Dr. MG Lazarus

The Dilemma of Communication

There are reported incidents that some, if not many, mental health patients do not confide with their children that they were in a psychiatric unit during the past few days or weeks. Instead, they prefer to give some other reasons for their being away from the family home. The major reasons for this non-disclosure may be their own worries around their children's increased levels of anxiety, their own inability to accept that they are mentally ill, or their own anxieties around the social stigma attached to mental illness among the communities and potential social exclusion. Understandably the mental health patients do not want to 'shock' their children with the news that they have a diagnosed psychiatric disorder for which they are on treatment.

If you are suffering from mental health difficulties you need to reflect on this very seriously. Is it good to tell your kids about your mental health difficulties? Or would you prefer to keep it with yourself? Or is it still a dilemma?

Playing Hide and Seek

It is easy to play hide and seek. But it is not easy to keep a secret from others eternally. If you don't tell your children that you are having difficulties around your mental health, someone else will tell them the fact, and very often the reported version would be an eggagerated one than the factual phenomenon. When someone else tells them that you are mentally ill and they did see you in the psychiatric unit or you visiting the day clinic, they will start thinking why you didn't tell them. This will only increase their anxiety around how serious the issue is.

Playing hide and seek will always leave room for further doubts. When your children do not have direct information, they will start guessing which might take them to increased levels of anxiety. So, it is always better to clear the doubts. Telling the truth might give them a shock, but would never be as bad as they get the story from somebody else. Moreover, when they see you telling your story, they are getting first hand information and they clearly see you talking to them in real terms, which is more reassuring that you are aware of your difficulties and you are taking steps to deal with it.

The Fair Play

Children, when they are in trouble, look towards parents for support. They seek energy from parents. However, when they get the message that their parent is suffering from mental health disorder they would prefer not to approach you for support or energy, for they understand that their parent is struggling without energy. In other words, they know that the energy reservoir is empty, so there is no point approaching you!

However, when parents disclose their own mental health difficulties with the children they are giving them the positive message that mental health disorder is just like any other medical condition that could be treated with medical and therapeutic support. So, you are making them confident that you are an adult and you know how to manage your difficulties with available support. In this way you are encouraging your children by the positive message that you are seeking support when you have some difficulties and in the same way your children could very well approach you for support when they have difficulties. So, be straight forward!

Addendum: Some younger children develop sort of self blaming for the mental health difficulties of their parent. They believe that their behavior caused this mental health difficulty to their parent. This self condemnation will be psychologically damanging to they young children. So, the parents need to be aware of this and should tell their children that their mental health disorder is due to their own troubled thinking and it is not caused by anyone else. They also need to be reassured that medication and supportive counseling will fix this and they are seeking help in this regard.

See related articles and resources at my Virtual Counseling and Psychotherapy Clinic