***Trigger warning*** This post covers parenting with a mental illness, ways to approach a conversation, and the effect it can have on children. There are multiple references to specific mental illnesses, and mention of self harm (without any detail). If you are looking for help and support then my Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Support Line page has lots of links and numbers to try in a crisis situation, and my Get Support page has details for charities dealing with specific issues.
Parenting is a full time job with regular unexpected stresses and pitfalls appearing throughout adolesence. Mental illness is often the same, with challenges evolving as your relationship with your mind changes over the years.
Combining the two can therefore be incredibly complex. I know this because it’s something that makes me bite my nails to a stub every day.
Our daughter is too young to understand mental health and the implications of my personal limitations, but there will come a time when she finds out more. Do I want to be in control of that transferral of information, or would I rather avoid it and wait for her to translate it all on her own after I’m gone?
When is the right time? What do you say? How much is enough? Where is the line between useful information and potentially damaging information?
How do you talk to your children about your mental illness?
These are all difficult questions, and although you can choose whether or not to have the discussion, the decision you make will have pros and cons however it’s approached.
Speaking from my own experience, our daughter is only 6, but she understands that ‘Mummy is sad’ from time to time, despite my best efforts to stop her seeing it. When you are living on a knife-edge, as so many managing poor mental health are, it’s often impossible to control when and where your emotions take over. Even the most hardened soul can find themselves angry/tearful/anxious/panicking when something triggering happens unexpectedly. But these moments of upset shouldn’t force us to spout everything that’s on our mind to our kids – it’s likely to be the worst possible time and cause damage or upset if the words aren’t properly considered.
I’m regarded as an active self harmer, even though it’s very controlled, only used at times of extreme stress (as a coping mechanism) and done in a safe way, it’s obviously not something I like to shout from the rooftops. Problem is, self harm leaves visible scars when other mental illnesses can be hidden, which means our daughter has seen my ‘stripes’ on multiple occasions…and when she noticed them the first time I was totally unprepared, which I’m ashamed to admit.
Thankfully she handed me the problem with an answer – we just call them stripes, and if she ever asks questions about scars I show her others too, like my stretch marks and the mark where my first ‘chicken spot’ appeared. I use it as an opportunity to remind her that all bodies are different and beautiful, and we all have stripes, spots and scars. Given her age, I feel this is a more positive and appropriate approach, although I know the conversation will have to be more thorough and informative one day.
Despite my honesty about my own mental health publicly, when it came to our daughter I’d been burying my head in the sand.
Recenly I had a video consultation with a specialist who had a lot of questions about the health of my family, looking for links to my parents to make sense of my current physical and mental symptoms. I couldn’t tell her anything because everyone is gone. History of mental illness? I don’t know. History of tic disorders or tourettes? I don’t know. History of asthma/diabetes/stroke? I don’t know. History of autism or developmental problems? I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!
It’s a bitter pill to swallow and hardens the feelings of grief I have for my long-departed family. Constant reminders that I don’t just miss their emotional support, I miss their input and medical history too. It’s possible that, if I knew more about their health and more about my childhood, I’d have a better window into my medical needs and as a result, managing my pain and mental illnesses might be easier.
It was these events that forced me to consider when and how I’ll start talking to our daughter about my own medical history, including the uglier elements of mental illness.
Of course, the spectrum of mental illness is wide, and our understanding of the problems it causes is evolving all the time. Some discussions seem easier to have than others, but when I think about explaining it to our child, it doesn’t matter what I’m explaining – I need to think carefully. Depression, anxiety, OCD, BPD, Panic Disorder, Schizophrenia, hallucinations, paranoia, self harm, suicide…these conversations are tricky because it’s not just the effect we need to talk about, it’s the cause as well.
So, when we decide to talk about our mental health with our children, we have two people to think about – us and them.
Understanding that a parent is or has been living with a mental illness can be difficult for children to compute, and should be approached in varying ways depending on factors such as age, understanding, safety, and usefulness. We’re supposed to be helping them rather than passing on our problems. What information is truly useful? Could the information be damaging or put them in danger? Are they able to handle what you tell them? What if they discuss their own mental struggle? Are you ready for their reaction to your past?
However, as I mentioned earlier, these conversations can be triggering for us too, so we need to consider how we feel. What are we comfortable saying? What are the reasons for talking? What’s age appropriate? How will I keep myself safe before, during and after the conversation? Who can I talk to if I need to? Am I ready for their reaction?
To answer these questions for my own benefit I did some reserach online. These are some of the things I’ll be considering before the time comes to explain more to our daughter.
- Talk to someone you trust about how to manage the conversation. Get outside opinions to help you form the best course of action.
- Make the information clear, honest and age-appropriate
- Make time to talk not just about your mental illness, but about their mental health too. This might be an opportunity for an open dialogue to start.
- Be reassuring. Many children end up wrongly blaming themselves for their parents illness. It’s important they know they aren’t the cause, and that you can help each other going forward.
- Answer their questions honestly (whilst keeping age and safety-appropriate) and talk about what you are happy for them to share with someone they trust, if they feel they need to talk to someone else.
- Make sure they are looking after themselves and their own health by having hobbies, study, outdoor playtime and other safe and appropriate pass times that make them happy.
- Don’t overburden them.
- If they don’t want to talk to you about their health or yours then have the information for a known trusted adult they could talk to instead.
There are links to articles at the bottom of the page if you’d like to read more.
Outside of all the emotional considerations, there’s also the all-important medical and pathological facts that might help your children (and medical professionals) to understand their own health (both physical and mental) as they grow.
In some cases if a child falls ill, they might need some knowledge about their parents and grandparents medical history. As it’s not appropriate to discuss these things yet, I’ve kept a journal along with important medical documents in a safe place so that our daughter can have it all when I’m gone. This will include the more intricate detail of my mental illnesses over the years.
I have to hope than when she needs that information she’ll be able to process it far better than she will as a child.
But there are no hard and fast rules here. All kids are different, and us adults are too. No two families are the same, no mental illness is the same, so what we say and when we say it needs to be carefully considered.
Safeguarding the people involved is the first priority,
Help with talking to children about parental mental health
If you are looking for some robust advice for talking about your mental health with your children then I have a few links worth looking at.
Mind have a dedicated page covering parenting with a mental health problem, where there is advice on how to approach the conversation as well as information on what to discuss and when, and how to consider the childs mental health as they process this new information.
These are obviously international problems, and Australia have a dedicated website called Emerging Minds (or COPMI – Children of parents with mental illness), an organisation specifically tasked with helping parents and children to manage these situations in a healthy way. The section of their website covering helping children and families with your mental illness is a good starting point with lots to think about before starting a dialogue.
If you are looking for a quick read as a starting point then Happiful magazine has a short article called ‘How to talk to kids about Mental Illness‘ with useful suggestions on how to approach the conversation, how to consider the childs health, and places to go for further support.
Starting or managing a conversation about self harm is very tricky, with children spotting scars before you’ve had a chance to think about how you’ll safely explain them. It’s hard to find online advice on this, but the website Healthy Place has a dedicated page for ways to explain self harm scars to children, including things to think about before talking, ideas for stories that younger children might accept if they see your scars, and ways to manage questions from older children too.
The picture
Just for a bit of fun, and as a nod to our daughter, this is a picture I drew of the Nom family from the ‘Cut the Rope’ series, which is currently on repeat at home.
Om Nom, Om Nelle and Nibble Nom barely say a word throughout the hours of footage we’ve endured, yet our daughter laughs out loud through every episode, which is why we’ve put up with it for so long.
Have a great day, and thanks for reading 💜💜
Creative Steph 