Growing Up With A Mentally Ill Parent: 25 Signs- Psychotherapy Crash Course

A mentally ill parent can be very challenging to grow up with and live with.

You might want to grab something to eat and pull up a chair. This 30min comprehensive video explores the behavioral, emotional, and psychological challenges that may create problems for an adult child with a psychologically unhealthy parent.

What was your upbringing like?

Would you be able to point out some really stable points in time where your parent was everything you needed?

Would you be able to point out some really unstable points in time?

If you are able to point out both you most likely had a "normal" upbringing.

But if all you can recall are negative and unstable periods of time that were possibly even traumatic, you most likely grew up under an unhealthy and psychologically unstable parent.

Each symptom, depending on severity, that occurs individually or together with other symptoms can result in a parent who exhibits disturbing behaviors that can traumatize a child.

In this video, I will be discussing 25 signs that your parent may have been psychologically and emotionally unstable.

I highlight and define symptoms and behaviors that mat be concerning to a clinician.

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Source: Deutsches Ärzteblatt International

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----Contact me-------
I'm Támara, a licensed and nationally certified mental health therapist, with over 12 years experience. I specialize in helping children, teens, and families with mental illness. I also treat psychological/emotional trauma in children, teens, and adults.

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[Fiveandime]

Really needed this. Thank you for posting

[Sarahwithanh]

I feel so validated.
This was my EXACT experience growing up. My mother (I have discovered) is highly covertly narcissistic, OCD to the extreme, and incredibly emotionally unstable. I never felt seen or heard or validated at home. It’s taken me decades to accept that I am worthy of taking up space and having needs and wants and desires and thoughts of my own.
Thank you for speaking on this.

[GypsyJulie]

Long videos are very helpful! Both my parents have died in the last 7 months. They caused so much strife and division. They also passed down their disorders to some of the kids and created codependants out of others. I am working on both forgiveness and moving on without family. Very grateful for my emotionally supportive husband and friends.

[polyglotta]

I don't remember my dad ever talking about suicide, I just knew instinctively from a very early age that he would die that way, and it made me suicidal too (he eventually took his own life as I turned 16). He was like a big heavy ghost in the house, sometimes raging/violent, but mostly morose. I thought it was safer to be around my mum but it took me years to realise she was just as toxic as him, just in a different way 😕

[SpiritDestiny]

At 38 now, I heartbreakingly have chosen to completely disconnect from my mother. My head understands that she can't help it, but my heart never will.

I have 4 children myself that need me to be okay, and I'm not okay around my unpredicable mother. I've been through it my entire life. I wished they'd kept me in each care home, but she kept getting me back.

I was a severely neglected child, placed in numerous dangerous situations.

I hope one day she'll be able to understand and forgive me on the other side 🙏

[thetruehustler]

One thing that frustrates me the most is because I was traumatized and also had mentally ill parents, I am unable to have the life I envisioned for myself, you know? I couldn’t dare bring a child into this world knowing how “unstable” I am nor can I see a person able to accept who and what I am. I do think I’m great, a good person and very loving, but given that I have these issues and unable to connect appropriately, it makes me sad to know I can’t have what my heart wants most.

[dianabishop]

My mother was a cold, evil person, just as her mother was. Never a hug unless there was an audience. Lied on everyone, maunchausen her kids and poisoned our neighbor when I was 13. She is now 90, bragging about all the things she did. I have to live with the thought of their nasty blood running thru my veins.

[kimberlydavis]

Some parents should of never had children. I have lived and been a caretaker of loved ones who have mental illness and behavioral problems my whole entire life. I also went through every kind of abuse you can think of in my lifetime. I have complex-ptsd, major depression, anxiety and ocd. I have to take medications every day and every night. I have a counselor and a mental health caseworker. It's a daily struggle and fight for me. That's not counting all my other medical conditions and limitations. I've been through so much in my lifetime that I have to live by myself for my own sanity. I have to live by myself for my own mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. I put everyone else before myself for years and years and years. I've had 6 caretaker burnouts and I've had nervous breakdowns. My brain is absolutely exhausted.

[TLDAVIS]

OMG! Of all the videos you have posted this one is the most difficult for me to respond to. I can't bring myself to admit any fault on the part of mother or my grand parents who reared me. I can however, heap tons of fault towards my father who divorced my mom and abandoned his children. At least my mom was there. What I can say is that I didn't get what was necessary for me to grow into a properly functioning adult. My mother also didn't get what she needed to become the parent she needed to be because her parents didn't get what they needed. I am taking all these dysfunctional patterns back to the plantation where they started. I can remember what my grandmother told us about her upbringing and it was shocking what our ancestors had to endure. That peculiar institution known as slavery has left its mark on the descendants of its slaves up to this present time.

[jomurphy]

Another cracking video, thanks Tamara! It was astonishing to hear so many of my bipolar mother's behavioural patterns come up in what are, to me, new categories - for example 'traumatic bonding' exactly describes an element of our, it has to be said, tortured relationship. (I'd say she was around the 22 out of 25 signs mark....!) Exploring all this new research on her condition is really enlightening, even years afterwards. I can still be triggered out of my wits by my, now 85 year old mum...even though old age (hers and mine!) has taken off the serious edges! It's been a life's work to build higher, safer ground...the next challenge is what comes up for me and my siblings when she is no longer here...I ponder that quite a bit.

[Rainyploom]

My dad lost his wife our mum in 2008, I was 9 at the time and I just remember my mum as always being the one who would be affectionate towards us and who took us places and socialized. When mum died from alcoholism dad just started drinking heavily too and he was not emotionally available, he saw his lif as being separate from us as kids. So his drinking wasn't anything to do with us and we shouldn't be bothering him about it even though it affected us because he was getting drunk every night. Dad would not be eating and I saw that as a kid I struggled with eating too and he wouldn't understand that him mentioning he wouldn't eat aswell wasn't helping. He would just drink all the time and then get angry and mad at me so start calling me names and doing strange things like trying to leave the house when drunk and wandering not knowing where he was. It was like just watching what happend to mum happen all over again. This went on for over 10 years and I just felt depressed and started hating myself because of the things that would happen.
I'm 22 now and still feel completely clueless as to who I am, just feel numb and panicked and uncomfortable around people.
I think alot about everything with my dad, we don't speak now because he kept being verbally abusive but I just feel lost in life to be honest.
Worried sometimes that I might have a personality disorder or a bigger problem other than social anxiety. Just don't know how to feel good most the time.

[jaybo]

Good Video! I’ve been telling my wife this. A friend of my 7 year old sons mom is always saying how her son has all these psychological issues and he’s on medication and goes to therapy. I told my wife she’s the reason he’s that way, she needs therapy. She has ALL the traits of a borderline. My ex, my daughters mom is a borderline so I’m familiar with their traits.

[cakedup]

My mom scares me sometimes she gets hyper acts weird like a child or just does impulsive things and deep down I know she is not well. Mental illness runs in my family and heavily effects the women in my fam at her age. Idk if it’s bipolar or schizophrenia but it’s something.. I’m so sad it breaks my heart bc I know one day it will be too far gone. She won’t get any help she doesn’t think she needs it

[thegoldengirl]

My mom suffered from mental illness was in and out of the hospital for it as well it was all over the place I saw things a child should not see . And she abused prescription drugs. Eventually she took her own life I now have CPTSD from child hood thank you for your videos

[bostonbob]

my whole family is mentally ill including myself bipolar 1 so this is extremely helpful and you explain it so directly and interesting

[alijane]

I'm enjoying the growing array of topics, Tamara. You have great delivery, considering both the medium and content. Your videos are clear, informative, and really well bookended. Just great writing and editing.
I'd encourage you to stay connected to what's current on youtube trend wise, and try to envelop that into your teaching. It's good for clicks, and might get you trending.
Glad I'm along for the ride.🙂
Edit: Upon re-read, it sounds like I'm saying this isn't current...I'm not and it is. 🙂🙂

[empathicone]

Long videos are welcome. Details help to understand better.
I find understanding is key to healing.
Thank you

[DrLauraRPalmer]

Very well said. So very well said. Though I've passed the part of the journey where I'm blaming my parents for my decision to just be better do better and seek what I need to support my betterism, I found this very informative none the less so that I'm able to even parent my own parenting better. Because parenting doesn't stop once they're 18. It begins a all new level of patent child relationship. And they really need to write more on parenting adult children as well as how to heal the self when you aren't being parented well as an adult yourself. Thank you so much dear!🙏

[kj-sfmd]

Had to crack up at the end cause I was eating popcorn.

[MsAnna]

Ms Tamara Hill, you have a seriously GORGEOUS head of hair!