The Effects of Complex Mental Illness on Siblings

If you as a parent are spending a lot of time caring for the sibling with the mental health problems, your other children may feel neglected or forgotten. Older siblings might understand that their brother or sister requires more care than usual. But it is asking a lot to expect younger children to adopt this more mature perspective.

Children who witness an older brother or sister battling a severe mental illness may experience great stress and anxiety. Their exposure to the behaviors such conditions can cause can be extremely confusing and upsetting. They likely won’t understand the true nature of mental illness, and consequently they may assume their brother or sister doesn’t love them anymore or is intentionally trying to make them scared or unhappy.

Caring for a son or daughter with a complex mental illness is time consuming. But if you have other children in the home, you must recognize that their sibling’s mental illness can have a dramatic impact on their health and emotional states. They need your time and attention, too, and if you simply assume they’re fine you may miss important signs of their distress.

Kids exposed to difficult family situations need consistent and empathic attention from their moms and dads. In cases like this, you can explain that their brother or sister is sick and isn’t really trying to be scary or mean. Children may not comprehend all the complexities of mental illness, but your reassurances and expressions of love can help ease their fears and dramatically reduce their sense of confusion and uncertainty.

As a supplement to your support, your kids could also benefit from regular visits with a pediatric counselor. Even if they haven’t been showing outward indications of anxiety lately, they are likely experiencing it at least on occasion. Counselors who work with children have a deep understanding of how kids respond to stress, and they can help their young patients develop coping strategies that will guide them through the hardest times.

Adolescent children are more capable of understanding the complexity of severe mental illness than younger children. But that understanding may be accompanied by fears that you as a parent should anticipate and address.

Teens are old enough to understand the genetic factors involved in mental illness, and they may fear that someday they will suffer from the same illness as their older sibling. You can proactively soothe such concerns by telling your adolescent children more about how mental illness develops, so they will understand that genetic factors alone aren’t enough to cause mental health disorders in most cases.

Adolescent children should be able to handle the facts. An honest approach that explains the situation in more detail is better than offering patronizing and facile reassurances that won’t answer their questions. Adolescents are smart enough to see through such a strategy, and they may become even more worried if they think you’re trying to hide something from them.

For teens affected by a sibling’s mental illness, counseling can be highly beneficial. Individual and family therapy sessions offer valuable opportunities for adolescents to talk about their fears, along with any other emotions they might be experiencing, in a supportive and non-judgmental setting. Teens are often reluctant to open up and express themselves truthfully in front of their parents, which is why individual therapy can act as an essential outlet for teens who need to talk about stressful events in their lives.

In many cases, older children are likely to experience feelings of shame, embarrassment, or resentment directed at their sibling. This can in turn generate feelings of guilt and self-recrimination. Skilled and experienced therapists can help teen siblings come to terms with all the complicated emotions they’ve been feeling, while helping them understand that such emotions are a natural response to difficult circumstances and not something inappropriate or disgraceful.

If you’re an adult with a sister or brother who has a complex mental illness, you may feel it is your responsibility to help your parents deal with the fallout. You might believe it is your duty to offer your services as a part-time caretaker, or to provide financial assistance when it’s needed. You may be making an extra effort to provide emotional support and comfort when your mom or dad is feeling discouraged, depressed, or overwhelmed.

This is an admirable attitude. Your involvement can undoubtedly help ease the physical, emotional, and financial demands on your parents, which put their health and welfare at risk if they were left to shoulder all the responsibilities alone.

While your parents will appreciate your help and support, your sibling with the complex mental illness will appreciate it just as much if not more. Severe mental illness can leave those who have it feeling isolated and misunderstood, which can lead to depression that renders them incapable of taking action to help themselves. During these times of crisis, you can act as a voice of encouragement and a source of hope, providing unconditional love and practical assistance when both are desperately needed.

But if you choose to become more fully involved in your sibling’s life, as both a caregiver and confidante, this can put you under enormous stress. In fact, the burden may be even greater on you than it is on your parents, since you’ve cast yourself in a dual role. You may also have unresolved issues of shame, embarrassment, or guilt left over from your adolescent years, if your sibling’s mental illness was a factor back then.

No matter how independent or self-sufficient you think you’ve become, you may still gain great benefit from therapy that will let you explore your feelings honestly and without apology or judgment. Counseling could be your salvation, at a time when you’ve taken on significant responsibilities in addition to trying to manage your own life.