Kirsty's Story

Kirsty first began attending KidsTime when she was 8-years-old. Now writing as an adult, Kirsty is the Workshop Training and Community Lead for Our Time and is passionate about ensuring that more children get the opportunity to receive support.

"People don’t talk about mental health problems very much. A lot of us pretend it isn’t happening, because it’s more comfortable than having a conversation about it. But for a child living with a parent with a mental illness, it’s impossible to sweep it under the rug.

When you’re a young person caring for a parent with a mental illness you can feel lost and confused about your place in the system. I often had to deal with my dad’s doctors. But usually, even after sharing distressing information, I wasn’t asked how I felt. On the one hand, adult mental health professionals often depend on you for detailed information about your parent’s behaviour and medication, regardless of your age. On the other hand, it feels like these professionals are unaware of you, and there is little support.

The nature of mental health problems means that that they are often confusing and unpredictable. This is especially true for people with bipolar, like my dad. We never knew when his next low or (scarier) high would be. Despite caring very much for my dad, his behaviour led to me having complicated and conflicting emotions. Being aware that he couldn’t do what other parents could or that he would excessively worry about things that others didn’t, made me angry and left me feeling like I was the problem. Like many children in my position, when I was younger, I genuinely believed that I was to blame for his emotions. Feeling solely responsible for someone’s emotions meant I felt responsible for making him happy. So, I could feel like a failure if I didn’t make him better.

Because I was young, most people wanted to protect me from my dad’s illness, which meant telling me that he had a serious condition but not to worry about it. This caused a lot of anxiety for me. I would try to predict my dad’s mental state based on his behaviour, something I have since learnt is unhelpful.

However, joining KidsTime changed everything. Being given somewhere to go to learn about my dad’s condition was a relief. It helped me to relax and accept it. I stopped feeling so embarrassed and felt more comfortable talking about it with other people – whether they liked it or not.

KidsTime made me feel like the caring role, that I was very aware of, was respected and recognised.

I was taught ways of dealing with it if he did become ill – like who to tell and where to get help and techniques to help him feel better. All you really want in that moment is to help your parent feel better.

Professionals helped me to learn the signs of him getting worse, which made me feel much more in control, and made realise when it was worth worrying about him, meaning I spent less time worrying and freaking out over small, insignificant signs. Learning what to expect made me feel more prepared and confident in handling the situation. Having someone explain to me what was going on made me feel more removed from his illness.

I gained a lot more empathy for him, and understood that he couldn’t help how he was feeling, and that sometimes his behaviour was actually the last thing he wanted. KidsTime helped me to realise that I wasn’t causing him to be upset or angry or quiet all day. Learning that the emotions were down to having a mental illness, and why having a mental illness makes you feel a certain way, took away this guilt. I was able to relax more even when he was sad, and understand that it wasn’t all in my control.

This all helped our relationship because I also knew that he wasn’t being mean or frustrating on purpose – it was his illness. And I didn’t feel bitter or angry at him for the things he wasn’t able to do. Being able to realise this at an early age definitely helped stop it from affecting our relationship. I didn’t blame my dad for his differences like I used to.

I started being able to explain the situation to my friends, who sometimes noticed something was wrong. Some of my friends had a lot of questions and it felt good to be able to answer them.

The KidsTime workshops have made such a big difference for me and my dad, I hope other people will have the opportunity to get involved as well."

Some details of this story may have be changed to protect a young person's identity.

If you would like to share your own story, please get in touch with Nadya Bettioui, Our Time Voices Project Lead: nadya.bettioui@ourtimecharity.org.uk