If my feelings of sadness and worry are a rational response to my environment, what can I do?

Hi Lae, thank you for reaching out with your question. First, I want to offer sincere congratulations on successfully removing yourself from an unhealthy family situation and creating a better life for yourself! It can be incredibly difficult to move forward out of such situations and not to get sucked back in.

Feelings of sadness and anxiety over loved ones is perfectly natural and it looks like you have sound reason to be worried for your mother and brothers. What I would be concerned about as a therapist is how those feelings are affecting you and whether they are interfering with your daily life. If the sadness and anxiety are pervasive, taking a lot of emotional and mental energy, reducing your ability to concentrate on stay focused on what you need to do in order to maintain and healthy life for yourself, then they can become dysfunctional, leading to depression and/or generalized anxiety disorder.

I’m going to break this down into two categories: reasonable help you can offer them and how to help yourself manage these feelings. The social worker in me always rises to the top in these situations, so let’s start with what you can do to help your family, since you obviously have the desire to do so. Having them move in with you does not sound like a reasonable and healthy option; it will put you back directly in the middle of their issues, create financial strain and enable them to not take the steps they need to in order to better their own lives. I would instead recommend looking into local resources in their area that can help. This would mean they would need to engage with formal support, such as social workers, and I don’t if they’re amenable to that. But if they are willing, I’d suggest checking the state website where they live. These sites can sometimes be tricky to navigate, but you can find numerous resources for help with housing, finances, therapeutic support, etc. within them with a little digging. Giving them the information to help them help themselves is probably the healthiest thing you can do for them and you.

There are several techniques you can practice to help alleviate the sadness and worry you’re experiencing so it's not disruptive to your life. First, I would recommend checking your thinking and learning to challenge unhelpful thoughts. Anxiety in particular often arises from worrying about things that are outside of our control; your family’s issues pretty comfortably fall into that category. Whether it's purely through love or feelings of obligation, seeing family members suffering can create intense feelings of sadness, fear, shame, and guilt. Keep in mind, feelings and thoughts are just that- feelings and thoughts. Just because you have them does not mean you have to act on them. So, working to separate those issues you can influence/control from those you can’t is crucial in how you cope with them. The issues you can influence can be put in the “problem-solving” category. Those you can take steps to resolve (just be clear with yourself which steps are reasonable and which are not). Then you can follow through on the actions you can take, resolve the situation to the best of your ability, and let go of the rest.

The thoughts and feelings tied to situations/issues outside of your control need to be handled differently. In those cases, acceptance is key. I’d recommend learning radical acceptance for use when the thoughts and emotions are intense, along with coping strategies to help soothe and reduce the intensity. Check out these two links for more information about what radical acceptance is and how to use it: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/201207/radical-acceptance https://www.aconsciousrethink.com/14334/radical-acceptance-coping-statements/

Coping strategies can be just about anything you choose, so long as they help you adjust to or tolerate stressors and unhelpful thoughts/emotions. Doing the things you enjoy, spending time with people that care about and support you, self-care, etc. are all coping strategies. So, taking walks, bubble baths, painting, crafts, movies, books, dancing, being silly, meditation- the list could go on and on! Think about what brings you joy and fills your cup; that’s usually a good place to start to find coping activities.

Another strategy that is helpful but not often spoken of is learning to accurately identify the layers of emotion you are experiencing. When you can identify and describe what you’re thinking and feeling, it is easier to find solutions and/or ways to reduce the impact of them. For example, differentiating between guilt and shame can help you determine if there are actions you need to take to align with you values (to address guilt) or judgments you need to confront in your own mind and let go of (to address shame).

Something else to work on is reframing the way you are thinking about yourself and your family. Its easy to get caught up in a negativity spiral or stuck in feelings of helplessness, but if you can shift your perspective, look at the situation from a different angle, you can more easily find solutions to problems and change the emotional impact of those you cannot solve. I suggest starting with Socratic questioning, which you can find more information about here: https://positivepsychology.com/socratic-questioning/

If working through these issues on your own does not help as much as you would like, then I’d recommend finding a therapist to help. Sometimes just having someone to talk to who is non-judgmental and can take a more objective view of your situation can bring relief; working with a therapist can provide that listening ear, as well as teach useful skills, help bring new perspectives, and manage emotions in a healthy way.

If you have any further questions or would like to give therapy a try, please don’t hesitate to reach again. Be well!