3 C’s of Behavioral Disorders
A mother’s journey with her daughter’s substance abuse and mental health disorders.
One of the first things we learned in CRAFT was the 3 C’s of behavioral health disorders:
● You didn’t CAUSE it
● You can’t CONTROL it
● You can’t CURE it
Those words caused me to stop in my anxious pursuit to fix my family’s situation. We were in the early days of accepting the reality that our bright, beautiful, and vivacious eldest daughter was actually dealing with deep depression and anxiety that stemmed from and led to behavioral health disorders, including substance abuse.
In stopping, as well as in practicing CRAFT skills over the past year, two opposite things have become true for me.
First, I accept the three C’s as they are written. Through CRAFT and my own therapy I am coming into acceptance that my daughter’s struggles are not a direct result of my failure -- moral, personality, or parenting style. I say this not from a place of shirking responsibility (a trigger for me), but from the acceptance that this is her journey, not mine. She came into this world with her own personality, her own birth and early life experience, her own internal world and way of navigating the world. She has, in essence, her own burdens to bear. No matter how much I love her, regardless of my hopes and dreams for her, this is her journey. It breaks my heart that it is so hard for her. But it is hers.
Second, we live life within a family system. And in that family system I have responsibility. Through CRAFT, we learn key concepts like behavior analysis and how to reinforce wanted behaviors in our loved ones. And we learn skills, like PIUS communication, taking care of ourselves, and talking about difficult things together. In learning these things, I have come to see how my behavior choices, which stem from my deep love and concern for my daughter, can actually be the exact opposite of what is needed. And that my choices contribute to the disordered parts of our family system.
Through CRAFT I have been able to let go of concepts like “control” and “cure”, and replace them with “compassion” and being mindful of “communication”. This awareness has come through engaging with the materials, making weekly commitments to practice one small skill, and from the valuable insights of peer participants in the group. Other people journeying on similar paths have shed light on my blind spots and helped me see new and non-judgemental ways to show my loved one that I care.
You’ll notice that I say “through CRAFT, we learn…” and not “through CRAFT, I have mastered or accomplished”. The work of CRAFT is incremental. For me, it is grounded in the reality that as a family we are here for one another on a shared journey. We may not all be experiencing the same things, but what we experience impacts one another. We can love, support, and be steadfast for one another on that journey. CRAFT has given us new ways in which we go about showing that commitment on a daily basis.