When you’re a child, your parents are supposed to be your safe place—the ones who comfort you when the world feels too big, too loud, too scary. But for many of us who grew up with a parent battling mental illness, that safety was never guaranteed. The world wasn’t frightening because of what was outside. It was frightening because of what was waiting at home.
I didn’t have the words for it at the time, of course. All I knew was that something felt “off.” That some days my parent—my mother—would laugh with me, make breakfast, brush my hair, and hum a song I didn’t recognize. Other days, the house would fall quiet, and she would fall with it. I’d tiptoe through my own home like a stranger, afraid to knock too loudly on her bedroom door, unsure what version of her I might find on the other side.
It wasn’t always chaos. Sometimes, it was absence.
Mental illness doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it sleeps for days. Sometimes it forgets to cook. Sometimes it turns inward so deeply that it forgets the child standing right in front of it, needing something—anything.
As a kid, I took on roles I didn’t choose caretaker, peacekeeper, emotional sponge. I learned early to hide my needs, to smile when I was scared, to pretend everything was fine when nothing was. I’d lie to teachers, make excuses to friends. “She’s just tired.” “She’s having a rough week.” I got very good at covering for her. And even better at hiding myself.
The most painful part? I loved her. Fiercely. Still do. That love is complicated, messy, full of contradictions. I’ve been angry with her. I’ve pitied her. I’ve missed her while she was still in the room.
And yet, I’ve also seen her try. I’ve seen her fight to stay above water. I’ve seen her softer sides—ones that reminded me that underneath the illness, there was someone trying to be a mother the best she could. Mental illness isn’t a choice. But as a child, I didn’t know that. All I knew was that I needed her, and she wasn’t always there.
If you’re reading this and any of it sounds familiar, let me tell you something no one ever told me when I needed to hear it most:
You are not alone.
You are not unlovable.
It was never your job to fix them.
You may have grown up too fast. You may carry anxiety like a second skin. You may struggle to trust others, to ask for help, to even believe you deserve ease. That’s not a flaw in you—it’s a scar. One you earned surviving something no child should have had to.
But you are here.
And that matters.
There are others—many of us—who understand the silent grief of growing up in the shadow of someone else’s pain. Who know how it feels to walk through life trying to stay small enough not to set anything off. And who are slowly learning that it’s okay to take up space. To rest. To speak the truth of what happened.
So, if you’re carrying the weight of a childhood that was shaped by a parent’s mental illness, I see you.
I am just like you.
And we are learning—finally—that we were never the broken ones
Maame Akua Kyerewaa Antwi