A Series of Reasonable Decisions
One of the paradoxes of having significant resources is that when something goes wrong, there is almost always something else you can do. Find another specialist. Hire another consultant. Pay the rent. Fund another treatment program. Create another opportunity.
Those resources can provide stability, access to excellent care, and opportunities that can change someone’s life. But having more options does not always make it easier to know what to do.
I see this often in my work with individuals and families. A decision that looks financial on the surface is rarely just about finances. Paying someone’s rent may also be about independence and responsibility. Funding another treatment program may carry hope that this will be the thing that helps, along with fear about what happens if it doesn’t. Financial support can be an expression of love while also becoming a source of tension, obligation, or resentment. When resources repeatedly soften the consequences of someone’s choices, they can also unintentionally reinforce a lack of accountability.
Financial security also does not protect someone from serious mental illness, depression, anxiety, loneliness, problems with motivation, or uncertainty about what they want from their life. When so much looks good on paper, it can be harder to understand why you are struggling. There may be an added expectation that you should be doing well. The distance between how your life appears and how it actually feels can become another source of distress.
Having access to every opportunity can bring its own questions. If I have so much, why am I still unhappy? Why can’t I get myself moving? Why am I not doing more with what I’ve been given? When there is no obvious external explanation for why things are hard, frustration can turn inward. What looks like extraordinary freedom from the outside can feel very different to the person living it.
Resources can remove barriers and provide access to exceptional support, but they cannot solve every problem. That can be difficult for everyone involved. The individual may become increasingly discouraged when another treatment, opportunity, or change does not make things better. The family may feel increasingly helpless, particularly when they are accustomed to being able to mobilize resources and make things happen.
That helplessness can create pressure to keep intervening. Sometimes more help is exactly what is needed. But each intervention also becomes part of the larger dynamic. Providing financial support during a crisis may quiet things down and restore stability for the moment without changing the pattern that led to the crisis. When this happens repeatedly, the immediate problem gets resolved while the larger one remains. Stepping in may provide needed relief, but it can also leave less room for the person to take responsibility, build capacity, or begin doing more for themselves.
In the moment, these decisions often feel reasonable. Someone you love is struggling, you have the ability to help, and helping feels like the obvious response. It is often only over time that you can see what those decisions have added up to.
A series of reasonable decisions can gradually create an unreasonable system.
Once that pattern is established, figuring out what should change is not simple. Some people genuinely need significant support, sometimes for a period of time and sometimes much longer. Others may need more room to make decisions, experience consequences, and learn what they can manage on their own. Mental health, family relationships, financial resources, fear, and differing ideas about what it means to help can all be part of the same situation.
These are the kinds of complexities that have increasingly shaped my work. My Clinical Practice focuses on the individual, while Family Advisory allows me to work with families and others involved in the larger system. At times, that also means helping trustees, fiduciaries, and other advisors understand how mental health, functioning, and family dynamics intersect with decisions about financial support.
