Parents Just Don't Understand...

Parents just don't understand!

In all seriousness, sometimes parents don't understand what you're going through, which can lead to them being negative and unsupportive towards you. It could be for various reasons:

• They haven't experienced what you're going through.
• They have no knowledge on the subject.
• They don't want to believe it.

If your parents aren't understanding, they may end up getting upset, angry or dismissive and say some hurtful things. For example, when she found out about my self harm, my mom got very angry and upset with me. She accused me of doing it to hurt her, and didn't understand that I did as a coping mechanism. She told me that I was "selfish", and even said that I was being "pathetic" when I tried to explain why I was feeling so miserable.

For a long time, I started to feel even worse about myself because I thought that she didn't care about me and that she didn't love me for who I am, but I had to keep telling myself "she doesn't understand". Honestly, I still don't think she understands, which I can accept now that I've stopped, but there are ways to help your parents understand.

This blog post will be focused around parents that don't understand self harm. If you self harm and your parents act negatively towards you, hopefully this blog post will help. 

A diagnosis might be useful to help your parents be more supportive of you, because then they know for a fact that you do have a mental illness, and you're not "making anything up". If you don't have a diagnosis, but you would like one, visit a GP (general practitioner) either on your own or with your parents. If you do not want to go to a professional, try researching online. Online evaluations may not be very accurate, but try looking on various websites to get an better insight. Figure out what symptoms you have, then explain this to your parents.

Lets go back to reason number one for them being unsupportive towards you - lack of experience.

You can't really do anything about them not having the experience, because they will most likely never have it, but you can, as best as possible, explain to them how you're feeling.

It will be hard to explain to them what you're going through, so don't over complicate it. Here's some tips:

• Plan out what you're going to say - write down some bullet points so you stay on track.
• Instead of talking, write it down - write a letter or an e-mail for them to read, try to describe it as best you can.
• Try not to get angry - if you're writing a letter/e-mail, don't write it with anger. If you feel as though you're starting to get too angry/upset, stop writing for a while and come back. If you're speaking to them about it, stay as calm as possible but if you feel as though you're getting to angry and frustrated, calmly remove yourself from the situation.

Looking back, I wish someone had given me this advice. I tried to explain to my mom how I was feeling in a calm way, but . I know now that I shouldn't have shouted and screamed at her and I shouldn't have tried to talk to her whilst I was so angry.

Next we have the lack of knowledge on the subject.

Your parents might not even know what these mental issues involve, so the best way to deal with this is for them to educate themselves on the subject(s). This is something that can help a lot with your parents being more supportive towards you. Here are some tips:

• Find some online resources for them to look at.
• Find leaflets/booklets etc that have information on them.
• Ask them to "at least" look into it.

Once your parents understand what the illness is they will know that it is not a choice, and have more of an insight into what you're feeling. The NHS website is a good place to find useful/helpful links.

Finally we have denial.

Your parents wont want to believe or accept that you are suffering from a mental health problems. In my opinion, the best way to deal with this is to do all of the above. From my experience, explaining to your parents that them denying it and brushing it off as being nothing will not help you get any better might help (although, I wouldn't put it exactly like that otherwise they might get even more angry...). Try explaining to them that you need them to be on your side and to support you through your struggles in order for you to recover.

I hope that this blog post has helped you in one way or another. I am not a professional, so this isn't "professional" advice. However, I do have the experience to be able to tell you what worked for me and what I would do differently in my situation with my parents if I could go back in time.

Stay strong

- A