[RageOfCreation]

I have a 12 year old daughter (who is very mature and intelligent for her age) and she is aware that I have some very serious problems but really doesn't know what they are beyond anxiety.
For those with kids.... Do you feel it safe and easy to explain DP to your kids? How have they reacted?
Should I show her the "definition" of DP from this site? It so clearly explains how I feel and I think my daughter would understand a bit better if (along with my help and further information) she could read the definition from the site.

 

[kchendrix]

For me I wouldn't explain anything beyond the anxiety. I would be afraid of letting my kid know anything about this because I wouldn't want them to think in the back of their mind, wow, dad is like this , what about genetics,, could I possibly become like this too....

I also want my kid to look up to me and have him respect me and I think that would give him one more little trump card , not to... (dad's kind of nutty, why should I listen to him?)

I don't know that is me personally.. Yeah I am having some anxiety issues but I will be fine..... is my preferable choice.

Just my thoughts...
KC

 

[mcsiegs]

Couldn't agree with KChendrix more...I don't have kids, but that would be my approach, too.

 

[terri*]

I'm also in agreement with kchendrix. I have an adult daughter, who unfortunately can have anxiety and depressive moments. I've had dr since she was in her early teen and have never wanted to share the complexities of it all with her for the exact reason kchendrix gave. Unlike kchendrix, she definitely thinks I'm a fruitcake. If she only knew. :shock:

Best of luck to you and I hope you find what works best for you and your daughter.

terri*

 

[Guest]

I agree, as well.

No need to give her much more than she can handle. She'll TRY to understand it, but that's the last thing you want because in order to really "get it" we have to experience it. Don't invite her in there.

Also, just a little free advice. Don't let yourself be fooled by her "maturity and intelligence" - that's HER facade. She's 12.

Often children of a parent with problems will mature faster than normal, or more likely APPEAR to mature faster. She's 12.

Being precocious and highly intelligent can be a very tricky mask for an adolescent. Casts the light OFF their childhood status.
Don't fall for it.

She's 12.

Peace,
Janine

 

[RageOfCreation]

Janine,
Your post is rather condescending. I already KNOW my daughters age.
I said she is intelligent in relation to other kids her age. I am not saying she is some kind of genius or can fully understand adult matters and emotional disorders. I am just saying that most kids her age (at least around me) appear to function at a level below what my daughter functions at.
For now I will take you're advice b ut I also think hiding too much from a child can be harmful as well.

Would anyone have a different opinion if I said it was m y 18 year old grown child? I assume then it would be appropriate.

 

[RageOfCreation]

I wanted to add something else.
You are correct that no one can understand this illness unless they have "been there" but no one can fully understand cancer unless they have been their either.
Think about the parents going through Chemo that have to explain to their kids why they are sick and puking and their hair is falling out.
Nevertheless it must be done.

 

[kchendrix]

For me... I wouldn't tell any of my kids anything other then hey I have an anxiety disorder...I am being treated and I will be ok.... My oldest is 27 my youngest is 15, I don't feel like I am hiding anything from them. I have told them the truth...but why scare them with the details.

My wife had breast cancer at age 31, we told the kids but we didn't go into all the details about her masectamy , we just told them she had to have surgery to remove the cancer.

I think physical elements of disease that they can see is easy to talk about, but I don't want to worry my kids about me mentally. Anxiety is an easy, less frightening thing for them to understand. I don't want to tell them every detail about my symptoms, I don't want to possibly draw them into this disorder later in life.

Again it's just my opinion, you have to do what your comfortable with.

Have a good one
KC

 

[bright23]

Is telling her helping her or is it helping you? Why does she need to know?

And by the time she's 18 wouldn't it be amazing if you didn't have to explain it to her anymore because you actually recovered and it is in your past?

Who is truly benifitting in this her or you?

 

[Guest]

I certainly didn't mean you didn't know her age. And my apologies for sounding condescending. I was just trying to make a point and I do have a caustic edge. Not intended to be anything but helpful.

Take care,
Janine

 

[Captain_K]

In my opinion it's *how* you tell them if you want to tell them.

My kids always took the que about how to react to something by looking at me. I could talk about a splinter as if it were going to kill me and they would freak out, or I can just brush it off as nothing and that is how they react...like it is nothing.

At this point my kids totally accept me and my various forms of depression, it's okay. The same went for DP.

At the age of 13 my daughter was diagnosed with OCD she accepted it as, nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to hide. Today she is 21 and that same attitude follows her. She works full time and attends college.

Both od my kids have experienced DP. My son gets episodes of DP while in Walmart(the lights, he also gets migraines)...my daughter once experienced DP along with severe anxiety she felt at the time.

In my situation it is this openess that allows us a better sense of mental health. An acceptance that we are human.

Sincerely,
Captain K

PS
The apple does not fall far from the tree.

 

[Sojourner]

Did your other children discuss their DP with her? If she doesn't know details of their DP, I'd go easy on burdening her with too much.

"I just don't feel quite right," is something a 12-year-old can identify with. I think she's too young for anything but the rough outlines. You could tell her analogous experiences, when perhaps she's been nervous or uptight, but I wouldn't expect a 12-year-old to be able to process any technical information about the illness.

Recent studies on brain development in adolescents have shown that kids are quite limited in their ability to think through things until they are well beyond the teen years. It's kind of funny; we let them vote when their brains aren't fully developed and they are cognitively less acute than they will be in five years or so.

But because she will tend to catastrophize whatever you tell her, because her brain is not fully developed yet, I think you will actually harm her by telling her the gory details. Tell her the rough outlines.

Perhaps there are booklets you can locate that are written specifically for children that deal with mental issues.

Now, if your 12-year-old has heard about DP in detail from her siblings, then she's already acquainted with what they said, so all of our comments may be quite beside the point, and because she's already heard it, your telling her that you suffer from it too should not scare her if she's NOW aware her brother and sister had it also.

In the end, it's your call. I think all the comments on this have been trying to convey the idea that the potential to frighten a child by telling him or her about a parent's illness may cause unnecessary emotional turmoil and trouble her heart deeply. You are her protector, and she doesn't benefit by having a reason to worry that you're going to go off your rocker.

 

[Dreamer]

Interesting, I just saw Dakota Fanning (young actress in War of the Worlds) on Letterman. I think she's 11 years old. She is so smart and poised. I understand what you mean by a kid being beyond her years.

My good friend has a daughter of 15 who may as well be 30. She is so responsible, plays violin professionally already.

I don't have children so I don't presume to have the right response, but I like what the Captain said.

This also reminded me. I have a friend who lives in California, Lizzie. I watched her son grow up from a 3 or 4 year old. Spent a lot of time with him. Babysat, etc. He was a smart kid, and an only child. He's in his junior year at Berkeley now ... in love of course etc.

Here's a strange thing. I was at Lizzie's house talking about DP. She CAN'T understand it to save her life, never has, never will, even though was a philosophy major and subsequently a Social Worker before being a full time Mom. She gets depressed now and then, but nothing major.

Any way her son comes into the room looking for CDs or something, around age 12 or 13. I didn't stop talking and Liz is very open about things. I'm explaining this to Liz for the 50th time, and she's saying, "Is it like, this? or that?, etc." Then Adam, her son says. "Oh I've felt that a lot of times. It's weird. Then it goes away."

End of story. He finds the CD he's looking for and leaves the room. No big deal, LOL.

When I observe my close friends with their children, what seems to work, and never ceases to amaze me is honesty and communication (not in major detail) makes these kids (I can't speak for all of them) feel more comfortable.

I guess I am envious. I will never forget when my mother was very ill, was bleeding profusely in her bed before I went to school. She needed a hysterectomy. I was in 6th grade, so about 12. When I asked her what was wrong she told me to shut up and get in the carpool and go to school.

There's a lot more to the story, including her removing her self from the hospital early against medical advice, but her lying about what happened, keeping these "secret" and mysterious from me, made me pull further inwards.

I can't speak for anyone else's kid. I just like the idea of open communication which makes a kid feel "more comfortable" with being able to express his/her concerns.

From someone who really wanted to be a Mom. And I don't know how I would handle this myself, but having grown up with secrecy and lies, I prefer honesty ... of course geared to the level of the child.

Take Care,
D
And I admire all the parents on the board. You all deserve medals of honor.

EDIT: And of course I realize it isn't easy discussing scary things when they feel they'll lose you. But my mother never explained her problems, even when they were major, and I felt more frightened and confused. My parents were separated early, so I just feared the worst. I feared loss an abandonment.

I agree that DP has got to be the damndest thing to explain to anyone, but kids never cease to amaze me. Sometimes they can comfort an adult!

 

[Guest]

I am going to say this again (and please, I am not intending to be anything but helpful).

DP is unique. If we talk to a child about cancer, no matter how hard the child tries to understand and/or identify with it, she is not going to give herself cancer (all the New Agey ideas aside, please)

Children try to empathize/understand by Identification - they "try on" different thoughts, styles, approaches, beliefes. That's what makes them both interesting and very annoying, lol. But my point is that is HOW they seek to understand.

If someone LOOKS INTO THE FACE of DP (and if they have a dissociative tendency), they might induce it. That's why the comparison to cancer, or any other form of physical illness doesn't translate.

DP is a Self-obsessing, inward-looking experience.

I would hate to see her, in efforts to understand and being an adolescent so using Identification as a way to compensate for lack of maturity yet, ACCESS the state of dp, or even access existential feelings so young.

Just my two cents.

I'm done now.

Peace,
Janine

 

[person3]

plus it already runs in the family

i agree with janine...tell her maybe about depression and anxiety, but don't elaborate lest she try to REALLY understand it...I thank god I didn't get this stuff until I was 19, it would have been terrible to lose that period of life. I wouldn't give her anything to contemplate about.

Maybe tell her it's an age/job/hell...say chronic fatigue. Just say your mind has been worn out for a long time.

It may be important to explain this to your doctor or friends, but I would spare the daughter who is already worried, has the same genetic makeup, and appears to be intelligent enough to start trying to ruminate on her own.

 

[person3]

I just thought of something else (and this isn't geared towards you, Rage Of Creation):

I wonder if, when we are really trying to get others to understand how we feel, if it's part desire to have someone down there with us, to feel less alone. Kind of like when I would get in trouble in elementary/middle school it was WAY different if someone else was in trouble with me too. Otherwise I would feel more alienated, ostracized, anxious, etc.

So maybe being understood is not as benign as it sounds, maybe there is a secret desire to drag someone else into it too.

Once again, that is not related to you ROC. But I do want to add another thing on this post...children want to be a lot like their parents, they are intersted in the "culture" of whatever the parent has, they want to get involved. Like when my anorexic mom showed us around Laureate (mental hospital known nationally for taking in skeletons and hurlers), I thought it was cool how all the girls would hang out and talk in a room and be friends and such. It seemed glamourous. I later became anorexic for myriad reasons, one I'm sure was that being thin was so important that they dedicated this really cool hospital to treat it. Stuff on TV and in magazines about eating disorders would fascinate me, too. I literally didn't see any other goals in life eventually; I thought it was all about how you looked and if you didn't look thin, then you were nothing. I have a feeling that if my mom weren't so involved ONLY in the eating disorder world, if maybe she took some time out to do OTHER activities with me, maybe it wouldn't have been as important.
Also, I used to want to do LSD to experience things that weren't there. Hell, I used to want to be manic depressive because to a 12/13 year old with a lot of angst, it sounded fun and wild. I"m afraid that your daughter would look on here and see the symptoms and to an "outsider" they look fun and interesting (people try to achieve these states on their own, you know) and that could lead her down a dangerous path.

 

[Dreamer]

I do believe it is extremely difficult to convey this experience. I also believe it can be a predisposition that can be inherited. I'm not sure a child would try to "feel the same way" any more than a child would try to feel any illness.

Children can be empatheitc, or they can try to hide their fears. (Both in extreme aren't good, e.g. if they feel they need to "take care of you" or if they stuff their emotions.

In my position again, I found it absolutely outrageous (especially now as adult) that my mother, though she knew I had anxiety, DP, was depressed as a very little girl did nothing to comfort me. I guess I'm coming from the other POV. She wouldn't let me see a psychiatrist until I was 15.

If she had explained what was happening (again as a psychiatrist herself) I don't think I would have gotten this long term conditioning which has resulted in part (I don't know for certain) with the chronicity of my DP and in earlier years great difficulty coping with it.

The thing is, I suppose, one doesn't explain the chronicity of the DP, but if one is having a bad day to use any of the excuses above and to reassure the child that you are going to feel better and that it has nothing to do with the child, etc.

Again, don't have kids, but have spent a lot of time with them -- my friends' kids. Yes they soak stuff up, but it's like with my friend Liz, or even a select few of my friends I tried to explain DP to in high school and college. They had NO CLUE what I was talking about. None.

Yup, I'm coming from the opposite side of the problem here.

Bottom line, open communication when necessary makes the most sense.

It's so difficult to answer this, as we all have different experiences, relationships with our parents, and kids as adults are so unique. I don't think one can predict the outcome.

I have to go with the parents on this one though, as I don't have a child. But I know if I did, I would have tried like Hell not to be MY mother. And I've heard that doesn't work, that adults say, "MY GOD, I swore I wouldn't do this with my own kids, and here I am sounding like my Dad or Mom."

You have to do what feels best to you. Follow your own instincts I guess.

Best,
D

 

[Guest]

Adolescents do use Identification (it is not a conscious mechanism, but it is a very common and mightily used one). Remember, those of us who as children were trying to imagine how it feels to be dead, or how it feels to grasp Infinity, or (fill in the blank)

Putting onself in an imaginary position is a perfectly healthy experience, but it CAN be risky if the target is DP. Many of us here "imagined our way into it" - whether you hold that to be true for yourself or not.

I am not saying that if you tell her all about it, she will get DP. But in order to understand DP, anyone would try to "put themselves" in the mindset - that's just human, its how human beings imagine things. Add to it, the proclivity of adolescent identification and to me, it seems very risky.

And while everyone is unique, etc...there are some "generalities" and/or likely predictions in this ol' world that are worth taking seriously. Otherwise why study or compare ANYthing, lol. And while it's very enlightened to say that nothing is certain, EVERYONE has things they hold fast to and are POSITIVE about. every one

 

[bright23]

Again ROC ? I would really ask myself, "Why does my daughter need to know the SPECIFICS of my DP. What will she gain from her knowledge? Will this alleviate her concern, or amplify it?"

Then, "Why do I want her to know what DP is? What are my needs in this? When I show her the definition on this website and explain my personal details, what am I expecting to be the result of this? That I feel accepted, understood?"

I can totally relate to the deep desire to have our experience be UNDERSTOOD. Perhaps, like most of us, you realize that most people can't understand, are incapable precisely because they lack the experience.

Why do we have this need to be understood? We feel alone? Crazy? And if all people could understand, RELATE, everything would be all better. We'd be cured precisely because we are not alone anymore?

I used to have this fantasy that DP was some sort of evolutionary urge/process that only a few lucky/unlucky humans experienced. But a day was coming soon... perhaps something like the RAPTURE as according to fundamentalist Christians, when the world would be STRUCK instantaneously/totally by a massive DP. A nearby Supernova explosion or some sort of massive planetary magnetic shift. So the citizens of the world are simultaneously DP'd ? total chaos, and we are the ones that come forward and are able to help BECAUSE we have already experienced it. Trumpets blare we are the HEROES. And a new era of humanity emerges, because everyone now knows the true deep depth of suffering. Neighbor helps neighbor, no more wars, yadda-yadda-yadda.

So, what is the fundamental root of this above fantasy?

That DP is some sort of superior-suffering experience, and all are humbled/transformed who experience it? I don't know, I have definitely continued to be a major jackass for many years post DP. Not all that enlightened, though I thought myself to be... anyone else relate to my save the world fantasy?

 

[Guest]

Yep, I'm part of your special "chosen group", too. Long after recovering from my dp horror, I am still the same egotistical, caustic, self-obsessed, creative, intelligent, competitive, moody genius I was before and during my DP. Not enlightened at all. Just wiser, in a very UNmagical, earthly sort of way. And not at all superior morally or emotionally or any other way.

I never believed any of the Fundamentalist school, but I absolutely know the kind of grandiose fantasy you are talking about. I used to believe I was destined to KNOW something, or be allowed to "see" something that other mere humans were clueless about - and I was mostly afraid it was MORE than I would want to know, or certainly more than I could handle sanity-wise. I felt like I "had always known" on some level that the world was not as it appeared, etc. Delusions of fragmentation anxiety.

VERY common, slightly paranoid, very grandiose fantasies of omnipotence and Self as Center of Universe.

Then when our solipsism (I am everything and everything I need is inside me) gets the best of us, we freak out and shriek in the blackness of deep space.

Utter isolation versus "special" and "chosen"

Yep. Very familiar.