Reply to Young adult kids dealing with mentally ill mom

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"Part of the issue is my ex is extremely sensitive and everyone around her is walking on egg shells"

This is codependency. As the adult daughter of an alcoholic  I have to say, she will not break if people are honest/tough love with her. Healthy boundaries need to be set. Often times we think deep down we'll be the cause of their drinking if we don't walk on egg shells, that simply isn't true. They  need to get therapy, go to Al-Anon or something similar.[/quote]

+1
-I agree that encouraging the kids to seek individual therapy/ Al-Anon is a good idea. But, OP, you seem to be suggesting that your kids should be involved in their mom's psychiatric care and that is not appropriate. The best thing you can do for your kids is to encourage them to have firm boundaries, they can still love their mom and be kind to her but they are not responsible for her.

I grew up in a tough family and I was very fortunate to have an aunt who laid it all out for me when I was an older teen. She was the high functioning one and had always dropped her own life to swoop in and save other people. She really pushed me to do things differently.[/quote]

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