I have found the Love Another Way™ program very helpful in dealing with adult son with a mental illness. The Facebook group, callls, workshops, coaching calls, coach-a-thons are a great way to get plugged into a community who understands!
Jane Latham
I met Barbara Decker and Love another Way when I was in need of finding support of a women’s group that was truly real and caring women. All reaching the same goal. With their loved ones with mental illness. Life saving for me…
Stephanie Altman
I needed support to be a better parent to 2 of my daughters, both suffering from anxiety induced mental health issues. Barbara Decker’s course has been transformational to help me change my behaviour and therefore the health of my daughters
Ruth Clamp-Held
Community for Parents of Adults with Mental Illness
Find a safe space where you are understood, and discover practical ways to care for yourself while supporting your loved one.
Through our programs, you will connect with mothers and fathers who understand your journey and discover a new way to love and support your child without losing yourself.
What Is the Live Well & Fully Parent Community?
The Live Well & Fully Parent Community is an online space for moms whose adult child lives with mental illness, with or without co-occurring addiction. It is where you stop trying to explain symptoms, episodes, and worry to people who shrug, and start being heard by women who recognize every word of it.
This is not a vent room. It is a working community grounded in the Love Another Way framework, with cognitive-care language, practical strategies, and steady support from moms a few steps further down the road.
Inside, you will find moms who:
- Communicate calmly with a loved one whose thinking is distorted, without escalating
- Tell the difference between a real emergency and the chaos mental illness generates day to day
- Protect their own mental health while still holding compassionate space for their child
- Show up for each other in the worst weeks, not just the easy ones
You are not the first mom to walk this road, and you are not the only one carrying it. That alone changes things.
Why Parents Need Support Too
When your adult child is living with mental illness, it can feel like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. You want to help, but instead you’re left feeling:
- Powerless in the face of their struggles.
- Overwhelmed by constant worry, fear, and “what ifs.”
- Unsure where to turn after doctors, therapies, and even traditional support groups.
You don’t have to keep going through this alone.
I know this pain because I lived it. My son, Eric, struggled with both addiction and serious mental illness, including psychosis. I spent years in fear, trying everything I could think of to fix him – and failing.
What finally brought me peace wasn’t “fixing” him at all. It was learning to care for myself differently, to set boundaries that worked, and to approach my son with a new kind of love: what I call Love Another Way™.
That shift changed everything – for me, and eventually for him.
How Our Community is Different
Through our programs, you gain access to a private community that is more than just a support group. It’s a place where you’ll find:
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Understanding parents who know what it’s like to love an adult child with mental illness
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Practical tools to help you release guilt and worry
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Step-by-step strategies to set healthy, loving boundaries
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Hope that you can find peace, even if your child is still struggling
This isn’t about “giving up” on your child – it’s about giving yourself the strength and clarity you need to keep going.
Who Is This For? And Who Is It Not For?
This is for you if…
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You’ve spent years navigating doctors, therapists, and medications – and still feel like you’re failing your adult child.
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You’re exhausted by mental illness symptoms that change without warning and behaviors that don’t make sense.
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You want to understand what your adult child is actually experiencing so you can respond without escalating.
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You crave the company of other parents who know exactly what it’s like to love someone with serious mental illness.
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You’re ready to find peace and steadiness for yourself, even when your child’s symptoms are unstable.
This is not for you if…
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You want someone else to manage your adult child’s mental illness for them or for you.
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You’re looking for a quick fix that ends the illness without ongoing care, support, and adjustment.
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You’d rather avoid setting boundaries that protect you from your loved one’s destabilizing behaviors.
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You expect mental illness to “go away” through positive thinking or willpower.
Here’s How to Join
Mind Diseases™
Understand mind diseases and learn to communicate with a struggling loved one – even when nothing they say makes sense.
What It Is:
Mind Diseases is a coached program grounded in Barbara’s Cognitive Care Plan – a framework for understanding how mind diseases affect thinking, emotion, and behavior, and for responding in ways that don’t escalate.
You get a toolkit for communicating across those gaps – language patterns, de-escalation tactics, and a clear sense of when to lean in and when to step back. Live coaching support keeps you steady while you apply it in real situations.
Who It’s For:
Moms whose adult child is navigating mental illness, with or without co-occurring addiction, and who are ready to move past reactivity into a steadier, more informed response.
What You’ll Learn:
- How mind diseases work – what symptoms are signal, what’s noise, and how to tell the difference
- A cognitive care framework for responding without escalating, even when your loved one’s thinking is distorted
- Communication tactics for the moments when nothing they say makes sense – so you stay connected without losing yourself
The Transformative Boundaries Experience™
Replace the “Mom Code” with a boundary practice that supports your loved one – and protects you.
What It Is:
The Transformative Boundaries Experience™ is an 8-week coached program that replaces the “Mom Code” you have lived by – the one that keeps you saying yes, softening, rescuing – with a real boundary practice that supports your loved one’s recovery without draining yours.
You move through structured modules while meeting weekly in a Progress Coaching pod with other moms on the same road, developed by a Certified Family Recovery Specialist. The shift interrupts the patterns your child has come to expect and steadies you when mental illness destabilizes everything around you.
Who It’s For:
Moms of adult children with mental illness, with or without co-occurring addiction, who are ready for a deep, sustained transformation – not just another book or another tip list.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to replace the “Mom Code” with boundaries that actually hold – without guilt, without endless explanation, without a fight every time
- How to stay grounded during a crisis, and how to tell a real emergency from the chaos mental illness generates every week
- A sustainable practice for holding steady when symptoms flare – supported by a weekly coaching pod of other moms walking the same road
Liberate Your Life™
Break free from the people-pleasing patterns that have run your life – and reclaim what’s yours.
What It Is:
Liberate Your Life is an 8-week coached program built around two Freedom Frameworks for breaking the cycle of over-giving and people-pleasing – patterns mothers of adult children with mental illness often slip into without noticing.
Structured modules, live coaching, and a community of moms walking the same road.
Who It’s For:
Moms who have spent years putting their adult child’s mental illness ahead of their own peace, and are ready to rebuild parts of themselves that got put on hold.
What You’ll Learn:
- Two Freedom Frameworks for breaking the cycle of people-pleasing and over-giving
- How to set healthy boundaries without guilt – and why the guilt fades once the frameworks start working
- How to rebuild the parts of yourself that got put on hold while you held everyone else together
Meet Your Graduate Coaches
Inside the community, you will be supported by a graduate coach who has done the work herself, raised a family through it, and now guides other parents through the same path.
Barbara Decker – Founder & Teacher
Barbara is the founder of Live Well and Fully and the creator of all the frameworks and programs you’ll find here. Her personal journey inspired the tools now used by thousands of parents to reclaim their peace, confidence, and voice. Inside the community, Barbara stays closely connected by hosting monthly live Coach-A-Thon sessions open to all members, being active daily in the private Facebook community, and continuing to teach and encourage parents as they put these tools into practice.
Cathie Fischer
Cathie Fischer has been part of Live Well & Fully since its earliest days. Starting as a student, she quickly grew into a valued graduate coach known for her compassion, insight, and steady presence. Many parents will recognize her from progress calls in our coached programs, where she has earned deep appreciation from members past and present.
As a mother of four – two biological and two adopted – Cathie brings a wealth of real-life experience to her coaching. Her journey with Live Well & Fully taught her how to set boundaries, cultivate peace, and strengthen her most important relationships.
Beyond her coaching, Cathie volunteers with Foster and Adoption Services, Family Support Organizations, and Special Education Advisory Boards, where she offers guidance to families navigating complex systems.
She enjoys her empty nest years reading, learning, swimming, and looks forward to traveling with her husband in retirement. A Church Office Administrator by day, Cathie embodies kindness, empathy, and understanding in every role she takes on.
Her greatest joy is witnessing growth – watching parents find peace, clarity, and deeper connection through this work. Members describe her as a grounding, compassionate guide who helps them uncover what is possible when they finally put their own wellbeing first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Parents who have enrolled in a coaching program.
Compassionate understanding, practical tools, real strategies, connection.
No, go at your own pace.
Completely okay, no pressure.
Most members joined because of a child, but some are here for other family members.
Start with our free workshop or one of our smaller programs.
What Other Parents Are Saying
Real stories from real parents who have found hope and peace through our community.
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Dawn
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Gail Roberts
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Sarah Arscott
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Anonymous
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Sylvia
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Kim Davis
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Melinda Sokoll
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Laurie
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A Mom Named Elizabeth
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Even your most loving words can backfire. This free guide names the 5 phrases moms say most often that quietly push a struggling adult child further away – and what to say instead so they can actually hear you.
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