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Coming out of the dark: Children of parents with a mental illness (available free online) |
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Paola Mason was six when she hid under her parents’ bed as men in white coats took her naked mother away. She was six when her mother came home from shock therapy glazed with medication, six when her dad was working seven days a week, six when childhood ended. She would be a teenager before she realised that her mother had schizophrenia.
Like her co-workers at Children of Mentally Ill Consumers (COMIC), Paola now calls herself an ‘adult child’ of parents with a mental illness. She experienced what it is like to have childhood needs neglected, what it is like to carry the invisible weight of these unfulfilled needs. Needs unidentified by those responsible, invisible to those in a position to lift the burden.
As a child Paola went to school, to the doctor, to the local day care centre. Instead of being recognised by one or more of these services as the child of a mentally ill parent who needed support, she slipped through unnoticed. How do you recognise children like Paola if you don’t know how they present? Just as mental illness does not always have the give-away signs of other disabilities, families of the mentally ill do not always limp with the weight placed upon them. ‘There are some times that I feel resentful. I was the oldest and so I was the carer. My sister went on to higher study but I was never supported or encouraged to pursue further education. I am really proud of my sister’, Paola says.
The services Paola came into contact with did not ignore her; they simply did not recognise her as a child affected by her mother’s mental state. Services recognise children who are very quiet and reclusive or very loud and demanding. They react to these visible symptoms. It is the less visible situation at home that causes such symptoms to recur and grow. With information, services are better equipped to link children’s behavior with its root cause.
Elizabeth Fudge, project manager of the Children of Parents with a Mental Illness (COPMI) initiative, has helped raise the importance of making information resources available to those working with children. ‘Not all children of parents with a mental illness will experience difficulties as a result of their parent’s ill health. The combination of genetic inheritance, a range of relationship factors within the family and the psychosocial adversities often associated with mentally-ill adults, however, appears to increase risks to their offspring – for example, of psychopathology, medical problems, behavioural problems and suicidality’, she says.
These increased risks mean the universal need to be nurtured in a consistent, trusting environment, where both child and family have access to information, must be delivered to all children. These are essential components in all children’s lives no matter what their situation.
Paola is proud to identify herself as an ‘adult child’ who struggled to gain visibility and resilience. She talks openly about her experience in the belief that increased awareness and education will shine a torch on children who may be at risk today, who should be supported to build resilience. Paola believes information that would have helped her understand her mother’s behaviour would have made a difference to her childhood. ‘I saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest where that Indian character is walking around with his eyes rolling back in his head. Well that was my mum. She had had shock therapy and that was why she was behaving the way she was,’ Paola says. Information about her mother’s illness would have relieved Paola of the pressure of thinking that this was what all children had to cope with. Information would have meant she could answer kids saying, ‘You know that girl’s mum’s crazy’ or relatives saying, ‘You know she’s only good for a bullet’. With information, Paola would not have had to wait until she was a teenager watching a movie for the ‘penny to drop’.
Elizabeth Fudge makes the point that children should not have to collapse for people to notice they are stumbling through a problem, blind. Fudge says the principles and actions of the COPMI project, developed for services and people working with children of parents with a mental illness, are already having a positive effect. The ‘dark corners’ that these children disappear into are decreasing.
Through the education of children and their service providers VIC CHAMPS (a pilot program funded by Vichealth), Beyond Blue and Mental Health branch, children are being armed with a torch to lighten the dark corners and signal a need for help. Rose Cuff, coordinator of the project, says the information they give children does not fill a gap; rather it replaces explanations that children make up when a reliable source cannot be found. ‘The thing is that if a child doesn’t understand something in their life they make something up, they fill in the gaps in their knowledge. If mum is angry or upset they think they have done something wrong. If mum and dad are fighting it is because they’ve made them angry’, she says.
This, she explains, is why an important part of the VIC CHAMPS program is about allowing children to learn together about mental illness, how it affects their parents’ behavior and how to be prepared for situations that could arise. Children’s ability to cope with a situation should not be understated, she says, providing they are equipped with age-appropriate information. ‘Children need to know what to do in a crisis situation. It is rather like a bushfire plan. You put all the measures in place in winter or spring, so that when it gets hot the plan is there ready’, she says.
As part of the program, children take part in activities to gain an understanding of various mental illnesses and what symptoms someone who is affected may show. She explains one game that is used to show children the difficulties experienced by someone with schizophrenia. One child sits in the middle of the group and is interviewed by a peer while two other children whisper in the interviewee’s ears. ‘Afterwards we get feedback from the person who was interviewing them and they might say, “she was laughing and it was really weird and hard to understand her”’.
According to Cuff, it’s all about filling in the blanks. If children know more they’re less likely to see it as their fault. ‘It can greatly improve the relationship between parent and child because when you remove the blame it can radically improve the relationship. It’s like everything – death, sexuality – talking about it takes the burden away. So like anything, when you talk about something it often takes the cloud away’, she says.
Paola has come to terms with her mother’s schizophrenia. She has learnt to love her mum, hate her illness and accept them both. ‘I was resentful that I didn’t have a normal mum to just sit down and talk to: I couldn’t ask her about periods or childbirth. But I’m not resentful of my mum. I don’t like the illness. I differentiate between the two mums that I have, the one that is ill and the one that’s not. I love the mum that says really amazingly beautiful things sometimes’, Paola says. ‘People can live with a mental illness and they can live in a resilient manner.’
‘Adult children’ of parents with a mental illness like Paola and her COMIC co-workers also demonstrate that children can find and live with resilience too.
Jen Reid
Jen is a freelance writer and journalism student at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), with a specific interest in social justice and early childhood issues. This article recently won ‘Best Undergraduate Print Feature' at the UTS Journalism awards and has been selected to represent UTS at the Ossie Awards held by the Journalism Education Association.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 12 September 2005 )
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