The Challenges of Growing Up with a Parent Who Has a Mental Illness

Effects of Parental Mental Illness on Kids

Growing up with a parent who is mentally ill “can lead to a child feeling uncertain, anxious, and neglected,” says Talkspace therapist Kimberly Leitch, LCSW-R. Life can be unstable and unpredictable, and children may not learn proper coping skills. “Instead of adapting healthy coping skills they can learn early on negative coping skills through observation,” Leitch explains.

What’s more, many parents who are mentally ill self-medicate — perhapsturning to drugs or alcoholto quell their symptoms. This is a maladaptive behavior that can be passed along to a child.

Children can developanxiety disordersbased on the frightening ways that their parent behaves, often without having a way to process this behavior. Leitch gives the example of a parent who suffers with bipolar disorder and experiences manic episodes.

“A child won’t always understand that it is not normal behavior,” says Leitch, adding that the same idea stands for depressive episodes and behaviors. “They will not necessarily understand that this is what happens when their parent is sick, this is how their parent is,” she explains.

Normalization of Irregular Behavior in a Child’s Eyes

Part of what makes growing up this way so challenging is that most children aren’t aware that their parent is mentally ill. They believe that the way they live and are parented is completely normal.

To cope, many children end up becoming the caretakers of their parents — unaware that they are being tasked with something that is beyond what should be expected of a child. This can lead to feelings of abandonment, isolation, trust issues, and low self-esteem, Leitch describes.

How Resilience Allows Children to Lead a Normal Life

Furthermore, as McMormack explains, her findings show that it is possible to positively redefine your identity even after enduring the trauma tied to living with a parent who is mentally ill.

To get that place takes self-awareness, self-love, and acknowledgment and acceptance of your parent as a person who is mentally ill. In some cases, you may haveinherited your parent’s mental illnesseither genetically (bipolar disorder and schizophrenia have a genetic link, says Leitch) or through learned behavior from childhood. Getting treated for that – and understanding it within the context of your upbringing – is vital.

Processing Parental Mental Illness as an Adult

Most adults benefit greatly fromhaving a trusted therapistwho can help them process their childhood, and understand clearly how it has affected them. Since growing up with a mentally ill parent can be traumatic, it is often recommended that you find a therapist who specializes is overcoming trauma.

Our goal at Talkspace is to provide the most up-to-date, valuable, and objective information on mental health-related topics in order to help readers make informed decisions.

Articles contain trusted third-party sources that are either directly linked to in the text or listed at the bottom to take readers directly to the source.

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