We’ve been at Princeton for my husband’s 55th reunion. Typical of reunions, there have been some great classes and sessions to attend. One that we attended was different in its focus. Its title: “Parenting Young Adult Children with Mental Illness.”
Our children are not young – but the opportunity to meet with other parents who are coping with adult children who have one of the many manifestations of mental illness was a powerful draw. Those of you who have not learned “more about mental illness than you ever wanted to know” are very fortunate. I don’t know whether we can make suggestions for “classes” at our next reunion, but if we can, i would strongly suggest having one that deals with the overall subject of mental illness and the family.
The moderator started with a powerful punch: what do you include in class notes about an adult child who is dealing with mental illness? As she admitted, like most of us in similar positions, we tend to say little (or nothing) – in part, of course, because of privacy issues. Too often, however, there is embarrassment.
We are intelligent individuals – and yet it is hard to say “my daughter is bipolar”, or “my son is schizophrenic.” Hard to listen to proud parents talk of their successful children, their successful grandchildren. And yet we are very proud of our youngest son, (who is on the autism spectrum) who has held down a job at a local market on the Cape for more than ten years. He went from someone who retrieved carts, to bagging, and finally to working as a cashier (where he was scammed within the first few days by a woman who apparently targeted him.) The store was wonderful, kept encouraging him to try again. It took nearly two years before he started to feel comfortable working the cash register. Kevin is a part time employee. Imagine our surprise – and thrill – when we learned that he had sold more turkeys to be donated to those needing food at Thanksgiving – sold more than anyone, including full time employees – and he was receiving a an award of a $500 gift card from the store!
Whether the issue is simple or complex, we who parent these adult children need to take the opportunity to share our pride in these successes, these milestones of a successful life.
Fran (Hamburger) Nickerson
In a later post, Fran added this:
As a child, we didn’t really know what Kevin’s problems were, but we knew that at 5 he functioned as if he had an IQ of about 50. He went into a program run by the Association for Retarded Children – now renamed, of course. His teacher that year told us that she thought Kevin would learn to read at a normal age, and that he would get most of his knowledge that way. He had very little language until he was 4 – but some of his first words were color words. I had thought from the time he was a baby that he might be on the autism spectrum – he did not smile till he was 7 weeks (even Zanna, who had suffered brain damage at birth from an oxygen deficiency smiled ar four weeks, the normal time.) We never thought Kevin would be able to hold down a job – he was challenged in so many ways all the way through childhood. He taught himself about humor. He initially laughed after everyone – but kept studying jokes until his laughter was at the right time. Now, we all love to see the greeting cards Kevin selects, because they are always right “on the money.”
It’s been an interesting life. Kelsey, our gifted, bright oldest, became bipolar at 31. Zanna is our third child, Kevin our fourth. Ken, our next oldest, has (thank heavens!) been very successful, providing the support for his three siblings. We consider ourselves fortunate – though there have been many times we could do with fewer challenges. . . .
From Dee Abrahamse
Just discovered this on the website. We have a bi-polar daughter-in-law, who mostly does pretty well and does take her medication, but she has had some real crises, and I’ve said some unintended things that set her off. I’d be interested in talking to others about it. Fran, I really admire you!
Note: After this email from Fran, the chat group weighed in in favor of having a workshop/seminar/what-have-you on “our children with mental illness” at our 55th reunion. We’ll soon start including this kind of information in our reunion section.
Just discovered this on the website. We have a bi-polar daughter-in-law, who mostly does pretty well and does take her medication, but she has had some real crises, and I’ve said some unintended things that set her off. I’d be interested in talking to others about it. Fran, I really admire you!