My parents have started to fight a lot.

What feelings arise?

I feel upset, sulky, powerless, disappointed.

I feel uncertain about why I feel so deeply concerned.

I feel frustrated that they fight so much.

I feel more stressed.

How is it affecting you?

I feel like I constantly need to satisfy them through schoolwork and sports and afterschool activities. My parent’s fights usually start with me not doing well in one of those areas. My parent’s fighting affects me because it makes me feel stressed and worried.

What is your part?

I am beginning to be overly worried about them and this is stressing me out. I worry that I create the worst situations in my mind and worry that they are almost there.

What are you learning?

I myself know that they won’t split because they love each other and myself. They fight because both of them are overworked and have too much stress on their own shoulders. I have learned that the bond between them is stronger than their problems.

I am learning that I shouldn’t be worried over someone else’s problems, but I still worry because they are my parents and I care about them.

What can you shift in your perspective?

To help myself I can try to stop focusing on them and focus on myself a bit.

I can make this a positive experience, because I can learn how to ease arguments and how to overcome stress in myself and future relationships.

How do you choose to work with your difficulty?

I can tell them how I feel or I can leave the room.

I can try to ease their stress, thus easing my own, and this can motivate me to do my best at school and outside of school to once again, ease their problem and mine.

What is this difficulty teaching you?

Talking can help ease tensions between me and my worry about my parents.

17 years, female