Abuse

Loving someone who struggles with addiction is one of the most painful and complex experiences a person can face. You watch someone you care about disappear in pieces—moments of clarity followed by chaos, hope followed by heartbreak. You want to help, but nothing you do ever feels like enough.

Addiction doesn’t just affect the individual—it impacts families, children, partners, and entire support systems. Research consistently shows that substance use disorders are associated with increased family stress, disrupted attachment, and intergenerational trauma, particularly when left untreated (Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction [CCSA], 2023).

Supporting someone with addiction requires empathy, education, and—often most overlooked—care for yourself.

Understanding Addiction Through a Trauma Lens

Addiction is not a moral failure or a lack of willpower. It is a complex, chronic health condition influenced by neurobiology, trauma exposure, mental illness, and social determinants of health (CCSA, 2023; National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA], 2024).

*Many individuals use substances to:

*Regulate overwhelming emotions

*Cope with unresolved trauma or abuse

*Manage untreated anxiety, depression, or PTSD

*Numb feelings of abandonment, shame, or chronic stress

Trauma-informed research shows a strong correlation between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and later substance use, highlighting addiction as a survival response rather than a choice (Felitti et al., 1998; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2014).

Lead With Compassion, Not Control

Shame is one of the strongest predictors of continued substance use and relapse. Compassion, on the other hand, fosters psychological safety—an essential foundation for recovery (Brown, 2012; SAMHSA, 2014).

Supportive communication includes:

*Using person-first language (e.g., “a person with a substance use disorder”)

*Expressing concern without blame

*Listening without fixing, minimizing, or threatening

*Acknowledging the person’s pain, not just their behavior

Statements such as:
“I’m worried about your safety.”
“I care about you and want to understand.”

Can reduce defensiveness and open space for change.

Set Boundaries Without Guilt

Boundaries are a critical component of healthy support. Evidence-based family approaches emphasize that enabling behaviors—such as covering up consequences or providing financial support for substance use—can unintentionally reinforce addiction patterns (Al-Anon Family Groups, 2023).

Healthy boundaries:

*Protect your emotional and physical safety

*Create clarity and consistency

*Reduce resentment and burnout

*Model accountability

Setting boundaries is not abandonment—it is a necessary act of self-preservation.

Encourage Help—But Release the Outcome

Recovery cannot be forced. Research shows that while social support increases treatment engagement, sustained recovery depends on internal readiness and access to appropriate care (NIDA, 2024).

You can:

Take Care of Yourself (This Is Not Selfish)

*Encourage professional treatment or trauma-informed therapy

*Offer to support attendance at appointments or groups

*Share resources without ultimatums

You cannot:

*Control another person’s recovery

*Heal their trauma for them

*Prevent relapse on their behalf

Letting go of control is often one of the hardest—and healthiest—steps for loved ones.

Family members of individuals with addiction often experience secondary trauma, anxiety, depression, and chronic stress (Orford et al., 2013). Caring for yourself is not optional—it is essential.

Consider:

*Individual or family therapy

*Support groups for loved ones (e.g., Al-Anon, Nar-Anon)

*Rebuilding routines that prioritize rest, boundaries, and identity

*When you care for yourself, you interrupt cycles of codependency and trauma.

A Personal Reflection

Through my work in child welfare and trauma-informed practice, I have seen how addiction fractures families—and how often children become silent witnesses to instability long before they understand it.

I’ve also lived the reality of addiction and recovery, witnessing firsthand how shame isolates, while compassion combined with accountability creates space for healing.
Healing does not begin with control.

It begins with safety, boundaries, and truth.

Final Thoughts: Love With Limits, Hope With Honesty

You are not cruel for setting boundaries.

You are not heartless for protecting yourself.

And you are not responsible for someone else’s recovery.

Supporting someone through addiction is not about saving them.

It’s about staying grounded in compassion—without losing yourself.

BigmommaJ
#AddictionRecovery #withoutLosingyourself #boundaries

Mental health struggles do not exist in isolation. They are shaped by experiences, environments, systems, and relationships—many of which were never safe to begin with.

Yet stigma continues to frame mental illness as a personal failure rather than a human response to adversity.

Research consistently shows that stigma is one of the greatest barriers to seeking mental health support, often leading to delayed treatment, increased distress, and poorer outcomes (Mental Health Commission of Canada [MHCC], 2022). Stigma is not just uncomfortable—it is harmful.

For individuals impacted by trauma, child welfare involvement, addiction, and recovery, stigma often becomes an additional wound layered onto an already heavy history.

Where Stigma Begins

Mental health stigma thrives where understanding ends.

It shows up when behaviors are judged without context, when trauma responses are labeled as defiance or manipulation, and when people are reduced to diagnoses instead of seen as whole human beings shaped by what they have lived through. Language and labeling play a critical role in reinforcing stigma, particularly within systems meant to provide care (Herman, 2015).

Stigma asks, “What’s wrong with you?”

Trauma-informed care asks, “What happened to you?”

This shift in perspective is foundational to trauma-informed practice and is supported by evidence demonstrating improved engagement and outcomes when individuals feel understood rather than blamed (SAMHSA, 2014).

Child Welfare, Trauma, and the Mental Health Continuum

Children involved in child welfare systems are disproportionately exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including abuse, neglect, domestic violence, parental substance use, and chronic instability (Public Health Agency of Canada [PHAC], 2023).

These experiences do not disappear with time—they embed themselves in the nervous system, shaping attachment patterns, emotional regulation, and coping strategies across the lifespan.

The landmark ACEs study established a strong, graded relationship between childhood adversity and later mental health challenges, substance use disorders, and chronic physical illness (Felitti et al., 1998).

Despite this evidence, individuals with child welfare histories are often stigmatized for the very adaptations that helped them survive early adversity.

What we label as “problem behavior” is frequently a trauma response.

What we punish is often pain.

Addiction: A Stigmatized Trauma Response

Addiction remains one of the most stigmatized mental health conditions, particularly when it intersects with trauma histories.

Research shows that a significant proportion of individuals with substance use disorders have experienced childhood trauma, neglect, or violence (SAMHSA, 2014).

Substance use is often an attempt to regulate overwhelming emotions, numb intrusive memories, or create a sense of control when safety was never guaranteed.

Neurobiological research supports that trauma alters stress and reward pathways in the brain, increasing vulnerability to substance use as a coping mechanism (Herman, 2015).

Yet stigma continues to frame addiction as moral failure rather than a health condition, leading to:

*Delayed help-seeking

*Increased shame and secrecy

*Higher relapse rates

*Reduced access to compassionate care

Addiction is not a lack of willpower. It is a nervous system searching for relief.

Personal Reflection: What I’ve Seen—and Lived

Working within child welfare, alongside my own healing and recovery journey, has taught me that people are rarely broken—they are burdened.

I have seen children labeled “difficult” when they were terrified.

Parents judged as “unmotivated” when they were navigating unresolved trauma.

Individuals dismissed as “addicts” instead of recognized as survivors.

I have also lived the impact of stigma—the way it follows you into systems, appointments, and even your own internal dialogue.

Research confirms that internalized stigma significantly worsens mental health outcomes and reduces self-efficacy in recovery (MHCC, 2022).

Recovery, for me, was not just about changing behaviors. It was about unlearning shame. About recognizing that survival does not require justification. And about understanding that healing is not linear—a reality well documented in trauma and recovery literature (Herman, 2015).

Recovery Is Not an Endpoint—It Is a Practice

Recovery is often portrayed as a finish line. In reality, it is an ongoing process of self-regulation, self-awareness, and reconnection.

Evidence-based models of recovery emphasize that healing occurs over time and requires safety, trust, and empowerment (SAMHSA, 2014).

Recovery can mean:

*Learning safer coping strategies

*Rebuilding trust with self and others

*Naming trauma without being defined by it

*Choosing growth even when it’s uncomfortable

Stigma tells people they should be “over it by now.”
Recovery science tells us otherwise.

From Awareness to Action

Public awareness of mental health has increased, yet stigma continues to shape who is believed, who receives care, and who is left behind.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada (2022) emphasizes that meaningful change requires systemic, trauma-informed approaches rather than crisis-driven or punitive responses.

Action looks like:

*Trauma-informed child welfare and mental health systems

*Integrated treatment for mental health and addiction

*Language that reduces shame and increases engagement

*Early intervention rather than crisis-only care

Mental health care must do more than manage symptoms—it must restore dignity.

The Vision: Rise Above Your Norm

Rise Above Your Norm is not just a blog—it is the foundation of a future private practice rooted in lived experience, clinical understanding, and evidence-based, trauma-informed care.

This practice is being built to serve individuals who have been historically misunderstood or marginalized within systems:

*Those with complex trauma histories

*Individuals impacted by child welfare involvement

*People navigating addiction and recovery

*Families working to break generational cycles

*Thos affected by sexual abuse, exploitation and domestic violence

Research consistently shows that trauma-informed, person-centered care improves engagement, outcomes, and long-term recovery (SAMHSA, 2014; MHCC, 2022).

What This Practice Will Stand For

This space will be:

*Trauma-informed, grounded in ACEs and neurobiology research

*Non-judgmental, rejecting shame-based models

*Integrated, addressing mental health and addiction together

*Grounded in dignity, recognizing lived experience as expertise.

Healing should not require proving your pain. It should meet you where you are.

A Call to the Community

*If you are a professional: examine your language and assumptions.

*If you are a policymaker: invest in prevention, not punishment.

*If you are a loved one: replace judgment with curiosity.

*If you are struggling: your healing is valid—even when it is nonlinear.

Reducing stigma is a shared responsibility—and one that directly impacts lives (MHCC, 2022).

A Final Word

Mental health struggles are not evidence of weakness. They are evidence of endurance.

The work ahead is not easy—but it is necessary.

This is how we rise:

*By choosing understanding over stigma.

*By building systems that reflect real lives.

*By believing people are worthy of care long before they reach rock bottom.

This is the work of Rise Above Your Norm.
And this is only the beginning

BigmommaJ
#Stigma #MentalHealth #Addiction #change

There was a girl I was compared to online. I asked my ex-husband (before he was my ex) if she was better, and he said, "I don't know." It caused me to go into a borderline state and hurt myself further. Fast forward, we left each other, but the girl still posts subtle hints as if she is married to him. A lot of her TikTok captions have to do with the name Ali, and she even has a specific video talking about what happened because during my early days of BPD, I did go into psychosis, and she blames it on the app AliExpress. She knew my ex-boyfriend (b4 the ex- husband) and posted videos without detailing the horrific abuse I went through, and mentioned she reached out to him. I had TikTok take them down. Her most recent video and the search are so close to my ex-husband's name, who, by the way, married an 18-year-old. I am so tired of her. I hate living in this city every day, and driving is like impossible. If you were me? How would you forget and move on? I am only 27 and trying every day to fight off the happy toughts she has been having over my abusers.

Surviving mental health is rarely discussed honestly.

Much of the public conversation focuses on thriving, healing, or overcoming. While those are meaningful goals, they often overlook a critical reality: for many individuals living with mental illness, complex trauma, or co-occurring substance use, survival itself is the work.

Survival is not passive.
It is an active, ongoing process of regulation, endurance, and adaptation—often happening quietly, without recognition.

What “Surviving” Really Means From a Trauma-Informed Lens

Clinically, survival reflects the nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect.

When a person has experienced chronic stress, interpersonal trauma, neglect, abuse, or repeated loss, the brain and body may remain in a heightened state of alert long after the danger has passed. This prolonged activation of the stress response system impacts emotional regulation, decision-making, and physical health (McEwen, 2007).

Canadian trauma frameworks recognize that many mental health symptoms are rooted in unresolved trauma and adverse experiences, particularly when exposure occurs early or repeatedly (Public Health Agency of Canada [PHAC], 2018).

From a trauma-informed perspective, survival can look like:

*Emotional dysregulation or rapid mood shifts

*Hypervigilance, anxiety, or chronic fear

*Emotional numbing or dissociation

*Difficulty trusting others or forming stable attachments

*Avoidance, shutdown, or withdrawal

*Impulsive or self-soothing behaviors, including substance use

These responses are often misunderstood or pathologized. Clinically, they are adaptive survival strategies developed in environments where safety was inconsistent or absent (Herman, 1992; CAMH, 2021).

Neuroscience research consistently shows that trauma alters how the brain processes threat, emotion, and memory. Structural and functional changes in the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex affect fear response, emotional regulation, and impulse control (Teicher et al., 2016; van der Kolk, 2014).

Canadian clinical guidance emphasizes that these neurobiological changes are not character flaws—they are learned survival responses shaped by experience (CAMH, 2021).

This is why telling someone to “just calm down” or “move on” is not only dismissive, but clinically inaccurate.

The brain learned survival

before it learned safety.

Survival Is a Valid Clinical Phase—Not a Failure

Recovery from mental illness and trauma is non-linear. Both Canadian and international trauma models identify stabilization and safety as the first phase of recovery—often long before insight, growth, or symptom reduction is possible (Herman, 1992; SAMHSA, 2014; PHAC, 2018).

At times, survival may look like:

*Attending therapy while still struggling daily

*Using medication while navigating shame or ambivalence

*Harm reduction rather than immediate abstinence

*Pulling back socially to prevent emotional overload

*Staying alive through periods of suicidal ideation

From a trauma-informed clinical lens, survival is not regression—it is groundwork.

Without safety and nervous system regulation, deeper healing cannot occur.

The Hidden Grief of Surviving

Survival often carries grief that remains unspoken.

Grief for:

*The life that feels harder than it should

*Relationships lost to symptoms or misunderstanding

*Opportunities missed due to illness or instability

*The version of self that existed before the trauma

Canadian mental health literature increasingly acknowledges the role of grief and loss in long-term mental health conditions, particularly for individuals with trauma histories or chronic diagnoses (Mental Health Commission of Canada [MHCC], 2019).

Healing does not require gratitude for trauma.
It requires validation, compassion, and time.

Moving From Survival Toward Stability

Trauma-informed care does not rush people out of survival mode. Instead, it prioritizes:

*Establishing internal and external safety

*Strengthening emotional regulation skills

*Supporting healthy attachment and boundaries

*Reducing shame through psychoeducation

*Honoring autonomy, choice, and pacing

Polyvagal theory further supports Canadian trauma models by emphasizing how healing occurs through repeated experiences of safety and connection, allowing the nervous system to move out of chronic defense (Porges, 2011).

For some, this process is slow. For others, it unfolds in cycles. Both are clinically expected—and valid.

Personal Reflection: Survival Is the Part No One Applauds

There were seasons of my life where survival was all I had to offer.

Not growth.
Not stability.
Not strength the way the world defines it.

Just survival.

As someone who has worked in child welfare and mental health, I understand the clinical language—the diagnoses, the treatment plans, the frameworks. But I also know what it feels like to live inside a nervous system that never learned safety first.

I know what it means to function on the outside while unraveling internally.
To be judged for coping mechanisms that once kept me alive.

To be told I was “going backwards” when, in reality, I was still here.

Survival doesn’t announce itself.
It doesn’t look inspiring.
But it is brave.

And if you are surviving your mental health right now—quietly, imperfectly, painfully—please hear this:

You are not failing.
You are not weak.
You are doing the hardest work there is.
Staying.

BigmommaJ
#mentalhealthmatters #Surviving