This post is a continuation of my posts about how having a mentally ill parent can affect a child. Again I’ll use myself as an example. This post is about how a child feels when they see their parent act irrationally and erratic
for the first time, when a child actually sees their parent’s mental illness.
It’s very scary
for a child the first time they see a parent act irrational,
unsound, even crazy; saying things that don’t make sense, not knowing where they are or not remembering who people are. It’s like the child is seeing a shell
of the person they thought they knew.
Sometimes that shell seems empty, like no one’s there but sometimes the shell is full of thoughts that aren’t real, that don’t
make any sense. A child can become afraid of a parent who is unstable. That fear
can be very confusing for a child.
The first time I saw my mom’s mental illness, she
was in a psych hospital. She looked up
at me. Her eyes were big and
glassy. She stared right through
me. I wasn’t sure if she was even seeing
me. I wanted to cry and run away.
I wanted to hide my eyes and my heart from what I was seeing; from what
was happening; from the pain of losing the person I loved most.
My mom didn’t know who I was. It was very hard to see her like that. I didn’t
understand. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what to think. I wanted
things to be back to normal. I wanted mom home. I wanted her to know who I was. I was so afraid; afraid of her, afraid
she’d never get better, afraid she’d never be “normal” again, afraid of losing the most
important person in my life.
I had a very hard time accepting everything. I felt
lost, angry, confused and lonely.
I loved mom but was embarrassed
she was in a psychiatric hospital. I was afraid
the kids at school would find out.
I felt so guilty and ashamed that I was embarrassed of her. I was angry
at her for being sick and for being weak. The stigma
of mental illness affects children. Society
said my mom was weak, that I was weak and I believed them.
I was confused
because I didn’t know what was wrong with mom or why she was sick. I felt lonely
because I had no one to talk too. I was trying to
be strong and brave. I was holding all my emotions inside, pushing them down deeper and deeper, trying to hide them from the world
and myself but that was a huge mistake.
Children don’t
understand that holding all their emotions inside only makes their pain worse. They don’t have the coping skills to deal with such a huge change in their parent or such a huge change in their life.
When a parent is mentally ill, a child
needs someone they can talk
to, confide in; someone to tell them they aren’t alone and that it’s OK to be afraid
sometimes, it’s OK to be angry that someone they love is sick,
that it’s normal for a child to be embarrassed by a parent who is acting
irrational and out of their head. A child also needs someone who can explain
to them that mental illness is not their fault and that it’s not their parent’s
fault but that it’s a physical illness that affects the mind and not a weakness
of character.
It’s very difficult for a child to see a mentally ill parent for the
first time but living with them when they get home is also very stressful. I’ll talk about that next time.
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