that you know I never was going to write about this

I have a rule with my kids where I won't talk about anything publicly about them without their full permission anything I want to tell you what my daughter had for lunch yesterday without her permission. So he was the one that was like, no, let's do the book. And he even agreed to write one of the chapters, which is amazing because you hear from a mom, but then you hear from the kid too. So really, I can't even take credit for it. It's his, you know, courage to put himself out there knowing that there's a lot of people that aren't talking about it, honestly. Absolutely. I think, I think it's so incredibly brave of both of you, mainly because it is such

a underrepresented topic, I think, and people are really afraid to talk about it publicly, right, because of fear of judgment or being misunderstood that when I was reading the book, I was just like, wow, how amazing for other people who are going through this to be able to read not only your words, but your sons, and to feel like I am not alone in this. And I'm wondering, like, how did it feel for you personally when you were going? through this, was feeling alone part of that? Yeah, I mean, I felt, you know, when you're going through anything really, really painful and difficult and, you know, things that you didn't envision when you decided

to have children someday, you know, things that, like, really surprises you with, you kind of start believing the lie of nobody could understand what I'm going through. Yeah. It becomes this isolating feeling of my family's the only one. and if people knew, what would they think, right? Like all these stories in our heads that just make us feel even worse and more isolated. But that's actually one of the reasons I thought this book was important because when I was going through it, and by the way, I had great friends, some of them who knew every detail who stood by us and were amazing and non-judgmental and all of that.

But even with all of that support, I felt so alone and my friends kept handing me books by therapists and about team mental health and about parent and all of stuff. And they were very helpful in great books. But they were all written by experts. Yeah. And what I really needed at the time was another parent to just go, this is hell. Yeah. This sucks. And guess what?

I don't know what I'm doing either. And I made a million mistakes too. And I just made things worse yesterday by this thing. I told my child, I just needed somebody to validate my experience. And so that's my hope with the book is that, you know, it will be that book that I needed when I just wanted to hear. I didn't want any more advice. I just wanted another parent to tell me, I'd get it. Totally. And like, look, I'm a therapist and I can say, like, sometimes those books, they don't help in the moment because you're like in the thick of shit of just like, what do I do when it's 2 o'clock in the morning and I'm laying in bed and I'm wondering what's going to happen, you know, to my child. And I think hearing advice and all these well-intentioned like tools that, yeah, they work, but they don't, they don't. always like hit in that moment when things are so crazy and and so overwhelming that I think

you're so right. Well, yeah. And what I what I learned from my experience is that there's two steps to healing and therapy and learning and all that. And for me at least, the first step was just feeling validated and seen not just by therapists because I I obviously needed a lot of therapy through this time too. But just just knowing we are not this unique family, the only one's going through this. I'm not a bad mother because I don't know what I'm doing. Like just having that sort of validation and getting out of that feeling of isolation, that made me more open then to all the therapy received. That's, you know, I feel like professional help is even more effective once we get out of that story of it's just my family. Yes. And I don't know anybody else was going

through this. So it's like a combination of the support groups, you know, like my son, being around other people who are going to the same thing, and then also on top of that, getting the professional help. Absolutely. I think also, you know, the part of your book that is so relatable is the title, right? Like this feeling of I can fix this as a mother. You know, I'm a parent. And I think that's immediately what you step into is wanting to fix it. And I feel like that's what my listener is going to most relate to from your story. And I'd love if you could just kind of walk through, like, how you were in that mindset and how you transitioned out of it.

Yeah. I mean, let's be honest. I think a lot of that mindset comes from ego, from insecurity, from, you know, the way we were raised. A lot of our generation was raised with parents who just knew the answers. And, you know, I was taught from a young age, not by my parents, but just by, society that a good parent sees an issue with their child and they figure out how to solve it and they fix it. And if you can't do that, well, you're a bad parent or, wow, you didn't raise a

child who respects you and will listen to you and will actually benefit from your quote-unquote consequences, right? So a lot of it, I think I wouldn't have known that at the time because it was all subconscious, but I think a lot of that was just like ego and I, you know, I need to be smart enough to know how to help my child and I'm only a good mother if I know how to fix it. Then just trying everything I can. I mean, I had my own mental health struggles when I was younger. So when I saw my kids struggle, I was like, oh, okay, I know what this needs. We need to find a therapist.

You know, we need to love him through this and support him and encourage. Like I just, all along the way, every step I was like, oh, I know, I know, I know. And I didn't. I was clueless. I just had to convince myself on you because I had my own insecurities about, you know, was I good enough mother? Was I what he even needed? did he deserve better than me? And so as all of my brilliant ideas and plans not only failed one by

one, but made things worse many times, so much worse. And I write in the book so openly about the mistakes I made. You know, I just, I had to realize that I can't control this. And man, when your child is suicidal, when you've seen your child's wounds from cutting, when you've, you know, seeing the bottles of pills that he's stolen and drank all at once. I mean, as a parent, the desperation of I have to control this is so loud. It is so loud in your head. And having to give that up is like, it feels counterintuitive. To me, it was like, what do you mean I can't control this?

That sounds passive. Yeah. What do you mean? You know, but when I let go of that control, when I finally let go of the, I can fix this or should be able to fix this. That's when we actually started seeing progress, ironically. Yeah, there were so many moments in your book where I'm reading what you're doing and I'm like, wow, she's doing all the right things, right? You're saying the right things, and it seems like your son is not having this textbook response to you that it's like a therapist

tells you if you affirm and validate and say this, he's going to get better. And as I'm reading this, I'm like, this is what real life looks like with these tools, right? It's trial and error and implementing them and getting feedback from your child. And I feel like that's the part that you're really getting at here is that I had to get to know my actual child that's in front of me and what he needed and what was unique to him. And I couldn't just follow like this manual that I was handed. Yeah, I wrote, I think it was in the first chapter. I wrote about having to learn to come from a place of curiosity instead of assumption. And I don't care who you are and what an amazing parent you are.

We have all come from a place of assumption. Because again, ego and insecurity. We know our kid. We know what's best for them. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. So that was the first part. And what it made me realize when I was finally making that switch of coming to

from a place of curiosity is that I had not been standing in awe of my son's story. Because what happens, and it makes me choked up every time I say it, because I think it's one of the most beautiful things we can give to someone. And it's something our children need the most probably from us as parents is to stand in awe of their story. Because what happens is we have this vision before we have children, what motherhood will look like and what our kids will look like. And we think we know them so well. Oh, we think we know them better than anybody else. And a lot of times we actually don't because we haven't, you know, come from a place to crassing up.

And then we also have this idea of what the world expects our kids to be and what is acceptable and what won't get them bullied. And, you know, there's all these layers and layers. And what happens is it completely clouds who they actually are. And, you know, even me comparing like, well, I've been depressed. So I know what that's, I know what he needs. No, no, no, no. It is his story. I need to stand in off his story.

His genuine, authentic experience. And I think, my goodness, if every child had that from their parent, and I still struggle with it, by the way. I still slip into my old case. But if every child had that, oh my goodness, the world will be so different. If we just went, you know what, it doesn't matter what I think is the ideal life for you or what society. What is your genuine experiences story? How does every day, every struggle affect you personally? Yeah. I think you're so right and I hope that everyone listening right now is really listening to what you're saying because I work with a lot

of adults who are estranged from their parents. And this is something that I hear about a lot. is, you know, the projection from the parent onto the child of not just about who they want them to be and who they should be and all of that, but also that if you're struggling, your struggles should look exactly like mine. And I know exactly what your struggles feel like. So you're mentioning, you know, depression or bullying or even addiction, things like that, that it's like, well, whatever I did to get better should work for you. And our pain is the same. And it's not. And that can so cloud the way that you approach your child and help them. Yeah.

And also, I heard this so many times, even in support groups that we went to as a family, where, you know, a kid will, so he went to support groups on his own with like other kids. And then once a week, we as a family web like their families. And so many times during those sessions, I would hear a kid from another family say, just open up about something awful that their family went through, whether there was a divorce or whatever. And the parents would go, well, your sister went through that, too, and she didn't end up doing drugs or she didn't end up being different. And even that, it doesn't matter the same, two kids can go through the same exact experience with the same exact parents. And they will experience it completely differently.

And it will hurt in different ways and it will affect them in different ways. And it will change them in different ways. And so, again, back to just like stand in awe of their story. Yeah. It's so true. And I think just listening and surrendering to the fact that you don't have the answers without hearing them and what they have to say is such a difficult exercise. And I appreciate you kind of putting that into words of how that can be done. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about that really struck me in your book and was, I think made me emotional was the dynamic between. protecting, you have two younger children, correct? Okay. Between, you know, protecting them from your son's behavior when he was having, you know, violent outbursts or suicidality. And I just think that is one of the hardest things you could ever go through as a parent. And I'd love

if you could share some of your experience with that. Yeah, I, so just want to make it clear for anybody who has not dealt with this with their child. Depression, anxiety, all the mental health struggles, they show up differently for different people. Some kids overachieve and, you know, they put on a happy face and they're doing great and people have no idea something's going on, right? And then other kids, for example, my son, it showed up his anger and rage. I had to call the police on him at one point. I mean, it was a lot. He would scream, scream in my face like so loudly in such vulgarities and he would punch holes in the wall and he would throw furniture. And again, like you said, I have two little kids that I'm trying to protect him all this. So one of the

mistakes I made was, well, there's a lot of mistakes I made. One of the mistakes I made was he became the main character in all of our stories. That was my fault. I cast him as the main character in all of our stories. And so everything became about him because he was the loudest, right? And that's an easy thing to slip into. I didn't do it purposely. But with that, even when one of my kids was having a bad day of their own, I immediately went into, well, I know it's hard because your brother's struggling. And there's a lot. Everything became every struggle they had. He was cast as the main character. And that is immediately so harmful to the other children. It was so just unhelpful to them and just made things even worse. And then the other thing is, especially

the night that we called the police on him, they heard a lot, they saw a lot. And then, you know, I was trying to get them out of the house before the police arrived. And the way the timing happened as my mother-in-law was pulling out of the driveway, getting them, taking them to her house to keep them away from all this. The police was, you know, putting, getting him out of the house in handcuffs. And I knew, I knew at the moment at the time, I'm like, oh, gosh, this is going to leave a scar for them. And so I went to a therapist. And he was like, look for all the signs, are they eating okay? Are they still hanging out with their friends? All this stuff. I looked for all the signs. Saw nothing because, again, some kids hide their pain

really well. Yeah. And then on top of that, you know, especially with my daughter, my son was like four at the time, my little one, but my daughter was already a teenager and I kept going to her and going, are you okay? Is everything okay? You know, I know this was a lot. It's a lot for me. What if, you know, we saw therapists and she's like, Mom, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. And come to find out later, she was not good at all. But again, she was one of those kids that had been labeled the good kid, her whole life, the easy kid, and she felt like she needed to play that role. And when she finally admitted, not even to me, to my mother-in-law, that she was struggling. And I asked her, why didn't you tell me? Her response was, I just didn't want to add more stress.

Yeah. So she had been protecting me. And then my little boy, my four-year-old at the time, you know, he seemed great. He was eating okay after this. He was playing with his friends. He was sleeping. Like, we didn't see any signs. Yeah. And I don't know how many months later, after this whole police incident, my husband is trying to get him to clean up his room. And my son's not listening. And he's like, buddy, we're going to have a problem if you don't start clean.

I told you three times, you've got to start cleaning your room. And my little boy looks and my husband with his big brown eyes and he goes, and if I don't clean up, is that when you call the police and they take me away for a really, really, really long time. And my husband just, like, lost it. And we realized all these months. this little boy was holding this in. He was holding this fear and this, you know, stress in his tiny little body and we didn't even know. And so the number one thing I would say to anyone who has

more than one child that's going through this, it is affecting your children. Yeah. I don't care how they're behaving. I don't care how much you're trying to hide from them. It is affecting your children. Get them all the help you can. I mean, and do not ever, ever cast that child as the main character and their story. Let them have their own experiences. Let them have their own stories. Take the time one on one to just be with them and have, we had a rule where we would, after all this happened, we would take my daughter out, my husband and I once a week without anybody else. And our rule was, she didn't even know this. My husband and I said a rule is we are not allowed to bring up, Luca, her older brother. We're not allowed to bring him up because her whole life

was about him. So, I mean, obviously there's a lot more in the book, but it affects everybody. It It affects a marriage. I wrote about that in my book. It affects everybody. And unfortunately, unless you literally move your children out of the house, which isn't always an option and isn't even a good option always because they don't need to start up their life somewhere else, right? Unless they're completely somehow isolated from all of this, it's going to affect them and you're not going to be able to protect them from it. That's one of the worst things was one of the worst things for me during this time is knowing I actually can't protect it from all of this. Because I have no control over when he's going to have an outburst or what's going to trigger it. I have no control. And I think, you know, one of the things, sorry, I'm giving me a really long answer here. No, this is amazing. Keep going. But one of the things I wrote about a book that in reference to him, but really it applies to my other children and my marriage and everything also, is that I realize that in every interaction with a loved one, I have to make a choice whether I'm going to control or connect.

And every time I've tried to control, things got worse. And every time I chose connection, we were able to make baby steps, move baby steps forward. And so even with my other children, instead of trying to constantly control, oh my gosh, can I, can I keep this away from them? Can I hide this from them? Can I, you know, just like isolate them somehow from this awful thing that's happening in our home? Instead of like just grasping for that control, just going, how can I connect with each child in a way that they know that I am, capable and I have enough, you know, I have enough capacity for love and care for all of them. And he is not the center of attention. And how can I connect with them in a way where I'm not

coming from this place of control where they're like, we don't want to stress mom out anymore, but a connection where they will open up to me and they will say, hey, this has been hard and I could use some help. I mean, that is probably like the number one thing if I could go back and change. I would have from the beginning with every family member chosen connection over control. I think that's such beautiful advice. And it's so true that there's no way to make this not impact everybody. And it is very easy to make it like, I need to protect you from your brother or you need to stay out of the way so that I can only help him. I mean, there's so many ways that you can react to this that it kind of plays out differently. But I know for me, you know, when my second child was born, like, and my young child was. was even like throwing things at the baby. It is a very bizarre feeling as a parent to feel like you have to protect one of your children from the other. It was like an instinctual crazy thing

for me to feel that I had never felt before when I had one child. And so I think that that can be so overwhelming and complicated and confusing to be in that place that I feel like you just so eloquently described like how we we kind of have to, instead of trying to protect everyone and play different sides, try to find connection and space for each person and know that like sometimes things are going to get to a place where we do have to protect a younger or a smaller child, you know, from another one. Yeah. And just to give hope to anybody who might be listening and is going through something similar, my daughter for a long time wanted nothing to do with her brother. She didn't even want to be in the same room within and makes them to cry. But now they're

19 and, well, she's turning 20 soon and 21 and they are close. And I didn't think I would live to see the day. So I think also as parents, just not pushing those relationships. You know, we, we want our kids to all get along and hug your sibling, you know, and all this stuff. And it's just, right, the amount of times I've been told as a kid, just I know you guys are mad. Just hug it out. Okay, well, that's not really going to fix anything, but just being patient with their own experience. And they're, again, going back to standing in all their story, right? Their own experience and their own journey and giving a time and not pushing those relationships. I think if I'd pushed it too much at the time, they probably wouldn't be close now. There'd be more resentment. So as a parent, just realizing

you're not there to be a puppeteer. They're not your puppets. Let them have their own experience and let them feel what they feel. Don't try to talk them out of their feelings. No, you love it. your brother. Let them feel what they feel in the moment. Like, allow it. Honor it. And then hopefully, you know, they'll end up where my kids are now where they're good and they're close. And they really great. It's amazing. That's really great to hear. And I think that will give people some hope. And I do agree with you that letting them work through the experience is so much better, especially because your daughter has a right to feel maybe resentful or upset or, you know, to have her her feelings about the situation, even if she does come around and giving kids the

space to work through that on their own definitely pays off in the end. I think one of the, go ahead, sorry. No, one of the other things I really screwed up in is I would unintentionally try to talk my kids out of whatever they were feeling. And not just in those situations with a sibling, but in other situations. And we think we're doing our kids a favor. Like, no, you're not scared. No, no, no, no, you're not this.

No, you're not that. It's, man, that is not going to lead to anything productive. In fact, you're teaching your kid not to trust themselves. You're teaching your kid not to trust what they actually feel. And that is dangerous. Because my goodness, I am 46. And until a few years ago, I didn't trust myself. And I look back on my life and the unhealthy choices I made because I didn't trust myself.

So, you know, just making that a person. from when their infants teach them to trust themselves that what they feel is real and it's not bad and it's okay to feel what they feel. Negative emotions are okay to feel. Negative emotions are procreate at times to feel. Let them feel it and don't try to talk them out of their feelings and their experience. You're so right. And I think that that was one of the biggest things I noticed with the way that you navigated things with your son was as the book progressed, I found that you had such a tolerance for his feelings. And you were like, I'm not going to go anywhere. You can feel like this. And I'm still going to be here. And I think that when kids push up against

that and they realize, okay, you are not going to run away from this really big scary thing. Eventually, they say, okay, I can, I can kind of exhale into that and show you what's really going on with me. But for some kids, they will push you to try to see if you're going to leave them. in that negative space, that painful space. I heard a really great author and speaker, Josh Schip, describe it, kind of like when you get into a roller coaster at amusement park and, you know, they put that lap bar on you. And the first thing every human does, especially when they're in a really scary roller coaster is we'll push against it, right? Oh, is this thing safe? Is it good? Is it going to hold me? And that's basically what kids, especially teenagers and even especially, especially. if they're struggling, do is they are pushing against us like that lapar. Are you steady?

Can I, Lena, can I show you my ugliest? Can I show you my messiest? Can I be the most vulnerable with you? Can I share what's in my head that I even think is crazy and I'm uncertain about? Can I do all that? And are you still going to be steady? And are you going to still hold me? And are you still going to be that safe space? And if just thinking of it that way really helps when our kids are pushing instead of just being rebellious and they're this and they're that no be that place that's like yes i'm here i'm here i don't understand it all i want to learn more teach me teach me how to best support you bank more oncores when you switch to a scotia bank banking package learn more at scotia bank dot com slash banking packages conditions apply scotia bank you're richer than you think

hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure this fall get double points on every qualified stay life's the trip make the most of it at best western visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions but um yeah they will they will push and really it's they just want to know that you're still i mean even my son described it that way so many times that he could tell he you know he was like when you when my mom was i think he wrote even in his chapter when i was coming from a place of fear and i You know, I did the thing that we parents, did we try to hide it? We put on this face and, you know, inside we're like all tense. Our kids are not stupid. They can sense our energy that we're coming with. And he said, whenever I was coming at him from a place of fear, he sensed it. And it made things worse because now who's steady? I'm feeling awful.

Who can I lean on? My mom looks like a mess. She's scared. If she's scared and I'm scared, who's the steady person in the room? So, which, you know, leads to obviously do your own therapy. and get a lot of help because you're not going to be able to navigate this in a healthy way without a yeah totally and on something i want to point out that you've done a few times in this episode like for any parents listening is you've been able to say like i made a mistake i wish i would have done

this differently and when i work with adults who don't have relationships with their parents in adulthood that's the biggest thing is like this inability to say i should have handled that differently. I wasn't equipped. I needed different tools. And I feel like that willingness to admit what you don't know is what can also keep you connected to your child in all of this. And I don't know if you felt that during your transition through this process. Yeah. I, in fact, in my first book that had not, this was written before any of this happened, I actually wrote how I believe that a genuine I love you in a long-term relationship like a parent-child. A genuine I love you cannot exist with a genuine, I'm sorry, because we're all imperfect and we're all going to make mistakes

and we have to apologize. And I also had to learn from this experience, there should never be an expiration date on my child's need to hear that I'm, an apology for me, that I'm sorry. because sometimes, you know, I'll see parents go, well, why are you, this happened 20 years ago and your child? Why are we talking about this now? Because your child is still carrying that pain. And again, no expiration date. Apologize to them for things you did 20, 30 years ago.

I think so, again, so much ego, right? And then security goes into parenting. Unfortunately, I wish we could just kind of eliminate it before we have children. Like, I wish there's like a plastic surgery for it where we just get rid of it before we're a lot to have children. But not only was apologizing something he needed for, you know, being validated, but also I feel like you're being a great example to your children. Because every time I apologize to my child, what I'm telling them is you're not supposed to be perfect. You're not supposed to know how to figure it all out. And when my kid someday becomes

a parent, I don't want my kid for one second to feel I'm a horrible, awful, worthless human being because I made a mistake as a parent. I want them to look back on their child and go, well my mom made mistakes all the time and that was their right I want to be an example to my children of someone who does screw up who does not have all the answers who who is will flat out say I don't know I don't know and that's okay so just you know if it feels weird because you grew up without hearing an apology from adult just reframe it and think of it what kind of example do I want to be to my child and you don't want to teach them parents are supposed to be Perfect. Please don't. It's only going to hurt them in their parenting journey eventually.

Yeah. I love that message. I think something that I run into a lot also is that adults who, you know, in their childhood, their teenage years had mental health struggles are being framed in their family as the problem, the scapegoat. Their family just kind of says like, oh, well, they're sick or they're crazy. And they get exiled. And I'm wondering how your family. avoided that and kind of if you have any messages for families that are enduring that dynamic for kids who are or like parents who are for people like your son who were treated that way by their parents yeah yeah i mean it honestly makes me want to cry because yeah here's the thing we we are all complicated humans all of us not a single one of us is without their struggles. And some people just have different struggles than others. And I always think, my goodness, if my son had cancer, would I treat him differently? Would I see him as the problem in the, oh, he's got cancer. Man, he's the problem in the family. He's causing all this drama and our money's

going there. And, you know, and now we've got to change our schedule because of him. And he's got days where he doesn't even go to school. Like, if you really reframe it that way and if you just think of mental health is health, right? It's health. It's a health issue. Then you really realize how cruel it is to treat anybody who struggles with mental health as a quote-unquote problem. We have to stop doing that. I really truly believe that it is shame that is the number one cause of suicide. It's shame. And until we get rid of shame, we're going to lose a lot of loved ones. And when you grow up as a child and you feel that you are a problem, because of something that's going on inside you that you don't, you don't even know how to define, you don't even know how

to control. It's this awful thing that you wish you didn't have. Nobody chooses to have mental health struggles. When you're now on top of that, defined as a problem, even if, even if parents aren't using that word, right, you know the way you're being treated like, oh, here we go again, right? All those attitudes we give our kids. That adds so much shame. Somebody who struggle with mental health is already feeling probably a lot of feelings of worthlessness. If you add shame to that, if you make them the problem, if you make them the reason that the family can't go on a vacation or the reason that we can't have a nice family dinner

or whatever, I mean, that is going to destroy a human being. It is going to destroy a human being. And if you're listening to this and you are like, shoot, that's me, it's never too late to completely switch things around. It's never too late to apologize. It's never too late to go, that's on me. You feeling like a problem? That was on me.

I'm so sorry. That was on me. That's my own stuff. That's not you. But, you know, I think the number one thing is anything you're going to say to your kid when they're struggling with mental health, any attitude you're going to have toward them, would you have the same if it was a physical thing, if it was cancer? Would you treat them the same way?

And if you didn't, do some inner work. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I think you're so right. about the ego part that that also gets in the way here of like, well, if my child has a problem with their mental health, then that means I'm bad. And so I need to distance myself from you and make you the problem because I can't sit with the fact that like that makes me feel like I'm a bad parent or I did something wrong when we all know that this is so much more complex

than just like bad parents create children who have mental health struggles. Like that does not exist. But I find that for a lot of people, their own shame gets in the way of them even admitting that, like, this is going on in our family. And we all need to do something about it, not just, like, ostracize the person. And as a parent, make sure you are not ever, again, full disclosure, made this a mistake a million times. But make sure that you are not attaching your value to your children's behavior. years, struggles, yeah, anything. You cannot attach your value to what your child is going through, what they're struggling through, how they're feeling, how they're behaving, the choices they're

making. Because the minute you attach your value to it, you're not going to be a healthy support system, period. I have never met somebody who has been a really genuinely healthy support system for someone who's attaching their value, right? Because what I realized so many times, I would get so angry at my son when he was struggling. And I would justify that, well, yeah, he just stole money to buy drugs or he just did this. Or now he's not getting up to go. But really, when I dug deep and I wrote about it in the book, I realized, oh, my goodness, so much of that anger was actually my anger at myself. My anger was screaming, what is your kid's behavior?

What is your child's struggles? What are those struggles say about you as a mother? That's where my anger was. And when I started dealing with that, I realized, oh, now I was able to handle all of his stuff more rationally without going into that rage. Because ultimately, yeah, of course stuff that was happening was making me angry. But that deep, deep rage, that was about my anger at myself. Yeah. That was about my insecurities of like, what did I do when he was a kid to cause this?

Why don't I know how to fix this? Why don't I have all the answers? Why haven't the 10 things I already tried worked? It was about me. Yeah. So if you can detach that value, your own value from that, then you can see more clearly. This is why therapists are so amazing, right? Because they don't have their own personal value attached to, you know, what their client is doing or how they're behaving or what they're struggling with. That's why therapists are so powerful. That's why that in those sessions are so powerful. You're never going to get to that point as a parent because you have an intimate, loving relationship. You are, you're going to feel fear if your kid is struggling. You can't eliminate that. But just every day sort of setting. yourself and go, this is not about me. Whatever's happening with my child is not a story about me or my worth or my value. I completely agree with you. And I think that's great advice. And it's interesting that you brought up the, like, a child having cancer, because that's

exactly what I wanted to ask you about next, was that I think that socially in our communities, we view kids who have mental health issues very differently from, let's say, a child who has cancer and people might treat you differently in the ways that they help you, that they view what's happening with your child. And I'm wondering if you encountered any shaming or those types of messages during this process with your child. Oh, constantly, constantly. Here's a perfect little example. So I, you know, we didn't share anything about him publicly for a long time until he was ready to open up about it. And I already was, you know, on social media and creating a lot of content. And my followers had no idea what was happening behind closed doors. Eventually, we shared that he had been hospitalized. And let me backtrack a little bit. A few years before that, he was also hospitalized. And he gave me permission to share that. And so I shared a picture of him in a hospital bed. And the comments were amazing. They were 100% supportive, not a single negative comment, hundreds of comments. All. positive, supportive grade. And then a few years later, he gave him permission to share

about the other hospitalization. I shared that. And the comments were completely different. There was some support, but at least 50% was either negative or it was, I can't believe you're talking about this publicly. And do you know what the difference was? The first hospitalization was for his appendicitis. And the second one was for depression. And it makes me want to cry right now. He was too completely differently, even by strangers on the internet, right? Yeah. I at one point pulled up those two posts for myself and I was reading the comment side by side. And it was incredible how much just judgment there was. And the way I look at it, he didn't choose to have his appendix almost burst and be rushed into the hospital. And he didn't choose to struggle with depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts and be rushed into a hospital. He didn't make those choices. Why should a child or any adult, any human being, be treated differently for that. You know, when somebody hears that a kid has cancer or whatever, right, any quote-unquote physical ailment, people are doing fundraisers and they're

bringing dinner and they're, you know, what can we do? And when people found out myself with struggle and mental health struggles, they kind of backed off because that made them uncomfortable. That made them really uncomfortable. And they also didn't want to be necessarily associated. with the kid who had to be in a psychiatric hospital. Right. Nobody thought it was shameful when he was in a, you know, other hospital. So a lot of like either judgment or pulling away, a lot of people pulling away. One of the things I wrote in the book is how the night I called the police on him, we were new to the neighborhood.

And like we had, I don't even know, we had only lived there maybe a few months on that street. Super quiet neighbor. We're still there. Super quiet neighborhood. Like you never see cop cars or anything. And here are two police cars in front. in my house. And there was a woman. I think there were actually two people across the street had not met these neighbors yet. And they're just staring at this whole scene. And immediately my

mind goes into the normal human thing of, oh, my God. What are they thinking? Who are they going to tell? Our neighbors are going to hate us, blah, blah, blah. And I remember so clearly the words that came to my mind were, no, thank you. No, thank you. I'm not picking up. Whatever's going on over there, whatever that potential judgment or gossip, whatever it is. I don't even know what it is. I'm not picking it up. Because if I pick it up, it's going to distract me from what I need to focus on, which is my son. And that sort of became my thing. That actually was originally supposed to be the name of the book was no thank you. Because that sort of my mantra throughout this whole thing of no, thank you. I'm not picking up that judgment. I'm not picking up these people, these

friends of ours that were always hanging out with this and now they're not answering my calls. I'm not picking that up. Because what happens is we humans pick up all these stories, all this judgment, and all these reactions we're getting for people. And that is the thing that's in our head when the only thing that should be in my head when it comes to my son at that point is how can I best support him? Yeah. Yeah. So one more thing I want to say about that.

The other difference I really saw was the amount of people that said to my son and now say to my son, wow, it's so brave of you to talk about this openly. It's so brave of you to write this book with your mom. It's, you know, to me, it's so brave of you to open up about your family. I hope I live to see the day when it's not considered brave because nobody called me brave for posting about my son of Fendicitis. Nobody. I hope I live to see the day where no one says, it's so brave of you to talk about something

that is human. It is human. It's a human struggle. Anyway, I think go on and on about this, but a lot needs to change still in our system. No, it's so true. And, you know, I even, as somebody who talks about mental health publicly, I'm a therapist, I'm reading your book and I'm thinking to myself, wow, this is me. amazing to put this out here because I think a lot of people would hide this, not because they

should or because that's the right thing to do, but because they are petrified of what will happen if they don't. And I think you are taking a firm stance here, you and your family of saying, I don't care what other people are doing. What's most important to me is my family and what we're going to do for you and we're going to get help. And that transforms people. And I think that's, the right thing to do. And there are so many families that do the opposite because they are so afraid of judgment. And I often end up working with their adult children in adulthood who are recovering from feeling like they were cast aside by their families and they're the problem and they're put in treatment centers far away and no one calls and no one invites them to holidays

because they're the problem. And so talking about this stuff, I agree with you. I hope that it becomes as common as, you know, someone writing a book about having cancer, we're calling them brave, sure, because it's, you know, they've overcome something, but not because they're doing something that we think should be hidden, you know, in the shadows. Yeah. And I do think that because mental health is so openly talked about now, it was not when I was a kid. That's for sure. Yeah. I do think things are changing. You know, my son now, again, he's 21 now, but even when he was like 18, people would, you know, he'd meet somebody and within 10 minutes, he'd be like, oh, yeah, you know, I struggle with anxiety and depression. I'm a medication. And he'd even openly talk about being hospitalized. And I was like, wow. And he wrote in the chapter that he wrote for a book, he said, you know, if other people judge me, that's on them. Right. So I do, I do, I have hope in this like the younger, these kids, you know, because they're looking at it differently and they're talking about it more openly. And it really just, I love it. I love seeing how they're just owning it. This is a part of me. It's not something. My son will so often say this, why would I be ashamed of something I didn't even choose? Like, and he wrote in his book, the things that I have felt shame about and I hope he doesn't anymore were things that I did during that time, the unhealthy ways I chose to cope with my struggles. Yes, because those were choices I made. I made. I

made the choice to yell and scream and destroy stuff. That's a choice I made. But I did not make the choice to have these diagnoses. That was not a choice. So how can I feel shame for something I didn't even choose? Yeah. And I think if everybody had that attitude, man, again, shame is killing our kids. We got to get rid of it. And you know what? They can sense when you feel shame about it. When you as a parent, oh, she feels shame. They sense it even if you never say it out loud. So do the inner work to just say no thank you and eliminate it. And that starts with even like the tiniest things, like getting comfortable with your kids, I don't know, picking outfits to wear out of the house that you think are not like super appropriate. I mean, I'm going through my own kid that I'm like, it doesn't matter what he wears.

Like that's my own trauma for my own child's. Yes. You know, but it doesn't have to even be in these big, huge moments that you fight this stuff. But just being able to allow your kid to be themselves and not projecting any guilt, embarrassment. shame on them that they're not feeling. They're confident in doing what they're doing in that moment. And I think that's such a good practice to kind of leave with people is like in what ways in my may be projecting some of that shame onto my kid that isn't theirs to carry. Yeah, because and this is a good, like you said, this is a good practice for even people with

little kids because, you know, every teenager is going to struggle in their own way. Hopefully they will not struggle away my son did. But a teenager, It is. It's hard. It's really hard. I always say the only thing harder than parenting a teenager is being a teenager. So starting that practice when they're little, I mean, even down to this, when your child throws a tantrum in public, if you actually stop and ask yourself, is this a problem and is this driving me nuts because they're throwing a tantrum and because of what they're feeling right now? Or is this a problem because I don't like how people are looking at me right now and what they're going to think of me as a parent and are going to think my kid is spoiled and I'm too lenient. And 99% of the time, if not 100% of the second. It's not actually about, I don't like them. My Kid is feeling this. I want to talk them through the feelings. It's not about that. You're not thinking about your kid. You're thinking about what do people think of you and what do people think of your parenting. And that is the easiest test to give yourself in those moments, even when it's like, what should my kid wear to school? How much is it about them and how much

it is about, you know, your own insecurities, your own fears, all the, all the stuff that we bring into parenting. Yeah, it's so true. And I think that's a perfect way to like wrap up this conversation is that I feel like that was something you navigated so well in your book was kind of like just abandoning all of the what should be, what I'm supposed to do, what everybody's going to think and just saying like, okay, I'm in this situation with my unique child. And what am I going to do? And so I really recommend that anybody that's in the situation, even if it's not with a child, if it's with another family member, I still think your book is so incredibly helpful.

And the last thing I wanted to ask you, you know, now that you are outside of this experience, is there anything that you wish you would have heard from another parent who's maybe in the thick of it right now that you would like to tell them? Be really, really kind to yourself throughout this. be really kind to yourself because what happens is the way I see it is like this life gives us this pile, right? This big pile of crap, this big pile of stress and, you know, circumstances we never expect him. We were never trained for it. Just think of just this big pile and it's so heavy. And what we silly, silly humans do is the bigger that pile is, the more we decide to go, well, how much is this my fault? And I'm not doing enough. And am I doing the right thing?

and did I screw up here and I'm not adequate enough my kid deserves better we basically are adding more and more and more to that pile and making it heavier you don't have control over that first pile life is going to throw some awful things your way you have no control of that what the only thing you can control the only thing I control through all of my son struggles was how I treated myself and if you treat yourself with so much kindness and grace think about how you would what you would do with like whoever you love the most your best friend whoever how you would treat them if they were going through something really, really hard. If you treat yourself with so much love and kindness and grace, you are going to show up for your kid so much better,

so much healthier, with so much less ego and insecurities, with so much less of that inner rage, right? So if you put your focus on one thing during this whole thing, it's how you treat yourself. And that will trickle into how you treat your child and the kind of support system you can be your child. I love that. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for doing this would be. I really appreciate it, and I think people are going to get a lot out of this interview. So thank you again. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient,

or other treatment relationship between you and Collincombe or Whitney Good. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service link in the show notes below.