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Growing up with a mentally ill parent poses many challenges, very often including taking care of your parent when you’re the child, making sense of your reality, and feeling isolated. But one major, and perhaps less talked about difficulty is the stigma that surrounds it.
What are the experiences of stigma for those who have a mentally ill parent? This was a central question of a study led by Andrea Reupert of Monash University in Australia and her colleagues. To investigate this inquiry, she and her team conducted a meta-analysis of research with this specific focus. They combed the literature for relevant papers, and in the final tally analyzed 58 studies to better understand this phenomenon.
The results were, admittedly, disheartening and perhaps expected. A selective overview is provided below:
Definitions of Stigma. Stigma was largely understood in families as a “marked difference” that others perceived as negative, and which could be internalized. It also included notions that the person with the illness was responsible and was blamed for having it.
Antecedents of Stigma. For parents, the antecedent most often cited had to do with social and cultural norms about parenting — and in particular motherhood. In addition, widespread negative attitudes towards mentally ill people and assumptions made about their abilities, especially in terms of parenting, led to prejudice and inequality.
A second category of antecedent was structural discrimination, with particular respect to the law, medicine, and education. For example, in the legal realm, discrimination was reflected in terms like “unsound mind,” suggesting that mental illness comprises a person’s overall judgment.
Experiences of Stigma for Families. Children felt embarrassed and ashamed of their parents’ mental illness. They experienced bullying, guilt, and social isolation, and made great efforts to hide their parent’s mental illness. A common descriptor used by children was that their family was “different” than those of other people.
Parents also felt embarrassed, ashamed, and or guilty over the way their illness impacted their kids. They also feared negative reactions and judgments made by others, including health and social services. Many blamed themselves for not being more effective parents and citizens.
Outcomes for parents and children. A major outcome of stigma for children and parents alike was being publicly ostracized, which was often followed by social isolation. Participants were excluded from work, friendships, and even family activities. For some, this eventually led to poverty, lower social status, and even suicide.
Additionally, the stigma surrounding mental illness made it less likely for children and parents to seek mental health services. For children, they were asked to keep the mental illness a secret to circumvent shame. However, this involved skipping social opportunities that would encourage social development as well as seeking help from those outside the family.
The authors conclude their paper with a thought-provoking insight. Until we address the structural effects of stigma for all family members, public health policies and campaigns that encourage talking more openly about mental illness as a means of educating the larger society won’t be as effective as we’d like.
