Growing up with parental substance use disorder: The struggle with complex emotions, regulation of contact, and lack of professional support

Abstract

The aim of the study was to explore young people's perceptions and reflections about growing up with parents who have substance use disorder (SUD). In qualitative interviews with 12 young people (aged 13–26) and in an interpretative phenomenological analysis, we investigated their experiences of everyday life, of the relationships with the parents with SUD, and of conversations about this, both retrospectively and at the present. The findings indicated that the relationships with the parents largely occupied the informants, even when they lived separately from the parent and were protected from the daily exposure of substance use. The informants described their mixed and contradictory emotions towards their parents and the struggle to determine regulation and type of contact. They asked for professional support in order to help them cope with this. Sociocultural discourses concerning family life and substance use were discussed in an attempt to understand the findings. The findings of the study suggest that children and young people should be offered sufficient professional support in order to cope with their mixed and contradictory emotions and to determine the regularity and type of contact with the parents.

‘I have cried a lot’: a qualitative study on children experiencing severe parental illness

“…Hardship associated with loss of, or separation from, a healthy parent, compassion with the ill parent and fear of being abandoned have previously been reported (27–29). These and other related challenges described by the children in the present study have been found in research with children from similar parental illness groups as in our study (62, 63, 65, 66). Some children were exhausted by such disturbing thoughts, others could not sleep or concentrate, while others felt overstretched or in a terrible mood (64).…”

An Online Intervention to Promote Mental Health and Wellbeing for Young Adults Whose Parents Have Mental Illness and/or Substance Use Problems: Theoretical Basis and Intervention Description

“…Similarly, many young adults find it difficult to be emotionally independent from their parent who has a mental illness or substance use problem. Drawn from interviews with 12 young people aged 13–26 whose parents had substance use problems, Wangensteen et al (23) described their struggle in balancing emotional closeness and distance with their parent. In particular, those aged 18–26 felt sorry for their parent and described a sense of obligation toward them and the subsequent struggle to separate themselves emotionally when they moved out of home.…”

A window of opportunity for children growing up with parental substance-use problems

“…Studies related to Nordic welfare-state contexts and treatment settings have found similar situations, with those children growing up with parental substance-use problems struggling in everyday life and lacking informal and professional support networks to address their needs (Itäpuisto, 2014;Ruud et al, 2015;Wangensteen, Bramness, & Halsa, 2018;Werner & Malterud, 2016).…”

“…I would like to quote one of the male informants in the study of Wangensteen et al (2018), who is now 21 years old but has a background of living with parental substance-use problems:…”

“…I would like to quote one of the male informants in the study of Wangensteen et al (2018) , who is now 21 years old but has a background of living with parental substance-use problems: People talk about the problem, but not of the consequences of the problem. I am one of the consequences of the problem.…”