Focus on the Mending. How CRAFT Connect Helps to Reconnect
A mother’s journey with her daughter’s substance abuse and mental health disorders.
Through CRAFT, I learn skills that help strengthen my relationship with my daughter who lives with behavioral health and substance abuse issues as well as all of my loved ones. While my ability to call upon these skills continues to grow, there are times when I revert to pre-CRAFT behaviors. In these situations, I do not show up as my best self. They can lead to hurt, to regret, and to what feels like a rip in the relationship.
A trusted advisor shared that, after one of these interactions, it is important to not focus on the rip, but to focus on the mending. While my not using CRAFT skills may have led to the hurt, I can use them to open paths to mending and healing.
By taking time to write out PIUS communication statements, I am able to process my own feelings and motivations. I may write out a dozen PIUS statements that are actually creative ways of telling the other person that they were wrong, or to protect my own defensiveness. But eventually, through this exercise, I can begin see how I actually am directing my own fear, stubbornness and judgement at my loved one.
By using behavior management, I am able to define the behavior that I would like in my loved one or in our interactions together. By specifying that behavior, I can then look at what is getting in the way of that wanted behavior. I can begin to see how my behaviors and reactions are actually reinforcing the unwanted behavior rather than reinforcing the wanted behaviors. For example, if I want my loved ones to be open with me, but then I react to their words from my fear, I am reinforcing in them that they are better off not being open with me.
By understanding that growth and behavioral change is a cycle and not linear, I am able to find greater acceptance and grace, both of myself and with my loved one. Embracing the Cycle of Change can free me up to focus on the mend. Rips happen. Set-backs happen. And, when they do, they don’t negate everything that has happened so far. They just are a stop on a larger journey. Rather than my getting stuck because of the rip, I have a toolbox to use to help facilitate the mend.
By understanding the importance of validation, I have a framework to relook at what led to the rip. It is often because I was invalidating the experience of my loved one and trying to move them to my point of view. Sometimes, a simple validating statement can be an opening toward mending.
By going back to the 3 C’s of behavioral disorders, I can re-ground myself in the reality of living with a loved one in recovery. I didn’t cause this disease. I can’t control it in her life. And, I certainly can’t cure it. I also can see where my behaviors have gone astray and, therefore, are not constructive or supportive. That opens me up to viewing and participating in the situation in a different way, which can help create the mend.