Let Your Kids In on Family Mental Health Issues

Mental Illness is a common medical condition. In fact, approximately 1 in 4 American adults can be diagnosed with a mental illness in any given year. The most common of these are anxiety disorders and depression. If you or someone in your family struggles with any kind of mental illness, you know that it can be difficult to talk about it with family, friends, co-workers and especially, children.

When mental illness strikes a family, it is often instinctive to keep it hidden from the children. We want to protect our children from the "adult world" and the problems that can come from it. We also find it very hard to explain these types of problems to children, especially since it can be very hard for us to understand it ourselves.

But it is important to talk to your children about mental illness, especially if it affects someone in the same household. By withholding information or avoiding discussion, you may inadvertently be making the topic more mysterious, more taboo and more frightening to the child than it needs to be.

If you or someone in the household is experiencing mental health problems, your child probably already knows something is wrong. The first step is to get help for yourself of your spouse (or whoever is ill) and acknowledge that the person is sick with a medical condition and needs to get help. Nearly all mental illnesses are treatable at some level. Certain conditions, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia require lifelong treatment but the symptoms can be managed. Other disorders, like many anxiety disorders, can be treated with medication, therapy or a combination and can lead to a full recovery. Depressive disorders may show themselves in episodes that are treated as they come and go. Still others may present themselves only once in an entire lifetime, such as a panic attack.

It is important to talk to your child about your specific illness, how it affects you personally and what your customized treatment plan is going to be. This helps the child understand that something is wrong, but there is a solution that you are working towards. Get other family and friends involved in your treatment as well, and let them know that you are talking openly with your child about it. Studies show that people who have the support of their family and friends recover better than those who do not.

By letting your child in and keeping them informed of your illness and your treatment, you are paving a path of understanding instead one of fear.

Sue Shotan is a mental health advocate and educator working in collaboration with community partners to help eliminate stigma, promote awareness, and help improve the lives of those living with mental illness. Sue is currently partnering with Connee Gorman, LLC, a mental health education company, to provide mental health education in the Midwest.

Article Source