tasks

TASKS for Recovery

This page is part of the Surviving Parents with a Mental Illness website

Below is an outline of certain tasks for recovery. Please note: There is no guarantee that if you follow these ten tasks that you'll magically get through. These tasks are to be taken as crude indicators developed over time. I ask the reader to forgive their simplicity as they were written for ease of communication. I hope nevertheless they offer some useful signposts.

Coming to terms with early life traumatising events is difficult, lonely, and painful. It is precisely for these reasons that I decided to write this section. Be warned, these are not "steps" but certain tasks to assist you getting through a lifelong journey which has as many diverse pathways as there are people. Your path, the depth, time, and process involved are uniquely yours and nobody can take that away from you.

Task #1. Believe all your experiences did happen to you and were real

One of the hardest things to face is the knowledge that you had survived something terrible enough to be classified sometimes as a trauma. Believe and name this experience.

Task #2. Allow yourself to grieve in a way unlike any other grieving process

This may start with self-pity. Many people have misconceptions on what grief is and how it ought to be done. People who grew up with mentally unwell parents have a grieving process that is incomparable to any other loss or trauma. It is not a “war” yet it is a war. It is not a “traumatic event” it is a series of traumatic events. It can give a person such extreme experiences. For example, it was not “rape” yet it might feel like a massive intrusion into one’s personal psyche that feels like it might have been a “rape” of sorts. Or the grief might feel like something else, For example, many adults who were children of parents with mental illness gave their “tomorrows” for the many “today(s)” of their mentally unwell parents. They grieve for lost opportunities. They grieve their parents' psychological and sometimes emotional death. That is what makes it so complex.

Task #3. Develop the capacity to know who you are as a unique person

This is very important so as you can then learn how to re-parent yourself and not miss out on any further personal advancement now and in the future. This may imply untangling whatever identity was assigned to you by the significant parent(s) from what other more healthy minded people may have observed in you – including yourself. Ease into this natural struggle (of becoming the person you're meant to be). Do this pro-actively by expanding your 'help-seeking' repertoire.

Task #4. Learn and develop new skills that will help you socially and emotionally

Initially it will feel unnatural or unsafe or even surrealistic. If you had a parent or parents who were undiagnosed and untreated chances are you would have some difficulty in knowing how to behave and how to find and maintain meaningful and positive connections with others. Do not let dysfunctional comforts dominate, i.e. some familiar yet unhelpful personal behavioural patterns are potentially changeable - but only if you are ready and willing.

Task #5. Have some inner-belief scheme that tells you things will get better over time

Faith in the process of self-repair is critical. Optimism needs to be realistic and balanced.

Value dreams (especially day-dreams). Believe in yourself. Trust yourself. Don’t be enslaved by any time-line. Patience is a pre-requisite to recovery.

Task #6. Surround yourself with gentle and kind people who don’t mind giving you time

This might be a tall order but such people do exist. Safety with others is paramount as needing to develop trust is a first step.

Task #7. Find your own formula on how to deal with past experiences. Nobody else can

Letting go is not an easy option nor does it even need to be an option. Whatever experiences you had to endure has become part of your history and nobody can take that away from you. This type of suffering is unparalleled so you might as well sit back and create your own unique formula of what works or does not work. It may take several attempts over a period of time. Thank your mistakes (often it's how people learn). Do not self-censor. The only rule is 'do no harm' to self or others.

Task #8. Be prepared – pay the price for being mentally intact

If “normality” or mental health is what you’ve been gravitating towards, then you might pay a price for this. Living within emotionally healthy boundaries can leave an adult COPMI with little or no choice regarding 'terms and conditions’ for healing. Such ‘terms and conditions’ vary (depending upon individual family systems) but they do carry a price, e.g. loss of reasonable relationships with (well or unwell) siblings, parents, significant others. This harsh reality becomes the starting point for realistic optimism and an identity that allows you to work more fully towards your potential. Emotional survival implies letting go of what you’d “like” or ‘desire” and embracing what you “can best live with”. The gap left is the wound that needs to heal (with help).

Task #9. Be aware of how mental illness might kill off, injure or disable family relationships

The impact of mental illness extends to the “well” parent. They might be grieving for the death of a former relationship damaged by mental illness. If your “well” parent did not receive adequate support, chances are your relationship was/is strained. Did they strike the right balance when distributing their scarce energy and resources? Did tempers flare due to overload? Was their “busyness” due to a double or triple-load (carer, parent, worker) cutting into their parenting capacity? How well was your “well” parent supported? This all inadvertently causes a child to feel emotionally and psychologically neglected while detouring, or at worse, killing off a potentially good relationship. This phenomenon extends to siblings. As a child or adolescent you are not expected to understand everything, e.g. irrational "crazy" behaviours, or “non-deliberate neglect”. Such legacies might require trauma-informed therapy.

Task #10. Accept the negatives and seek those transferable positives of your experiences

This final task might look easy at first but does require time and effort both internally (your desire to do the necessary inner work) and externally (your ability to seek appropriate support from others, including trauma-informed professionals).

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Last Modified: 11th Feb, 2017.