Alice Kenny | CPTSDfoundation.org

To Forgive or Not to Forgive.

Alice Kenny — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 11:00:25 +0000

Once when I was in my early twenties, I confronted my mother. I matter-of-factly said, “You know, Mom, you beat me. You beat me a lot.”

She replied, “I don’t remember that.”

“Well, you did,” I pressed.

“Maybe I slapped you once or twice.” So, that was her concession.

A letter came 20 years later. My mother wrote, “I am sorry if I did anything to hurt you,” and something to the effect that she would like to re-establish a connection.

I considered it to be a non-apology apology. I tossed the letter in the trash.

As a child, I was physically and emotionally abused by my mother who was mentally ill. Research conducted by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child shows there can be a connection between parental mental illness and child abuse. The beatings I endured were tolerable; the psychological abuse left enduring scars.

I recently found out that my brother, Alec, received a thick letter from my mother just before she died. “The envelope felt acidic,” he said. “It may have contained something nice, or it may have been nasty. I figured the odds were fifty-fifty. I didn’t read it. I opened it and shredded the contents.”

****

As my mother was drifting in and out of consciousness on her death bed some five years ago, I was not uncompassionate. I stuck to pleasant memories of dance classes (she sewed my costumes) and birthday cakes. I did not dredge up the bad events of the past. I did not bring up her maltreatment.

I did not deal with issues of blame or forgiveness.

But, at some point, many of us who experienced childhood trauma do. We wrestle with the decision to forgive or not to forgive the person who inflicted abuse or subjected us to an environment that created toxic stress when the perpetrator is a parent, caregiver, or someone close who was supposed to protect us and nurture us when we were most vulnerable.

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In her article, “The Debt,” Emily Yoffe writes that “accepting what happened and moving on is a good general principle. But it can be comforting for those being browbeaten to absolve their parents to recognize that forgiveness works best as a mutual endeavor. After all, many adult children of abusers have never heard a word of regret from their parent or parents. People who have the capacity to ruthlessly maltreat their children tend toward self-justification, not shame.”

Yoffe notes that some people urge children of parents who maltreated them to reconnect if there is estrangement, but there can be dangers. These people fail to consider “the potential psychological cost of reconnecting, of dredging up painful memories and reviving destructive patterns.”

“It’s wonderful when there can be true reconciliation and healing,” Yoffe says. However, she believes that adults who were abused as kids shouldn’t be “hammered with lectures about the benefits of—here comes that dread word—closure. Sometimes the best thing to do is close the door.”

Eleanor Payson, a marital and family therapist in Michigan and the author of The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, notes that setting limits is critical. “You may need to keep yourself in a shark cage with no opportunity for that person to take a bite out of you.” Or, conversation can be anodyne. Payson comments, “You can say something respectful, something good-faith-oriented. ‘I wish you well;’ ‘I continue to work on my own forgiveness.’”

I never did make the peace with my mother that I contemplated when she suffered a heart attack several years prior to her death. For most of my life, I vacillated between maintaining contact and estrangement. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to forgive or not forgive.

“Forgiveness can be key in the healing process,” says Rona Bartelstone, a licensed clinical social worker and CEO of OurAging, a care management consulting company based in Miami. “We do have choices about the direction our life takes even though we may have troubled starts.”

For adult children of mentally ill parents who experienced maltreatment, she says, “When someone (a parent) is mentally ill, you have to realize it’s their problem, not yours. Yes, terrible things may have happened to you, and it’s sad and disappointing, but you have to recognize in this case that you were the target. The mental illness had nothing to do with you.”

“If you hold onto anger, it’s like keeping your foot on the brake while you’re driving on the Autobahn,” Bartelstone continues. “You are putting restrictions on every aspect of your life—your ability to feel joy, appreciate yourself, and form healthy relationships. Letting go of the anger and making the choice to change the pattern in your life may sound glib and easy. But, it’s like trying to unscramble an egg. Working on forgiveness and trying to move on can be difficult.”

If you find you can’t let go of the anger and disappointment, Bartelstone suggests “putting it in a box that has a tight lock on it—a place in the corner of your mind where it doesn’t come out every day. That’s not to say it won’t sneak out every once in a while, but it’s not front and center. You’re not carrying it around, so it’s not heavy and restrictive. This technique can help the healing process along.”

“It’s clear that living in the past doesn’t work,” says Dr. Philip Muskin of Columbia University Medical Center. “The past doesn’t belong in the present. You can’t walk around filled with rage and feeling bad about yourself. You have to let those feelings go. Dump them. Forgiveness is crucial to achieving wellness. It releases you from the past. But, forgiving isn’t excusing. You can forgive a mother’s maltreatment but not excuse it.”

Most importantly, Dr. Muskin says, “You have to forgive yourself and be able to say, ‘It’s not my fault. I was taken advantage of.’ When you forgive yourself, you take the secrecy and shame out of what happened to you. This changes the way you see yourself and the world around you. It’s freeing to say, ‘I’m not a victim. I’m a survivor.’”

****

Four years after my mother’s death, I planted miniature roses at her grave. As I placed the roses in the earth, a thorn pricked my finger. I prayed for my mother. Then, I spoke to her silently.

“I forgive you, Mom.”

(The above article is based on an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members. My book is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. You can reach me at www.Alicekenny.com)

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Alice Kenny

I am the author of Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. My book combines memoir with research. My credentials include contributing articles to a Philadelphia daily newspaper on psychological, medical, family, and career issues. I was also an editor at a daily newspaper in Atlantic City. I live near a small seaside town in New Jersey with my husband Jack and our rescue dog, Maxie.

www.alicekenny.com

Why Are Some Kids Amazingly Resilient?

Alice Kenny — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 11:00:40 +0000

(The article below is an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.)

Research shows that many children who experience adversity are amazingly resilient.

Why do some children who experience trauma adapt and overcome, while others suffer long-term consequences that hold them back in life? Researchers from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University found that “no matter the source of hardship, the single most common factor for children who ended up doing well is having the support of at least one stable and committed relationship with a parent, caregiver, or other adult.”

As the daughter of a mentally ill mother, I endured multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). For me, my brother, Alec, six years older, functioned as the supportive adult in my life—even when we were both still kids. Once when I was 2, Alec stopped my mother from inflicting serious physical abuse. Another time, when I was 14 and hospitalized for anorexia, he walked me over to a mirror and said, “Look at you. You’re a skeleton. You’re going to die if you don’t eat.” I knew he loved me, and I decided I didn’t want to die.

Throughout the years, Alec tossed me the lifelines I needed to surmount adversity.

According to the Center on the Developing Child, one way to understand resilience is to envision a seesaw: “Protective experiences and adaptive skills on one side counterbalance significant adversity on the other. Resilience is evident when a child’s health and development are tipped in a positive direction, even when a heavy load of factors is stacked on the negative side.” (For a better understanding of this process, you can play Tipping the Scales: The Resilience Game on the Center on the Developing Child website. As explained on the website, the interactive feature is designed to help us learn how the choices we make can help children and the community as a whole become more resilient in the face of serious challenges.)

Some of Center on the Developing Child’s central findings on resilience include:

“Resilience requires supportive relationships and opportunities for skill-building. Relationships help children develop key capacities—such as the ability to plan, monitor, and regulate behavior, and adapt to changing circumstances—that better enable them to respond to adversity when they face it.”
“Resilience results from a dynamic interaction between internal predispositions and external experiences. Children who do well in the face of significant hardship typically show some degree of natural resistance to adversity and strong relationships with the important adults in their family and community.” This adds a new dimension to the “nature vs. nurture” issue. As it turns out, the ability of kids to develop healthy brains and resilience depends on both. Interaction between genes and the environment helps shape human development. The emerging field of epigenetics has found that “early experiences can determine how genes are turned on and off—and even whether some are expressed at all,” which influences behavior, health, and capacity for resilience. Another way to look at it: environmental experiences can determine whether certain markers on genes are activated.
“The capabilities that underlie resilience can be strengthened at any age . . . What happens early may matter most, but it is never too late to build resilience.”

The Special Case of Highly Sensitive Kids

It may seem counterintuitive, but kids who are damaged the most may rebound the fastest. As reported by the Center on the Developing Child, the heightened sensitivity that makes some children fold in the face of adversity may help them rebound faster than other children when help is available.

No Resilience Gene

There is no such thing as a “resilience gene.” As noted by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, contrary to what some people think, it’s a misconception that “individual grit” or “some in-born, heroic strength of character can triumph over calamity.” That’s the stuff of movies. As resilience science tells us, kids overcome adversity by having supportive relationships with adults, exposure to positive experiences, and opportunities to develop effective coping skills.

(My book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids, is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. My website is www.Alicekenny.com)

Alice Kenny

www.alicekenny.com

When Kids Can’t Be Kids

Alice Kenny — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 17:06:33 +0000

Most kids of parents with a mental illness experience childhood differently and less innocently than other children as they deal with their often chaotic home lives and navigate their worlds.

If you are the son or daughter of a parent with a mental illness, and you felt abandonment, depression, loneliness, or anger as a child or teen, you are not alone. Experts agree that children of mentally ill parents are prone to experiencing these feelings.

Michelle D. Sherman, Ph.D., ABPP, is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota. She is the co-author of I’m Not Alone: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who Has a Mental Illness. “Although each childhood experience is unique,” Sherman says, “children of parents living with a mental illness often feel confusion, embarrassment, shame, fear, and anger. They may ask themselves, ‘Why can’t I bring my friends over? Am I going to be like this? Is it [my parent’s mental illness] contagious? Will my mother or father ever get better?’

“At the same time, many children experience a hope that their parents will get better through treatment, and pride when they see their parents are trying to get better.”

While some kids of mentally ill parents experience anger, for me anger was an alien emotion. To feel anger, I would have had to think that I deserved to be treated better.

Undoubtedly, some times are crazier than others. “Sometimes, parents living with an SMI [Serious Mental Illness] ‘act out’ in confusing, upsetting ways, such as during times of active psychosis . . . Parents living with mood disorders may struggle with suicidal thinking and behavior, which can be very distressing. When parents act out in these ways, children may experience their parents as hostile, scary, out of control, and unpredictable. In turn, the children feel anxious, ashamed, sad, and angry,” notes Sherman.

Most definitely, I viewed my mother as hostile, scary, out of control, and unpredictable. Coming home from school, when I turned the knob to open the screen door of our front porch, I could count on my mother to be in some sort of foul mood before long. I just couldn’t predict what would set off an explosion.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, Surgeon General of California, shares in her book, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity, that when she was growing up her mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Burke Harris reveals that every day after school she never knew if she was “coming home to happy Mom or scary Mom.”

“In our house,” she says, “times of intense anxiety and stress were interwoven with moments of love and joy.”

Child & Family Connections (CFC), a non-profit organization that helps families living with mental illness through peer-informed education, advocacy, and support, maintains that most parents with mental illnesses “are caring, capable, and committed to their children.” CFC’s programs are designed to help parents with mental illnesses build happy, healthy lives for their families.

Nonetheless, research points to the many risks children of parents with mental illness face.

It’s not uncommon for children of mentally ill parents to feel alone, ignored, or isolated. Experts say that often much of the family’s attention is directed toward the mentally ill parent, and the other parent/family members in the home become preoccupied with managing the illness. In my family’s case, everyone simply placated my mother in the misguided belief that it would make living conditions better or at least easier. It didn’t.

As noted by Sherman in “Reaching Out to Children of Parents with Mental Illness,” an article that appeared in Social Work Today, research shows that a parent living with SMI may detach (intentionally or unintentionally) from their child. Sherman explains that parents with SMI—particularly those with post-traumatic stress disorder—can develop emotional numbing, which can interfere with the parent’s ability to engage in everyday activities with their child. “Confused by the parental unavailability, children often feel uncared for, unloved, left out, and lonely. Children may also blame themselves for the change in their parent,” Sherman comments.

In my family, I was the one who became emotionally numb. As a teenager, I developed anorexia. The eating disorder allowed me to detach not only from my mother but from the world as a whole.

As reported in “Children of People with Serious Mental Illness,” published in Social Work Today, researchers have identified common themes running through the lives of children of mentally ill parents: “difficult and confusing parental relationships; feelings of abandonment; ‘parentification,’ or the need to take on the parenting role; feelings of isolation; lack of understanding and support from nonrelatives; difficulty trusting others; inability to maintain relationships; grief; low self-esteem; and depression.”

I can attest to these findings. I grew up to be fearful, a chronic worrier with low self-confidence.

Inability to trust has marred my personal relationships. I learned early on not to trust anyone. If someone did something nice, they had an ulterior motive. I learned not to expect anything good. Happiness was tenuous. If the best happened, the worst was sure to follow. In later years, I gave expression to grief. I grieved the absence of childhood, as have many other children of parents with a mental illness.

My brother Alec, six years older than me, experienced parentification. As I was growing up, Alec functioned as an adult in the household. Not only did he do the family laundry with my dad for years, but he also made school lunches for me, my sister, Patty, and my brother, Joe, until we were old enough to take turns slapping lunchmeat or tuna fish between slices of bread.

“Don’t you remember,” he once asked me when I was in my fifties, “the two years when mom didn’t leave her bedroom?” The fact is, I didn’t. Many memories from my childhood went down a black hole or simply dissipated.

“Some youths are given excessive responsibilities such as childcare for younger siblings, household chores, and even managing the parent’s behavior and medications . . . It’s important for kids to … just have fun,” Sherman says. Sherman compiled a list of ten concrete things that children of mentally ill parents need. Number six on the list resonated with me: “Kids need to be able to be kids.”

(The above article is an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids, which is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members. You can reach me at www.Alicekenny.com)

Alice Kenny

www.alicekenny.com

Children Who Get Hugs Tend to Become Happier Adults

Alice Kenny — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 10:00:43 +0000

I missed out on hugs and cuddles. My mother, who was mentally ill, did not display affection. In second grade, I walked home from school with a friend. I remember watching as she ran up her front steps. Her mother would be waiting for her at the door with a smile. She’d open the door and wrap her arms around my friend.

I was jealous.

As explored in a previous post, young children need positive stimulation—back and forth interactions—from adults for healthy brain development. Further, prolonged exposure to adverse experiences can cause stress to become toxic as surges in stress hormones, such as cortisol, disrupt developing brain circuits. The body’s stress response system can get stuck in the on position. Overexposure to cortisol can result in an increased risk of physical and mental health problems later in life.

As it turns out, hugs, cuddles, and comforting words can help mitigate the effects of toxic stress for kids of all ages. As noted in the Newsweek article, “Yes, Stress Really Is Making You Sick,” the effects of childhood adversity “can be blunted by emotional ‘buffering’—a response from a loving, supportive caregiver that comforts the child, restores a sense of safety and allows cortisol levels to fall back down to normal. Some research suggests that this buffering works in part because a good hug—or even soft reassuring words from a caregiver—can cause the body to release the hormone oxytocin, sometimes referred to as the ‘cuddle ’or ‘love’ hormone.”

In fact, researchers have begun to explore whether oxytocin might form the basis for potent pharmaceutical interventions. https://www.newsweek.com/2020/…ou-sick-1489620.html

Some have gone so far as to call oxytocin an emerging ACEs antidote.

Researchers are now finding out that the positive effects of hugging are long-lasting. Children who are hugged tend to be happier adults. As reported by Health.com, a 2010 study conducted by researchers at Duke University Medical School, found that babies with very affectionate and attentive mothers are less likely than other babies to grow up to be emotionally distressed or anxious. The researchers posit that oxytocin may be the reason.

The study, which appeared in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, followed nearly 500 infants into their 30s. The mothers and babies were observed for just one day when the babies were 8 months old. Then the babies-turned-adults were interviewed about their levels of emotional distress some 30 years later. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH…r.affection.anxiety/

A 2015 study from Notre Dame University replicates findings that providing children with affection promotes well-being in adulthood. In a Notre Dame News article, researcher Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame professor of psychology, notes, “Humans evolved with a nest of care for their young that matches up with the maturation schedule of the child … We call it the evolved developmental niche.” The six components of the niche include soothing, naturalistic perinatal experiences; responsiveness to a baby’s needs including sensitivity to the signals of the baby before the baby cries; constant physical presence with plenty of affectionate touch; extensive breastfeeding; playful interactions with caregivers and friends; and a community of affectionate, mindful caregivers.

https://news.nd.edu/news/paren…l-being-as-an-adult/

Many adults still struggle with the aftermath of childhood adversity—in particular, the trauma they experienced through emotional neglect. While research shows that children thrive when they receive hugs and interact with caring adults, we now know that the benefits of these early experiences extend into adulthood. We need to find ways to ensure kids get the emotional connections they need to grow up and become happy adults.

(This article is the second in a two-part series on the positive effects of hugging. It expands on the content in the resilience chapter of my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I assumed a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members. My book is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions.)

Alice Kenny

www.alicekenny.com

Kids Need Hugs

Alice Kenny — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 10:00:19 +0000

(The article below is based on an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.)

My mother, who was mentally ill, never hugged me, never caressed me, never held me close. As a young child, I had no idea what I was missing. As an adult, I realized that hugs and kisses instill security and stability in kids, and pave the way for healthy emotional development.

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Just as a ping pong game revolves around serving and return activity—back and forth interactions—so does a child’s developing brain, according to Harvard researchers.

The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard has found: “When an infant or young baby babbles, gestures, or cries, and an adult responds appropriately with eye contact, words, or a hug, neural connections are built and strengthened in the child’s brain that supports the development of communication and social skills.”

The researchers go on to explain that the persistent absence of serve-and-return interaction acts as a “double whammy” for healthy development. The developing brain doesn’t receive the positive stimulation it needs, and the body’s stress response is activated. When this happens, the developing brain is flooded with potentially harmful stress hormones.

Stress can become toxic when there is prolonged activation of the stress response system and a lack of protective relationships. According to the Center on the Developing Child, “This kind of prolonged activation of the stress response systems can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems, and increase the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment, well into the adult years.” https://developingchild.harvard..concepts/toxic-stress

Infants Respond to Kangaroo Care

Fortunately, when parents are unavailable to provide the caring touch and emotional interaction for babies, other adults can effectively fill the void, according to researchers.

Baby cuddling programs run by hospitals show this to be the case. Notably, baby cuddling programs are springing up in hospitals across the country.

It’s been recognized that the human touch can be lifesaving to a newborn baby. Dr. Barbara R. Edwards, who specializes in internal medicine in the Princeton, NJ, area, explains, “Whether the baby is born premature, addicted to opioids, or has a health condition requiring an extended stay in the hospital, baby cuddlers can fill in when parents can’t be there.” https://www.drbarbaraedwards.c…eing-a-baby-cuddler/

According to Dr. Edwards, “Skin-to-skin contact, also known as kangaroo care (KC), helps a newborn relax and supports their physical, emotional and social growth.” She cites a study of premature infants, completed in 1996 and then again in 1998, which showed that “babies who received 60 minutes of cuddling for 14 days showed better sleep habits, focus and stress management skills compared to babies who did not receive kangaroo care. All babies were reevaluated at 3 & 6 months old, one & two years old, and 5 & 10 years old, and all results were consistent with original findings.”

A friend of mine participates in a volunteer baby cuddling program in the NICU at a local hospital. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the program has been put on hold, and my friend misses cuddling the infants.

It probably comes as no surprise, but as Dr. Edwards and my friend relate, baby cuddling is relaxing and comforting for both the baby and the baby cuddler. All of which points to the need to keep hugging and cuddling the babies in our care.

(This article is the first in a two-part series on the positive effects of hugging. A future article will explore how oxytocin, sometimes known as the “hug hormone” or the “cuddle hormone,” mitigates ACEs and promotes happiness in adults. My book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids, is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions.)

Alice Kenny

www.alicekenny.com

The Cinderella Phenomenon: When One Child Is the Target of Abuse

Alice Kenny — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 10:00:25 +0000

As a child, I lived in dread that something would set my mother off and she’d fly into a violent rage, unleashing a torrent of physical abuse. There never was any reason for the abuse. There didn’t have to be. Something would invariably infuriate my mother.

I don’t know why my mother singled me out—why she only hit me and not my siblings.

Research shows there can be a link between parental mental illness and abuse. As noted by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, “Through reduced caregiving capacities, the co-occurrence of child neglect or abuse, and exposure to other sources of fear and stress, parental mental health conditions have direct consequences for the health and well-being of their children [children of parents with mental illness].” In my case, my mother was mentally ill.

Sometimes, abusive parents are indiscriminate in their violence, but sometimes not. Researchers say it’s not uncommon for an abusive parent to single out one child as the target of physical violence. This has been called: the “Cinderella Phenomenon.” Another term is “target-child selection.”

I never wore glass slippers, but I fit the definition of a Cinderella. In my case, it wasn’t an evil step-mother heaping abuse on me; it was my biological mother. And I wasn’t living in a fairy tale world. No fairy godmother was going to say “bibbidi-bobbidi-boo” and magically transform my life. No prince would whisk me away.

The rage my mother directed at me was inescapably real.

Why would a parent single out one child for abuse? Byron Egeland, an expert in child maltreatment at the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, says, “Reasons for the abuse are highly varied, and there is no consistent pattern across maltreatment cases.”

Accumulated research shows the Cinderella Phenomenon often involves the redirection of anger that an abusive parent feels toward someone else—perhaps an absent spouse or former partner. The targeted child may remind the parent of a trauma he or she experienced, such as rape, or as Egeland noted, their own abuse. “The abuser is likely to have a history of abuse,” he says.

Sometimes, parents target a child for abuse because the child is hyperactive, has a disability, or displays personality traits the parent doesn’t like.

More likely than not, though, Egeland says, there is no logical explanation.

While all siblings in my family were subjected to psychological abuse, I was the only one who suffered physical abuse at the hands of my mother. I’ve often thought that my mother targeted her rage against me because I looked like her. I remember examining a picture of my mother when she was about eight. It was as if I was staring back at myself at the same age. But what disturbed her about the mirror image I will never know.

There have been many studies on the characteristics of abusive parents. Studies show they tend to have: low self-esteem, poor impulse control, low frustration tolerance, inappropriate expression of anger, impaired parenting skills, depression, and other mental health problems, and as mentioned previously, a history of being abused.

In my mother’s case, I could put a checkmark next to virtually all of these descriptors except the history of abuse. I know nothing about her childhood.

((This article is an excerpt from book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. You can find it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. You can reach me at www.Alicekenny.com). I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.)

Alice Kenny

www.alicekenny.com

Nothing About Them Would Stick Out in a Crowd

Alice Kenny — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 10:00:47 +0000

(The article below is an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.)

Many adult children of mentally ill parents are functioning but struggling.

The emotions adult children of parents with mental illness experience are a mixed bag. Sometimes a jumble. Guilt, loss, grief, and resentment are among the emotions that persist or bubble to the surface in adulthood. Some feel ambivalence about their relationship with their mentally ill parent. Others feel no remorse in saying they may have been better off growing up without a mother.

Outcomes for children of mentally ill parents aren’t always cut and dried. I never realized until recently how many people function in the middle ground, as I do. We demonstrate competency in society while masking internal struggles.

Suzette Misrachi, an Australian mental health practitioner, wrote a thesis, “Lives Unseen: Unacknowledged Trauma of Non-Disordered, Competent Adult Children of Parents with a Severe Mental Illness (ACOPSMI)” as part of her requirements for a Master of Advanced Social Work (Research) Degree at the University of Melbourne. ) Her intent was to make visible the needs of Competent and Non-disordered Adult Children of Parents with a Serious Mental Illness (new acronym CaN-ACOPSMI).

Misrachi’s criteria for competence included measures of productivity such as employment, and social functioning, such as relationship status. She excluded people who had other risk factors such as drug and alcohol issues, unemployment, or emerging mental illness.

Misrachi writes that her study participants experienced sadness and trauma symptoms which were sometimes diagnosed as “generalized anxiety or depression” or “low self-esteem.” She notes, “They had professions, their own families, and were otherwise competent, even highly successful in some cases.”

“They had rebuilt their existences as competent, non-disordered, useful citizens,” Misrachi continues. “But the impact of being raised by severely troubled parents contributed to their sense of desolation, vulnerability, detachment, physical and mental exhaustion—often involving deep shame and loneliness. It was also accompanied by physical symptoms, such as migraines, stomach ailments, body tensions, and sleep issues.”

Misrachi notes that these individuals live life as chameleons; nothing about them would stick out in an ordinary crowd.

****

Misrachi’s findings really hit home for me.

I consider myself to be a non-disordered, competent adult child of a mentally ill parent.

Despite accomplishments in my professional life, I often felt like an impostor. I doubted my capabilities, especially in corporate settings. I hid my anxieties. I declined promotions because I didn’t have the confidence to compete, to move on to the next level. I’ve put those experiences away in the lost opportunity file.

In the realm of relationships, I’ve experienced love and heartbreak, but no more or less than most people—if there is such a way of measuring these things. I have no children of my own, and can honestly say I possessed no maternal instinct in my twenties and thirties. I never heard the ticking of a biological clock. I attribute my lack of desire to have children to my tumultuous upbringing. Now, every so often, I feel a twinge of resentment. Maybe I lost out. When I see parents playing with their children at beaches and parks, it all looks so natural. Yet it’s alien to me. I don’t dwell on my childlessness. I have close relationships with my nephews and step-children.

Still, I know what playing chameleon feels like. Throughout my adulthood, I’ve suffered from anxiety, which I trace back to my upbringing. But it is not debilitating.

****

There is a wide spectrum of outcomes for adult children of mentally ill parents. While some were lucky enough to have supports to buffer childhood trauma and mitigate the impact of stress, others deal with lifelong physical and mental health problems. Then, there are those of us—huge in number—who fall in the middle and fit into the category of competent, functioning CaN-ACOPSMI.

Misrachi found that the unique, trauma-based needs of CaN-ACOPSMI “are not being adequately met within existing family-focused policies and practice, which focus on the needs of parents with SMI [Serious Mental Illness] to the potential detriment of their adult offspring.” She believes that concepts of trauma should be used in interventions for CaN-ACOPSMI, and she advocates addressing grief and loss.

Misrachi doesn’t seek to blame parents and recognizes that mentally ill parents themselves may have been traumatized during their childhoods.

Notably, researchers report that adults who grew up in homes with parents with serious mental illness say they have become stronger, more compassionate, considerate, and independent.

(My book Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids, is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions. You can reach me at www.Alicekenny.com)

Alice Kenny

www.alicekenny.com

Invisible Children: Kids of Mentally Ill Parents Often Overlooked

Alice Kenny — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 10:00:13 +0000

(Thi article is an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.)

Growing up with a mentally ill mother, I learned to stay under the radar—to avoid drawing attention to myself in my home and later in the world around me. This gave me a sense of safety. My mother’s behavior was erratic, and she displayed a propensity for unprovoked rages. Her mental illness was undiagnosed, never discussed among family members, and never disclosed to anyone outside of the family.

I fit the profile of an “invisible child.”

Often, parental mental illness goes undiagnosed. As reported in an article in Social Work Today, Joanne Nicholson, a clinical and research psychologist, notes, “The first problem [for children of mentally ill parents] is that their parents’ problems go unrecognized, so their needs also go unrecognized.” (http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/052416p24.shtml)

It’s not unusual for parental mental illness to be ignored or brushed under the rug. Research shows that parents and children may keep mental illness in the family a secret due to stigma and shame, and parents may fear being reported to child protective services and losing custody of their children.

As it turns out, that fear is not unfounded. According to Child & Family Connections, a Philadelphia-based organization dedicated to improving the lives of families living with mental illness, as many as 70 percent of children whose parent has a mental illness are removed from their homes and placed in foster care.

My siblings and I never heard the word “stigma,” but it enshrouded us. In fact, stigma kept the family quiet about mental illness through generations. My grandmother suffered from depression, and every attempt was made to disguise her mental illness. When she was hospitalized for treatment, we were told she “went to the farm.” With my mother, the family perpetuated the cycle of stigma. My father no doubt experienced futility. As my husband sees it, my dad may have felt stuck: “What was he supposed to do? He had to go to work. If he got a divorce, what would happen to you kids?”

Most likely, other family members knew about my mother’s mental illness and were complicit in keeping it under wraps. I’m not certain if neighbors or others in the community suspected that my mother was mentally ill. My mother presented well in public—when she strayed outside the house to go to the supermarket, the fabric store, and church. I’ve learned that the ability to keep it together while in public view is not an uncommon phenomenon among parents with certain mental illnesses.

Mental health professionals say when no adult validates a child’s experience, it can cause the child to doubt his or her reality. Thankfully, I wasn’t plunged into that netherworld. By the time I was six or seven, I knew on my own that something wrong with my mother. I didn’t need an adult to tell me, but I did need an adult to help me. Nonetheless, my siblings and I were left to deal with my mother’s rampages on our own. We were unprotected from her erratic behavior during the most vulnerable periods of our lives.

Today, even when stigma is overcome and parents with mental illness receive treatment, their children’s needs often go unnoticed. Children are sometimes not told about their parent’s mental illness, and they are not asked how their parent’s mental illness may be affecting them.

Sometimes, the behaviors of kids can be misleading. Suzette Misrachi, an Australian mental health practitioner, points out that competent, well-functioning offspring or “super kids” of mentally ill parents risk having their needs overlooked because they don’t exhibit overt signs of trauma. For example, they may excel at school, participate in sports, and have friends, so their needs can fall through the cracks.(http://hdl.handle.net/11343/37852)

Fortunately, there is the opportunity for more children of mentally ill parents to get the services they need as a result of the screening of children for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by pediatricians; however, such screening is far from widespread.

Kids can be spared trauma. Not all kids of mentally ill parents experience trauma—notably, those who have supportive relationships with caring adults, exposure to positive experiences, and opportunities to develop effective coping skills.

(My book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids, is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. You can reach me at www.Alicekenny.com)

Alice Kenny

www.alicekenny.com

Starving: Anorexia at 14

Alice Kenny — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 10:00:36 +0000

(The article below is an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.)

It’s not as if you wake up one day and say, “I’m going to be anorexic. I’m going to shrink away and dwindle down to nothing.” The disorder takes hold with Svengali power, and it steals the very life out of you. Oddly enough, it’s as if the disorder consumes you even though you are consuming next to nothing.

I realize now that I was anorexic by age 14. I remember walking home from high school and thinking, “All I had to eat today was an apple. That’s 60 calories.” I felt confident I could keep my calorie count low for the day. I was in an almost-trance as I walked past the school. I was there, but somehow outside of myself at the same time.

Another day, I was walking home along a busy avenue. Most people never commented on my emaciation. But three girls on the opposite side of the street started pointing at me and laughing. For a fleeting moment, I felt freakish, but I shrugged them off.

As I became thinner and thinner, I became immersed in a world of escapism. I insulated myself from my mother’s beatings and put-downs. I continued to go to school and do homework, but the switch had been thrown to automatic. I was functioning, yet detached. I shut down. Emotionally, I flatlined. Anorexia was my way of dealing with the insanity around me.

I exercised compulsively. I would ride my bike up and down a steep hill in the neighborhood. I pushed myself. I was tired, but I kept pedaling like a hyperactive hamster spinning a wheel in its cage.

****

Back then—some 50 years ago–people didn’t know much about anorexia. I don’t think most doctors were trained to recognize it.

Eventually, I was hospitalized because of my weight loss. I had dwindled down to 72 pounds on my 5′4″ frame. Little did I know the damage the disease was wreaking on my developing body. I wasn’t menstruating, and I was completely flat-chested. Physically, the disease ravaged me.

Every morning I was weighed by the nurses. My doctor visited every couple of days. Other than that, not much happened.

All of a sudden one afternoon, I realized I couldn’t talk. I was slurring my words. I don’t remember who I was talking to—a nurse or an aide, but she didn’t seem to notice. When I was alone, I tried to talk, and my slurring got worse. I couldn’t enunciate, and my tongue felt thick and large like a slow-moving slug.

Something was wrong. Was I losing my mind?

I decided to call my mother because I had no one else to turn to. I believe I developed anorexia as a result of the abuse inflicted by my mentally ill mother.

Numerous studies have found that children of parents with mental illness are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders compared to children whose parents are not mentally ill. Research shows that between 25-50% of these children will experience some level of psychiatric disorder in their lifetimes.

There was no phone in my room. I managed to sneak down the hallway to the payphone. I made the call. “Mom,” I said, “I can’t talk. Thomething’th wrong.” All the words came out like mush.

I don’t remember her response. I shuffled furtively back to my room.

As it turned out, I had been given a sedative overdose. Apparently, my body weight hadn’t been correctly factored into the dosage. I had no idea I was being sedated.

For a frightening period, I had thought I was going mad. On the other hand, I wouldn’t concede to insanity. In a way, anorexia is a sane response to crazy surroundings when life is out of control – in my case, an environment where a mother is incapable of loving and the only constant is the unpredictability of her behavior and her propensity for unprovoked rages.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), “Most experts now believe that eating disorders are caused by people attempting to cope with overwhelming feelings and painful emotions by controlling food. Unfortunately, this will eventually damage a person’s physical and emotional health, self-esteem and sense of control.”

Somehow, I already knew this. Nonetheless, I must have been quite an oddity. I remember a gawking group of medical students surrounding my hospital bed as the doctor used the term “anorexia” to describe my condition. I had never heard the term before.

At one point, I managed to read my chart. In actuality, the chart didn’t reveal all that much. I was starving myself. That much I already knew.

****

My brother Alec saved my life. He came to visit me one day in the hospital. He took my hand and walked me over to the mirror in my room. “Look at you. You’re a skeleton. You’re going to die if you don’t eat.” I knew he loved me and didn’t want me to die. At that moment, I realized I didn’t want to either.

****

It never occurred to me that I should have received therapy or psychiatric treatment. I was on my own once I was released from the hospital.

****

References:

Lisa J. Slominski, “The Effects of Parental Mental Illness on Children: Pathways to Risk to Resilience from Infancy to Adulthood,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2010). Slominski cited research from: W. Beardslee, E.M. Versage, and T.R.G. Gladstone, “Children of Affectively Ill Parents: A Review of the Past 10 Years,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 37 no. 11 (1998): 1134–1141.

“Eating Disorders,” National Alliance on Mental Illness, accessed January 7, 2019, http://nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/eating-disorders

About the Author:

Alice M. Kenny

My pen name is Alice M. Kenny. I am a Philadelphia-born journalist. I’ve contributed freelance articles to a Philadelphia newspaper on medical, family, social, and psychological issues. Early in my writing career, I was an editor of a daily newspaper in Atlantic City. I live near a small seaside town in New Jersey with my husband Jack and our rescue dog, Maxie. My book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids, is available on Amazon. You can reach me at www.alicekenny.com

Alice Kenny

www.alicekenny.com

When Mommies Berate and Belittle their Children.

Alice Kenny — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 10:00:34 +0000

As a child, I lived in dread that something would set my mother off and she’d fly into a violent rage, unleashing a torrent of abuse. I was physically abused by my mother, but I considered the beatings tolerable. It was the psychological abuse she inflicted that stripped me of self-esteem and haunts me to this day.

“When a mother is psychologically abusive, the child experiences it as their whole world crashing down. There is nothing that can alleviate this pain for a child because the sun rises and sets on their mother’s smile, hug, and kiss,” says Carole Lieberman, MD, author of Lions and Tigers and Terrorists, Oh My! How to Protect Your Child in a Time of Terror.

Accumulated research shows that psychological abuse by mothers can adversely impact academic achievement, social development, and self-esteem in kids.

What exactly is psychological abuse? According to Dr. Lieberman, “Psychological abuse comes in myriad ways, such as manipulation, withholding of love, lying, degradation, and humiliation.”

Psychological abuse encompasses name-calling, criticizing, threatening a child or someone close to him or her with physical violence, threatening to destroy a child’s possessions, and making the victim feel worthless, powerless, and ashamed. It can include allowing a child to witness domestic violence, exposing a child to antisocial role models, or placing a child in a dangerous situation.

Why would a parent psychologically abuse a child? Philip R. Muskin, MD, MA, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center provides insights: “Some parents are psychologically abusive because they are full of rage or depression. Some can’t manage emotionally. Others become self-absorbed and can’t relate to their kids.”

Sometimes mothers with mental illnesses vacillate between showing love and being abusive. “Mothers who are mentally ill are most often unpredictable,” says Dr. Lieberman. “This is very confusing for a child who naturally looks for ways to please their mother to get her love and nurturance. When a child keeps getting different responses—sometimes love and sometimes abuse—it is very frustrating, and the child blames themselves for their mother’s erratic behavior.”

But, as Dr. Muskin notes, “If a parent is intentionally abusing a child, he or she may or may not be mentally ill.”

While all types of child abuse—physical, sexual, and psychological—are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), psychological abuse may, in some ways, be more damaging than physical or sexual abuse. One study of thousands of youths with lifetime histories of one or more of three types of abuse—psychological maltreatment (emotional abuse or neglect), physical, and sexual—found that children who had been psychologically abused suffered from anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem at the same rate, and in some cases, a greater rate than children who were physically or sexually abused. (For more information, see “Unseen Wounds: The Contribution of Psychological Maltreatment to Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Risk Outcomes.” Lead author Joseph Spinazzola, Ph.D., is the executive director of the trauma center at Justice Resource Institute, Brookline, MA.)

If you were psychologically abused, but lucky enough to have one caring adult in your life, this supportive relationship could have compensated for the emotional abuse you endured. As noted by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, supportive relationships with adults, adaptive skill-building, and positive experiences enable children who experience ACEs to build resilience.

“Some children who are abused are able to move on because they were fortunate enough to find other sources of emotional support, such as teachers, who gave them a more positive view of themselves,” Dr. Lieberman says.

Without safety nets, however, psychological abuse can leave an indelible mark. Adult children of mentally ill parents who have suffered abuse realize this. It’s not natural for us to feel good about ourselves, and we often have trouble with relationships. “It is now known that maltreatment affects people as adults,” Dr. Muskin says. “They’re generally not well-equipped to handle marriages and parenting responsibilities,” he says, adding that therapy can prove beneficial.

“Psychological scars can last a lifetime because kids look to a mother for a reflection of themselves,” adds Dr. Lieberman. “When a mom is mean, the child takes it as proof that they are bad, worthless, and unlovable. When the child grows up, they have problems with relationships because they anticipate that any partner will find them unlovable and will be mean to them, like their mother was. They will anticipate problems in their work-life, as well, because, feeling inadequate, they expect their boss to criticize or punish them as their mother did.”

If you’re anything like me, you might wonder why more isn’t being done to address the psychological abuse of children. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for psychological abuse to go undetected. “We know that overt physical and sexual abuse [go] unnoticed, so [there’s] no surprise about psychological abuse. The ‘wounds’ cannot be seen,” Dr. Muskin says.

Societal attitudes contribute to the problem. Sadly, as Spinazzola’s research notes, “Psychological maltreatment does not carry a strong social taboo.”

(This article is an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.)

By Alice M. Kenny (pseudonym)

(Up until recently, I wasn’t aware that feelings and health conditions I’ve experienced as a result of childhood trauma are symptoms of C-PTSD. I share my story along with research on Adverse Childhood Experiences and the science of resilience in my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids, available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. You can reach me at www.alicekenny.com)

Alice Kenny