There’s no doubt about it: mental illness sucks.
And it’s even suckier when it starts to affect your children.
It’s something I know only too well as a mother of two with a diagnosis of recurrent depressive disorder – an illness that has seen me suicidal and hospitalised on more than one occasion.
My children, aged six and 11, have had their childhoods shaped by my illness.
They’ve seen me so unwell that I’ve been unable to get out of bed, let alone make their packed lunches or take them to school.
They’ve asked questions about the self-harm scars on my arms; scars that I’ve tried to pass off as cat scratches.
They’ve even had to visit me in a psychiatric hospital, rationed to an hour at a time and watched over by a mental health nurse.
One of the defining characteristics of depression is the guilt, and when you have kids, that guilt is multiplied a hundredfold.
[For more on this story by Lucy Dimbylow, go to http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/25/...tal-illness-6939863/]
Illustration: Parenting with a mental illness isn’t easy (Picture: Erin Aniker for Metro.co.uk)
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