When they are born, babies are little packages of DNA just waiting to ignite and explode into hair and eye colour, height and personality. But sitting dormant, incubating away from awareness, can be mental health issues that will only be truly known when that little baby hits their adolescent strides.
Although the challenges that both parents and children will face can be significant, it is also important to acknowledge the unique strengths and gifts these children may hold such as creativity, sensitivity, intellect and compassion.
I work with parents who have children living with emerging and active mental health issues, including anxiety and panic attacks, autism, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
These illnesses can at times hijack a young person, their families and other relationships, the very things that allow young people to grow strong and feel like the world is predictable place.
Unlike a cold or a sprained ankle, a mental illness doesn’t just heal and go away, and the awakening of parents and their child to this can be a difficult time.
One young person described to me that their mental illness was like living in a world where they only got a quarter of their emails because the rest were in a junk folder they couldn’t access. Another said when their illness was active they became completely taken over and couldn’t get back to who they were.
Grief and exhaustion can be strong in parents. They may feel that at times they lose their child and are just battling the mental illness with all their might. At other times it can be the pain of bearing witness to their child being rejected by peers over and over.
A mental health issue in a child or young person can be invisible - they may look fine from the outside but on the inside are struggling. This means that parents can feel judged. Their young person is viewed as difficult, self-obsessed, disruptive or over-sensitive, and that this is predominantly about failure in the child, poor parenting or both.
A parent staying present and connected and resisting the rollercoaster of a cycling mental health episode takes strength, grit and support.
How do parents and carers find assistance for their children and themselves when mental health services are stretched and under-resourced, and their own exhaustion and isolation feels overwhelming?
A family GP can be a useful first point of contact. They can provide a referral to a skilled mental health professional such as a psychologist or social worker for both the child and the parents. These sessions can be subsided through Medicare via a Mental Health Care Plan. The severity of the child’s illness may also require a psychiatrist or paediatrician for further assessment and treatment, and this will also come as a referral through the GP.
Support groups for parents and carers who get to talk confidentially with others experiencing similar issues can also be helpful.
Parents and carers who receive good quality support are generally better equipped to navigate the demands of mental illness in their children.
And what do young people need from their parents?
One young woman said that she needed her parents to hold her hope when she couldn’t, to keep believing that she would be okay while she was getting the help she needed. She wanted them to know that under and behind her mental illness was a capable, strong and emerging young woman who was navigating her path the best she could.
Below are some additional contacts that may be useful for parents.
- NSW Mental Health Line - 24/7 telephone assessment and referral service 1800 011 511
- Parent Line NSW - a national parent help line 1300 130 052
- Kids Help Line - phone counselling service for kids and teens 1800 55 1800
- Headspace - counselling for young people. National office (03) 9027 0100
- Beyond Blue - support for mental health 1300 22 4636
- Black Dog Institute Clinic - mental health resources and support (02) 9382 2991