EXPLORE THE IMPACTS
History of Mental Illness in Parents/Family
Growing up in a home affected by untreated or poorly managed mental illness can leave lasting marks on how a person experiences safety, trust, and connection. The unpredictability of the environment activates the body’s stress response over and over, wiring the brain to stay on high alert and making it harder to regulate emotions or form secure attachments. These patterns can lead to behaviors that seem puzzling or even defiant, but often they are survival responses learned in early, unstable environments. By understanding the biological and emotional impact of these experiences, we can respond with strategies that build safety, stability, and healthy connections.
Brain
Mental illness in parents, especially undiagnosed or untreated, can result in a heightened stress response which means a repeated firing of the Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) Axis. This causes challenges to the limbic system and the release of stress chemicals to the brain and body.
Body
Physical aches, pains or self-injury that do not seem connected with anything in the present moment are often ways the brain releases the stress caused by being in an unpredictable home that cannot be named as such. (Please see SPOT in the Bullying Section for more information on this).
When safe, they will feel all of the emotional pain as physical pain and may even self-injure to release endorphins for pain they feel emotionally that does not make sense to them or those around them.
Behavioral Patterns
As the amygdala of the limbic system enlarges due to unpredictable actions of parents or others in the home with untreated mental illness, felt safety, attachment and regulation (FAR) is disrupted for this person. They may look paranoid, overread threat, overly attach to people or attach and then flee or fight, which disrupts the connection or avoid attachments. They can either present with challenges similar to the parents or with challenges the exact opposite of the parents.
They are often afraid to go home, but cannot name a reason they do not want to go home. This can also manifest as acting out, aggression, running, freezing, or becoming highly compliant before they must return home. Since the fear driving this does not come from a part of the brain with a timestamp, even when not returning to an unsafe home, they will react as if they are. This is a biological drive not a conscious choice. An example of this are youth who run away from their own independent living apartments.
The person may be driven to run/flee/elope to one of their first experiences of safety is outside of the home. This often manifests as repeated calls to 911 or engaging in actions that require hospitalization.
They may also steal from safe others, so they have a reminder of them when they are not with them. Instead of punishing this (which will only intensify the above challenges), connect the limit with safety and make something with them, so you each have something that reminds you of the other.
Supports
Visual schedules that include when they can have connection with safe others will be imperative. The person will need to know when that connection is returning and just verbally telling them will not leave a lasting imprint in their memory, especially when their stress response is activated.
They will also need “transitional objects” of things that remind or connect them with safe others when they are not with them. For example, knowing when they can talk with someone on the phone. Having a phone tree they can call when they need it. Having something that reminds them of their safe other physically can help soothe their fear center.
Use the safety script for all limit setting. Connect all rules in the environment with safety by literally spelling out how the rule keeps you safe. For example, “Taking out the garbage keeps all of us safe from germs and diseases that build up in trash.”
Have the person create safety scripts to show what keeps them safe. For example, one youth from a home with parents struggling with mental illness created this script: “We want this to be a safe place. No one will touch me without asking, and I will not touch anyone else without asking because we want this to be a safe place.” By having people complete their own safety scripts we can find out what helps them feel safe.Interestingly, the very behaviors they want protection from they have needed to use in other environments to obtain “safety through fear.”