Reply to If you had a mentally ill parent

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[quote=Anonymous]I also had a mentally ill parent...actually parents. Mother has borderline personality disorder/raging alcoholic, stepfather is a pathological narcissist, and father is bipolar/OCD. I always knew my mother was mentally ill, even at a very young age, maybe 4 or 5 even. It took me much longer to realize the father and stepfather were also mentally ill. For the most part, I just spent my childhood negotiating around each of them, never rocking the boat, and covering their messes. I was the primary caregiver to halfsiblings since mother was rarely functional and extremely verbally abusive when she was around. Anytime, I tried to reach out for help I was told "all families have problems" or everyone fights with their mom," dismissing the mental illness going on in my home. Many times the biggest struggle was not knowing what was actually going on and the self doubt that creeps in in the absence of info and a vocabulary to describe what is going on.

OP, I encourage you to give your child a safe place to talk about his feelings of having a mentally ill parent, speak with a therapist about how you can best handle this and give him a vocabulary to describe the father's mental illness.[/quote]

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