You Can't Pour From an Empty Cup: An Anxiety Therapist in Oakland on Why Healing from Divorce Matters for Your Teen
Uploaded from Unsplash on 5/15/2026
You didn't imagine this would be your life. You had a picture of how things would go — a family that shaped by the family you grew up in, the relationship you hoped to build, the future you were working toward together. Maybe you pictured a family that stayed intact, a marriage that worked, a version of the future that doesn't include custody schedules and awkward holidays and explaining to your teenager why everything has changed.
If you're a parent going through divorce and doing the best you can in circumstances you never wanted, you are carrying more than most people can see. Grief. Anger. Sadness. Fear. Worry. Shame. You’re afraid about what family separation means for your children and exhausted from holding yourself together when it feels like everything is falling apart. The exhaustion of holding yourself together while everything around you feels like it's in pieces.
You know, rationally, that it's not that simple. This post is the third in a series on divorce. It isn't going to tell you to "put your kids first" — you already are, with everything you have. Instead, I want to talk about something I see regularly in my work with adults navigating divorce: what happens when you don't have a place to put all of that. As an anxiety therapist in Oakland, I want to share why getting support isn't a luxury — it's one of the most important things you can do for your teenager right now.
Divorce Can Be a Trauma - Not Just a Life Transition
We often talk about divorce as a major life stressor, and it is. But for many people, it is actually traumatic and a trauma we don’t tend to acknowledge. Research consistently shows that adults going through divorce experience significantly elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and social isolation. And when grief and loss are fully processed, these effects can be lasting and even resistant to treatment.
The psychological experience of divorce parallels mourning a death. You're grieving a relationship, yes. But you're also grieving a future you imagined, a family structure you believed in, and sometimes a version of yourself that existed inside that marriage. And unlike the death of a loved one, divorce can carry an added wound: the feeling of personal rejection or abandonment by someone who once chose you.
This can be more than just sadness - it can be a deep attachment injury. This wounding deserves to be treated with the same seriousness we'd give any other trauma.
My clients have shown me that there’s often a lot of anxiety that lives inside all of it — the uncertainty about finances, housing, how your kids will be affected, what your life looks like from here.Will they be okay? Will I be okay? Anxiety thrives and even grows when there is ambiguity, and divorce is full of it. Many people find themselves in a state of chronic hypervigilance: continually scanning for the next problem, knowingly and unknowingly bracing for conflict and unable to fully rest. This is your nervous system doing what it was designed to do when under threat. It makes a lot of sense, but it also can take a toll.
Your Nervous System Is Contagious
You likely already know on some level that your teenagers feel your emotional state, even when you don't say a word. It may be hard to hear. This is not about blame - it’s about biology. And hopefully developing greater awareness so you can prioritize your own wellbeing.
has found that parents with greater ability to regulate their own emotions tend to be warmer and more present with their children, and their children show fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems. The reverse is also true: chronic parental dysregulation — the kind that comes from ongoing, unprocessed stress — creates an emotional climate that kids absorb. Dysregulation is contagious and you may see this in your teen’s behavior or observe greater emotional reactivity.
Your teen may not be able to name what they're picking up on. They might not say, "I can feel your anxiety." Instead, they might become irritable, withdraw to their room, underperform at school, or act out in ways that seem disconnected from what's happening at home. Or they might become very, very good — almost unnaturally so — because they're picking up on how much you're struggling and quietly deciding not to add to it.
This isn't your fault. Divorce is one of the most destabilizing experiences an adult can go through. The goal isn't to pretend things are okay or conceal how you truly feel. The goal is to find support for your own nervous system so that the chronic baseline stress in your home starts to shift because you're actually getting help carrying them.
Your Teen Cannot Be Your Support Person
When we're in pain, we reach for the people we're closest to. And for many parents, the person they're closest to, the one who is physically present, who knows the history, who they love most is their child.
I see this happen with the most loving, well-intentioned parents. Not necessarily even in dramatic ways, but in quieter ways. Venting about the other parent, just a little. Asking your teenager how they're feeling about the divorce in a way that's also asking them to reassure you. Letting them see more of your grief than is appropriate. Looking to them, in subtle ways, to tell you that you're going to be okay.
Relying on your teen for emotional support is a form of parentification. Even the milder versions of crossing this boundary place a burden on your adolescent that they are not developmentally equipped to carry. They love you. They want to help you. And because they love you so much, they will try to take care of you when they need you to take care of them — unless you are very clear with them about your roles and theirs.
This is how parental distress most often affects teenagers after divorce: not just through what they witness, but through what they get pulled into carrying. It’s not their job to be your confidant, emotional anchor, nor tasked with being responsible for managing your pain. That job belongs is to other trusted adults.
Uploaded from Unsplash on 5/26/2026
Processing Your Own Grief, Fear, and Anger — With the Right Support
So what does it look like to get your own support?
It starts with taking seriously what you're actually going through. Not minimizing it. Not pushing through. Not waiting until things settle down, because they may not settle down for a while, and you don't have to white-knuckle it until they do.
You're dealing with grief over what you've lost. Anger that may be entirely justified. Fear about the future that keeps you up at night. Shame that can feel crushing, even when you know it's not the whole story. These emotions are real. They're also the kind of emotions that, left without a container, find their way into every corner of your life — including your relationship with your kids.
And here's the thing: one person isn't enough to hold all of it. Not one friend, not even one therapist. Divorce generates a level of emotional weight that benefits from being distributed across multiple sources of support. Think of it less like finding the right person to talk to, and more like building a team — one that can meet you in different ways, at different moments:
A therapist can help you process the deeper layers — the anxiety, the attachment wounds, the grief — in a consistent, judgment-free space where you don't have to protect anyone from what you're feeling.
Trusted friends know your history and can sit with you without needing you to be okay, or to have it figured out.
A divorce support group where you don't have to explain yourself from the beginning, and where the quiet relief of being with others in the same season can be genuinely normalizing.
A body-based practice like movement, breathwork, yoga, or anything that helps your nervous system discharge what words can't always reach.
A spiritual or community anchor, if that's meaningful to you — something that connects you to something larger than the crisis you're currently in.
You don't need all of these at once, and not every option will fit your life. But the more you can distribute the weight, the less likely it is to land somewhere it shouldn't.
Trauma therapy can be especially useful helping you work with the nervous system responses that divorce so often activates — the hypervigilance, the rumination, the fear that won't quiet down — rather than just managing symptoms on the surface.
Individuals who engage in therapy during the divorce process show significantly better adjustment in the years that follow — not just emotionally, but in their parenting, their relationships, and their ability to move forward.
You Don’t Have to Have This All Figured Out
I want to close with this, because I think it's the thing that gets lost most often in conversations about how to parent through divorce: you don't have to be okay right now. You're allowed to be in the middle of something hard. You're allowed to grieve, to struggle and not have all the answers.
Getting support for yourself isn't a sign that you're failing your kids. It's one of the most concrete ways you can show up for them and resist the pull to ask them to show up for you. Working on your own healing will ensure keep the anxiety and trauma of this experience from becoming part of the fabric of their daily lives.
If you're a parent navigating divorce and you're carrying more than you can hold, individual therapy is a place you can set some of it down. I work with adults who are in exactly this kind of in-between — not on the other side yet, but looking for steadier ground.
Anxiety Therapist Oakland
Lara Clayman, LCSW, is an online therapist in Oakland, California, specializing in supporting parents and teens through family transitions. She works with individuals navigating anxiety, trauma, and the your relationship with your children. Learn more at: www.laraclaymantherapy.com.
