How to Parent While Suffering from Mental Affliction
Fulfilling one of your primary duties even under duress
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When a period of mental affliction hits you, your world shrinks down to controllable entities: what can I manage? What can I keep up with? Brushing my teeth? Bathing? Paying the mortgage? Going to work?—and one of the big questions for parents is, Can I continue to be a good parent? Even if I don’t feel like it, can I go through the motions and provide what my children need to survive and flourish. Can I get them to school, feed them, guide them, and even love them? Unfortunately, depending on your affliction, how much you are suffering, and how much support you have from your spouse (or friends and family if you are a single parent), these can be difficult questions to answer. Likewise, it can be difficult to answer the question, should I have children if I know I’m struggling with a mental health affliction? How will it affect my children? Many conditions are genetic, and even the ones that aren’t genetic, the environmental factors that children experience watching a parent suffer will affect them. Is that fair to put children through? If you already have kids, how do you deal with the fact that you may have unintentionally harmed your children through your affliction?
These are all heavy questions that can plague someone who is already insecure and self-critical and just trying to stay afloat. Parenting is one of the most important, beautiful, and rewarding acts one can do in life. But it is also a solemn responsibility. How do we carry that responsibility well while suffering? The answer lies not in avoiding the responsibility or giving in our insecurities, but walking in faith. Here’s what I mean.
