An Open Letter to Parents of Someone with Mental Illness.

I love you.

And I know you love me. You loved me when I was forming in your stomach. You loved me enough to go through the pain of bringing me into the world. You loved me when I screamed at night to be fed. You loved me when I threw tantrums and cried.

And you love me now that I have a mental health condition.

But you didn't always love me when I was this way.

At first you didn't love me because you didn't understand. I was young, and all young people are hormonal. The teens are messy years, and I was probably just rebelling. You assured yourself that, because maybe you saw yourself at this age in me. I was your beautiful child, and how could something so beautiful think they were ugly when they looked in the mirror or think that they were imperfect.

You didn't love me because sometimes you thought I was weak. When you walked in and found me crying over something that had happened that day, and you couldn't understand how something so small had me acting like the world was falling apart around me. You didn't understand why something that I should be able to brush off easily was hurting me, and it hurt you too, to see me in pain.

You didn't love me when you saw the scars. You couldn't get your head around the fact that the perfect skin, the skin that you made was crisscrossed with imperfections. You would give anything to have taken away my pain and turn back the clock to stop those imperfections from ever tainting that perfect skin.

You didn't love me when I was broken. When all I could do was lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, you couldn't understand how I could bear to waste my life that way. It's a beautiful world out there, and I should be out there smiling in the sunshine and climbing trees, laughing and being young and happy. You didn't know what to say to me or how to get through to me when my eyes were so blank that it was like they would never see happiness again.

You didn't love me when I went to the doctor and got help. You hated those pills that forced me to be happy. You didn't understand why I couldn't be happy off my own back. Had you failed as a parent? Was it something you did? You agonised over it, spending time worrying and wondering where you went wrong.

You didn't love me when I tried to do better. I knew how you hated those pills and I wanted you to be happy. You hated how I shook and sobbed a week after I stopped taking them. You didn't know what to do.

You didn't love me when I was low. You were certain that there had to be more I, or someone else could do. Maybe if I exercised more, or ate healthier, I would be happier in my own skin. You just wanted to see my eyes sparkle again, like I was enjoying being alive, not the sad shell of myself you saw before you now.

You didn't love me when I was diagnosed. When they put a name to my sadness, and to everything that was wrong with me. You held my hand and you wept with sadness that the perfect happy child you made had been told that they were ill. What had you done wrong?

You didn't love me during my treatment. Every week was a struggle for you, when I came home more miserable than when I went out, battling with all the feelings that had been stirred up in the session. You hated that someone was making me feel that way, and that it needed to happen for me to get better, and you hated that I felt that way at all.

But all the while, you loved me.

You brushed my hair until it shone and showed me how pretty I was, and told me that it was ok because one day it would be better.

You sat with me and hugged me until I stopped crying, and let me talk about that small something like it was the most important thing in the world.

When my cut was too deep, and the sink was filling with blood, you helped me stop it, and clean it up, and held me until I stopped shaking.

You sometimes got angry because you were so frustrated that you couldn't help me. I wasn't a small child that you could scare away the monsters. But you stayed beside me and tried to bring me out of it.

You hated that I was having to put chemicals into the perfect body that you made all those years ago to be happy. You blamed yourself, never blaming me.

You sat with me through the withdrawal symptoms. You finally accepted that perhaps I needed these pills to really do better. You began to realise that this was not just me being rebellious, that I needed you there.

Although I pushed you away, and screamed at you when you made suggestions to help me feel better, you just wanted to help, and to feel like you'd done something that had made a difference.

You wept with sadness that I was ill, but also with relief that the hardest part of the journey was finally coming to a close, and finally you might get your happy child back. You lamented over the years that I had been reaching for help and no one had taken my hand, even though you tried to make them see. You took me home and learned what you could about my condition because you wanted to make this as bearable for me as you could.

You tried to make life as normal as it could be on days after therapy. You made me dinner and chatted to me, asking how my sessions were as though it were something normal.

You endeavoured, through it all to keep me happy, because when I was sad, that was the worst pain you could feel.

But I just wanted to let you know...

I'm trying. Every day is a struggle, but I'm doing my best. I'm still fighting. Please don't give up on me yet.

I love you.