YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Something I've been grappling with since I was diagnosed with Bipolar II - when, how and what do I tell my children.

My son is 12 and my daughters are 10. I believe it's their right to know but I just can't figure out how old, how to bring it up, how not to scare the willies out of them....

Any parents out there with experience?

My daughter is 15, and I only speak of my depression after the fact, in reference to how I execute a capable plan to deal with it.

I had a bad experience with my mother having "migraines" when I was 9 - she just put me in a panic, and my mother had no ability to model a capable response, so I felt completely helpless, and it preyed on my inborn anxiety. (I say "migraines" because, in the clarity of adulthood, I see that it was her incapable response to depression and anxiety.)

That is the reason why I waited until my daughter was 14-15 to speak plainly about my depression to my daughter, and why I always frame it inside of my own capable response, because I want to model a capable response, even if my response is imperfect (also good to model how to deal with the compromises in an imperfect response)

Please know we are here to support you, no matter how you decide to proceed. Please take care, all the best, we here are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow.

I have no children, so I have little I can claim to have direct experience with. But perhaps the perspective from the child's point of view might provide some insight:

My own father never told me he had OCD, Depression, or PTSD. Frankly, such labels proved unimportant. He was just dad to me, and he had been beaten up as a kid by his father and by nuns, but that was about all I knew until I was in my late teens. Really I only learned of how serious his symptoms were when I was an adult, and only from my mother (my biological parents have always been together) who helped him through it.

I consider my dad a major success story for a person with mental illness being able to be a good parent. And now, looking back, I attribute his success to aggressively pursuing treatment and applying himself. He saw therapists regularly and also took medication, but I never knew. He knew how to carefully remove himself when he needed so (not long times, just an hour here and there), so that my brother and I wouldn't be burdened with his symptoms.

I am have been married to my husband for 22 years..
he has schizo effective disorder..
\we have a son who I 21..
I used to hide all of the craziness from my family and friends.. I called it code name "he is just asleep"
he would get drunk all of the time to stop the voices..
WHen my son was about 10 my mother was over asking the Question where is Robert?? and I gave my pat answer.. He is just asleep.. and my angel of a son looked me in the face and said mom we have to stop lying.. the pain I felt in that moment was horrible.. I wanted to yell and scream at him.. my carefully crafted house of cards was now going to crumble down around me. My son looked at my mother and said my dad is drunk.. he wants to stop the pain..
mom left the house with me in tears so my son and I could talk.. he said to me.. Mom My friends like my dad.. and but they think he is weird.. I need them to know he is sick so they understand..
from that day forward we have had it out in the open.. no secrets with anyone.. all of the people in our lives for the past 11 years fight our crazy battle with us.. and it makes us stronger.. My son has always known.. it was the other people in our lives who I thought were to weak to understand it that I had to let in on our secret.. believe that your kids are strong enough and smart enough to understand..

Amberlee THANK YOU for that story... It was beautiful. Wonder if I had the courage to do that as a kid, if it would have changed anything...

If you have any sort of medical issue it is best to inform your kids of it as soon as they are able to understand what a medical issue is. If they are in a situation where alone with the person and it becomes the child's job to call 911 or get help in some other way the more information the kid has the better off the outcome will be. I think my parents had this talk with me around five or six I definitely knew the broad strokes by then. Your kids will understand and want to help.

Something I've been grappling with since I was diagnosed with Bipolar II - when, how and what do I tell my children.

My son is 12 and my daughters are 10. I believe it's their right to know but I just can't figure out how old, how to bring it up, how not to scare the willies out of them....