Mental Health and Abuse

Living with mentally ill parents. Mental health issues are unlike any other illness. Unlike a physical illness you can't see it and unlike drugs and alcohol, you have no crutch in which to place blame. To the outside world many mental health issues go unknown. For the children of the mentally ill, It has best been described as a war zone with no obvious sides. Since schizophrenia seems to involve multiple genes, it's certainly possible to inherit only some of them and be affected in a different way. Other conditions such as depression, panic disorder, Asperger's or Autism, or even extraordinarily low self esteem seem to be common among children of parents with schizophrenia. This could be related to genetic inheritance, the general stress of being a primary caregiver to a mentally ill parent, or a combination of factors.

Some children also exhibit symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the result of, as one child who grew up with schizophrenic parents, "growing up in a war zone with no training, no army behind us, [and] no rules."

It's very important for children of mentally ill parents, whether they are formally diagnosed with a disorder or not, to get support for their own difficult situations.

There is also a fear that the apple don't fall far from the tree and that mental illness is contagious or our genetic might predispose us to this mental health weakness.

Whether we are entering a relationship or we are an individual caught up in mental issues, some tabu's need to be removed. 1. Mental health many times has no warning signs and than again smart people have mental heath issues. . 2. Loyalty to family is not a form of condoning, sometimes it is guilt, fear and love for family. 3. Social skills, Being shut off from so called normal people produces both physically and psychologically issues,what is normal? 4. Life skills, are sometimes as simple as how do we respond to negative situations or simple everyday ones. 5 Mental health issues are not contagious but can predispose us to extreme situations of anger, depression and stress. 6. . Fear: Fear of becoming like the ill parent, or fear of becoming ill themselves this may alter their own lives. 7. Love or to not love a parent, to forgive or to not forgive. Children of mentally abused parents carry an extreme burden that few would undestand unless they themselves grew up in a mental ill family. Secrets that stay hidden in the closet and others that are never so easily hidden all play a nasty game on children. Who is the enemy? who are we at battle with? who do we love? what is normal? Can we forgive? how do we remove the stigma of mental health? Is there a cure? Why me? Can it happen to you? Sometimes we are predisposed genetically, other times it's social factors as well as circumstances and others factors as time and place. My mother chose to take her life, she had 4 children and she didn't know where to turn for help. She jumped form the 16th street bridge , the children live her sin.