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0 By Kate Carre
When I took part in the Walking out of Darkness event in London, taking my son along with me, I was forced to confront my own lack of courage and wisdom in talking to my child about mental illness. And now, on the way to the Brighton walk with my eldest daughter, I am considering this again.
I generally approach difficult subjects with honesty; I don’t try to shield my children from painful events in the grown-up world. Rather, I hope I try to help them understand and navigate those things, give them something to relate their own experiences to as they grow up, and not leave them scared of the unknowns.
There are people who will disagree with that approach… but it comes from my own experience of things being glossed over, not discussed openly, talked about in code in my presence. This left me confused about issues I couldn’t then ask about because I wasn’t supposed to know. It left me with no skills to cope with my own feelings around illness, death and family conflict. And so, whether I’m right or wrong, I will never hide things from my children.
I don’t want them to worry
And so my children do have a concept already that people’s minds can get poorly just like any other part of their bodies. My eldest has an understanding, in his words, that “the neurons in the brain can send the wrong messages”.
What I have unknowingly shied away from are the grey areas, the details of how mental illness manifests itself and the fact that I myself have had treatment for mental ill-health. They see me take a tablet, and ask me what it is for. I fudge it with, “It keeps me healthy”. A version of the truth that is hopefully age-appropriate (all my children are under 11).
Many reasons… I don’t want them to worry, either about my health or their own, and I don’t want them to trot off and tell their teachers that Mummy takes antidepressants. I don’t want them to be confused, or to give them information they aren’t ready for.
But really, I am doing them a disservice. I am passing on stigma and fear. I would have no second thoughts about telling them the tablets were for a headache, or blood pressure or a heart condition.
I’ve always hoped that my children will never make a distinction between mental health and health in general, will never feel that taboo around open acknowledgement that we all have times when our mental health could be better and some people battle more severe mental illness. So why am I fudging the issue?
Hushed voices and euphemisms
When I was eight years old, the same age as my eldest daughter, my beloved Grandad was diagnosed with cancer. It turned out to be a misdiagnosis and he lived into my early twenties, but that is by the by.
What I remember is hushed voices. Euphemisms I half understood. The word “cancer” whispered and mouthed with a sideways glance in my direction. What I surmised was that my lovely Grandad was going to die. I knew that I couldn’t ask about it for fear of getting into trouble for listening. It wasn’t something I was supposed to know. I remember crying during a Brownie concert over the song “Bright Eyes” and not being able to tell anyone why. Writing down the name of his medication and looking it up in a medical dictionary on the shelf. Crying again when I discovered it was to combat the effects of chemotherapy. Imagine if I’d had access to the Internet!
I hope we have come a long way from hiding physical illnesses from children. But mental illness… is seen as an inappropriate topic to discuss with them. I think that it is because of two things: shame and blame.
Shame and blame result only from viewing mental illness as a deficit in a person’s character. An inability to cope, an inability to function normally. When we take that away, when we see mental illness for what it is, an aspect of our health that affects us all from time to time, there is absolutely no reason not to discuss it with our children. When we don’t, we are not protecting them, but leaving them vulnerable.
Openness and honesty
It is a certainty that at some point in their lives, our children will experience mental illness in themselves or someone close to them. They need to be given the words and the understanding to make sense of their experience. Their family and friends need us to equip them to be people who understand and accept, who don’t shy away.
Our children need us to model openness and honesty rather than shame and blame. They need us to show them not to be afraid. They need us to tell them, repeatedly, that mental illness is no stigma. We need to show that in our actions as well as our words. They don’t need us to be all-powerful and flawless, but they do need us to be real people they can relate to, and to gain confidence from seeing us model healthy ways of coping. They need to see us address our feats and challenge ourselves, not pretend those anxieties don’t exist. Otherwise when they feel anxious, they feel inferior. They need to know that it happens to everyone and that they can handle it.
Let’s not let them down. Let’s not allow our children to be like the person I know who discovered in adulthood that her Grandfather died by suicide, having been lied to. Or the fifteen year old who told me, “I think my Grandma has a mental illness but my mum says I’m too young to hear about it”.
This weekend, I will no doubt hear a lot of questions from a bright and insightful young person who deserves not to be fobbed off. I have already made the decision not to shield her from the subject by keeping her away. Let me have the courage and integrity to answer honestly and factually.
Reproduced with permission, originally posted on onmymindblogging
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