Adult Children With Mental Illness
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Millions of people live with mental health disorders. As parents, it can be difficult to know how best to support your adult children with mental illness, because you may not understand how best to meet their needs and give them the autonomy that comes with adulthood. Understanding your loved one’s condition is often the first and most important step in providing the support and love that they need.
Mental Health Stigmas
Stigma has always surrounded mental illness even though 1 in 4 Americans has a mental health issue. Despite the prevalence of mental illness, often people will avoid seeking care because they are ashamed or embarrassed. In supporting an adult child with mental illness these factors seem to be the most prevalent in barriers to care.
- Young adults experience embarrassment in admitting they have a mental illness
- Limited availability and affordability of mental health care services
- Lack of education of symptoms, types of mental illness and symptoms they are experiencing
Types of Mental Illness
In supporting your adult child with mental illness, it is important to educate yourself about the different types of mental illness and the symptoms involved. When you understand what is affecting your loved one, it can offer support, understanding and hope.
Mood Disorders
Mental illnesses are classified as mood disorders because they impact the way a person feels. There are several common mood disorders.
Major Depressive Disorder: Depression is more than just feeling sad or having a rough time with life issues. Depression is a serious mental illness, which left untreated may cause devastating effects. 16 million adults experience depression. While there is no one cause of depression, a number of factors contribute to its onset, including: trauma, genetics, life circumstances, brain structure, medical conditions, and drug and/or alcohol abuse.
Symptoms can include:
- Changes in sleep, appetite, energy
- Difficulty concentrating
- Low self-esteem, feelings of hopelessness
- Physical aches/pains
Bipolar Disorder: Bipolar Disorder affects a person’s moods, ability to think clearly, and energy. The two major factors in bipolar disorder are its highs – mania — and lows –depression. The average age of bipolar onset in young adulthood is 25. There are a number of contributing factors for the onset of bipolar disorder, including genetics, environment, stress, and drug or alcohol abuse.
Symptoms include:
- Periods of mania or depression including psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions
- Irritability, impulsive behavior, reckless decisions
- An inability to realize the negative consequences of actions
Anxiety Disorders: These disorders can include generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder and phobias. Extreme feelings of fear and distress, feeling overwhelmed and unable to carry out simple life tasks are common factors in anxiety disorders.
Symptoms can include:
- Emotional symptoms – feelings of apprehension, dread, tension, restlessness, irritability
- Anticipating the worst and being watchful for signs of danger
- Physical symptoms – pounding or racing heart, shortness of breath
- Upset stomach, sweating, tremors
- Fatigue and Insomnia
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: 7.7 million Americans experience PTSD. Women are more likely to develop PTSD than men. The average age of onset is around age 20 years old. Traumatic events, military combat, assault, and accident or natural disaster can contribute to the development of PTSD.
Symptoms can include:
- Intrusive memories, flashbacks, bad dreams, frightening thoughts
- Avoidance behaviors – staying away from objects or places that induce unwanted memories or thoughts
- Dissociation – an out of body feeling
- Hypervigilance – being frightened easily, feeling extreme tension, trouble sleeping, angry outbursts
Personality Disorders
Personality Disorders are related to ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. An individual’s personality is based on many things:
- Experiences
- Environment
- Inherited characteristics
While personality disorders and mood disorders are both mental health conditions – there are differences. Mood disorders are about patterns in people’s emotions and personality disorders are revolved on the ways people relate to others.
Personality disorders include a range of conditions that include:
- Antisocial Personality Disorder: shows a pattern of disregarding or violating the rights of others
- Avoidant Personality Disorder: extreme shyness, feelings of inadequacy and extreme sensitivity
- Borderline Personality Disorder: patterns of instability in personal relationships, intense emotions
- Dependent Personality Disorder: displays a pattern of needing to be taken care of
- Histrionic Personality Disorder: patterns of excessive emotions and attention seeking
Diagnosing a personality disorder requires evaluation by a mental health professional who will examine long term patterns, functioning and symptoms. Because children are still developing, personality disorders are generally not diagnosed until an individual has reached adulthood – even if symptoms were present during childhood. This is often why supporting an adult child with a mental illness can take time, patience and understanding.
Causes of Mental Illness in Adult Children
There is not one universal individual cause that leads to the development of a mental health disorder. Generally, there are a number of factors that contribute to the onset of these conditions.
Environmental Factors
Environmental factors can affect mental health directly. These factors can cause stress, anger, irritability, depression and negatively impact mental health. These social or economic circumstances that affect exposure to stressors have impact on relationship, stressful life events and psychological distress. Other factors include:
- Smoking
- Substance Abuse
- Pollution
- Exposure to toxins in childhood
- Dysfunctional living conditions and relationships
Genetic Factors
Studies have proven that many psychiatric disorders tend to run in families. Research conducted through the years has found that the risk of developing an illness is increased if another family member is similarly affected. When supporting an adult child with mental illness, looking into your family history could prove to be helpful insight.
Drugs and Alcohol
Drugs and alcohol are one of the five main risk factors included with complicating mental illness. Drugs known to exacerbate mental health conditions, or contribute to the onset of disorders, include:
- Cocaine
- Amphetamine
- Methamphetamine
- Mephedrone
- MDMA
- Cannabis
- LSD
- Psilocybin
Mental Health Treatment in Southern California
If you are supporting an adult child with a mental illness and you would like to discuss how we can help you through this journey, contact us today. Launch Centers offers many individual options to help you with your concerns with your adult child and offers evidence-based treatments, and caring and compassionate counselors to help you and your loved one find relief from their symptoms. For more information about our mental health treatment options, contact us today.
