| June was 9 years old when she came home from school and her schizophrenic mother met her at the door, angrily demanding to know, "Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?" In another family, Tess repeatedly saw her mother wait outside church then scream at family friends as the emerged, accusing them of spying on and plotting to kill her. Five-year-old Tess and her 7-year-old brother would just cry, begging their mother to take them home as onlookers stared. These are just two of the stories gathered for this book as psychotherapist Nathiel conducted interviews. The children, now adults, grew up with mentally ill mothers at a time when mental illness was even more stigmatizing than it is today. They are what Nathiel calls "the daughters of madness," and their young lives were lived on shaky ground. "Telling someone that there's mental illness in your family, and watching the reaction is not for the faint-hearted," the therapist says, quoting another's research. But, she adds, "Telling them that it is your mother who is mentally ill certainly ups the ante." A veteran therapist with 35 years expereience, Nathiel takes us into this traumatic world - with each of her chapters covering a major developmental period for the daughter of a mentally ill mother - and then explains how these now-adult daughters faced and coped with mental illness in their mothers. While the stories of these daughters are central to the book, Nathiel also offers her professional insights into exactly how maternal impairment affects infants, children and adolescents. Women, significantly more than men, are often diagnosed with serious mental illness after they become parents. So what affect does a mentally ill mother have on a growing child, teen-ager or adult daughter, who looks to her not only for the deepest and most abiding love, but also a sense of what the world is all about? Nathiel also makes accessible for us the latest research on interpersonal neurobiology, attachment, and the way a child's brain and mind develop in the contest of that relationship. Some of the major topics addressed include: BLFeelings of guilt in the child - Is it my fault? BLKeeping the secret BLRole reversal - when child acts as parent BLFear of the same fate BLBuilding resilence and accepting help BLInsights from daughters of mothers who were schizophrenic, psychotic, severely depressed, paranoid and personality-disordered. |