[Honors Project] Parents with Depression

[Honors Project] What is the impact of parental depression on college aged students? Or just regular people…

<center>Introduction:</center>

Hello everyone and thank you for checking out my post. My name is blueocean45 and I recently conducted my own research on the impact that parents with depression have on their children who choose to attend college. I have identified several common themes throughout the research, however, only themes relevant to 7cups will be discussed in detail. These include responses to depressive symptoms, lack of communication, responding to needs, relationships, and importance of education and independence. I would like to present them to you in hopes of validating your personal experiences and allowing you the opportunity to discuss your experiences further. For purposes of brevity, this will be a brief overview of the findings. This is an important topic to discuss because depression rates are increasing every year, but this demographic is often underrepresented in the research. I have attempted to shine a light onto these experiences by conducting a qualitative research study (personal narratives as opposed to numbers and figures) using semi-structured interview questions (questions that are only used as a base for research. More questions were added as information was revealed). My study relied on a sample of 4 females of various ethnicities between the ages of 22-23 recruited from my university through various clubs. 75% of my sample reported having a father with depression and 25% reported having a mother with depression. This study was peer reviewed and accepted by my universitys ethic community.

Depression Overview:

The National Allianace on Mental Illness estimates that 6.9% or sixteen million individuals live with major depression (Mental Health facts in America n.d) in the United States. This is important to consider because depression is a serious illness that affects how an individual functions. This includes functioning in everyday life and within personal relationships (Mental health conditions, n.d) including the parent-child relationship. The fundamental root cause of depression remains a mystery. It is suggested that perhaps 50% of the cause is genetic and 50% is reliant upon life stressors that lead to the development of depression (Levinson & Nichols, 2016). Therefore, science today cannot make a definite claim about the biological foundation of depression. The theory that is generally accepted about the cause of depression is that it is a combination of several biological and environmental factors (SAMSHA, 2015). Scientists suggest there is a possible genetic predisposition for depression. For example, if a parent or sibling has depression the chance that an individual will also have depression is increased two to three times (Levinson & Nichols, 2016). Depression also likely has an environmental influence. Events like childhood trauma, (SAMSHA, 2015) physical or sexual abuse, emotional neglect and physical neglect (Levinson & Nichols, 2016), poverty and stressful situations, like family conflict, can also influence the development of depression (SAMSHA, 2015) as they can alter the way the brain works. Therefore, depression can be described as a complicated interaction between genetic and environmental factors.

Parental Depression and Parenting Skills:

When a parent has depression, it is often expressed with behaviors like withdrawal, unavailability, irritability, and intrusiveness (as cited Compas, Champion, Forehand, Cole, Reeslund, Fear, Hardcastle, Keller, Rakow, Garai, Merchant, & Roberts, 2010). Depression symptoms also include loss of interest, guilt, suicide attempts, difficulty concentrating, remembering and making decisions (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], n.d). When these behaviors and attitudes are present in a primary caregiver, it could have a severe impact on that caregivers parental practices (as cited Compas, et. al, 2010). Parenting practices because of depression symptoms can create a stressful environment for children (as cited Compas et al., 2010). This is a risk factor as positive parenting skills are essential to promote healthy development in children (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine [NRCIM], 2009). Children are reliant upon their parents for positive reinforcement and strong guidance. When a parent suffers from depression, they may not have the ability to navigate through their depression symptoms to provide the strong guidance and good role modeling that their children need to create a healthy environment for them.

<center>Findings:</center>

Responses to Depressive Symptoms

Three of the four participants identified social isolation as the major symptom of depression that their parent displayed. When asked specifically about what depression looked like with their parents, three of the four participants told stories about how their parents would lock themselves in their rooms, indicating various symptoms of the depression including withdrawal, irritability, and unavailability. The responses to this isolation were mixed. Participant 1 felt rejected, Participant 2 was frustrated and participant 3 was afraid. A typical theme was that their parents were unavailable to their children when they needed them to be role models and positive reinforcements. Instead, they isolated themselves and cut off communication and interactions with them. This has proven to be a difficult process for this sample of participants. The only exception to speaking about the isolation was participant 4. She focused on her fathers emotional unavailability. She was particularly focused on her fathers cruel behavior and specifically mentioned her father telling her that he didnt care and didnt want to hear about her experience. By being emotionally unavailable, her father also cut off communication about any issues that have occurred in the family.

Communication

Each of the participants expressed that there was a lack of communication in their families. The parent might not have the cognitive capacities to engage in a conversation with their children because the depressive symptoms are just too severe and life-consuming. For many children, this leads to the lack of opportunity to discuss concerns that children had, even with other social supports (Ahlstrom, Skarsater & Danielson, 2011). This is evident in this population as participants discussed issues with their parents being physically and emotionally unavailable. Each of the four participants, in this case, reported feeling that everyone in their family was aware that there was a problem, but no one wanted to talk about it or confront it. Silence and secrecy became a family norm. Communication about the depression was quickly dismissed as soon as it was brought up.

Another important aspect of communication is that it is reported that many children with parents with depression feel they do not have anyone that they can rely on for support (Ahlstrom, Skarsater & Danielson, 2011) so communication about feelings towards the parent and needs for help often go unmet. However, outside social support for this population had a mixed result. Participant 1, Participant 2 and Participant 3 were all able to name key people in their lives that they felt like they could turn to for support about issues related to their parent. They reported that these people were non-judgmental and important in the unfolding of their lives. They felt as if they could rely on these people as supports to openly discuss their issues with their parents depression and get the help they needed. This help varied from psychological support, i.e. discussions about the depression, to physical needs, having that person bring them places they needed to go when their parent could not. Participant 4 was the only individual to state that she did not feel that she had someone she could turn to outside of clinical supports. However, they still reported working on wanting to learn to control their emotions and have better relationships with other people. It is important for me to point out that the three individuals were able to seek support because their parent who had depression was not their primary attachment figure.

Responding to Needs

There was evidence of felt obligation within this population. Felt obligation is a set of actions that an individual feels they should do in their relationships with their parents (Abraham and Stein, 2013, pg. 602) despite any emotional or physical consequences a person might feel in response. Of course, this sense of felt obligation was expressed in different ways depending on the individual circumstances. As suggested in the literature, this likely made the participants feel powerless to help their parents, even though they felt that they needed to (Ahlstrom, Skarsater & Danielson, 2011) because even though their parents have an illness that makes it hard for them to act as parents, they still love them and want them to be okay. The felt obligation also includes performing tasks that they thought their parent wanted them to do including taking responsibility for things that needed to be completed in family life such as cooking and cleaning (Ahlstrom, Skarsater & Danielson, 2011). This seems to be present for several of the participants who reported going out of their way to make sure the basic needs of their parents are met including getting them food and making sure that they are eating.

Relationships with Peers

Three of the four participants report that they feel their ability to have relationships has been affected by their relationship with their depressed parent. For two of the four participants, romantic relationships seemed to be much more affected than peer relationships. The relationship between the parent, if they are the primary caregiver, and the child will provide the working model for all relationships the child will have in the future. However, this is only the case if the parent is the primary caregiver. If trust is compromised, it might be difficult for the child to trust others with whom they have relationships with. There was no evidence, that the parent each participant identified as having depression was indeed their primary caregiver. Therefore, it may be likely that this is why many of the participants report that they have good friends who are supportive of them and feel that they can trust them with difficult issues. Two of the four participants report being hyper aware of mistakes that they make in their relationships so they can fix them. This could be a response to feeling they were helpless growing up to fix the problems in their household, so now they want to have the responsibility for fixing things because they can.

Importance of Education

A significant role identification for the participants was being a college student and being independent. For the three of the four participants in this study, the social identity of being a college student was a major aspect of their life and acted as a protective factor for them in ensuring their self-esteem and that their experience is different from their parents. One participant reports using education as a coping skill. She reported that by continuously learning and becoming more educated, she will eventually be able to break the cycle of mental illness. Participant 2 and Participant 3 both take enormous pride in their educational achievements. Participant 2 and Participant 3 reported learning very early on that she would not receive praise for these accomplishments from their parents, but sought support from other people

<center> Validation:</center>

You are not responsible for your parents depression. Your experiences are valid and your feelings matter. You can recover from whatever has happened to you. I encourage you to reach out to a listener if this information has trigger you or upset you in any way. Or if you just want to talk further.Thank you for taking the time to read my project and know you are far from being alone in this struggle. You got this!

<center>Questions:</center>

Now that Ive talked a little bit about my findings, Im interested to see what you guys think. Please feel free to answers as many or as few questions as you like.

1. Question: What do you feel is/are the major symptoms of your parents depression and how does it/the make you feel?

2. Question: How do you think youve experienced felt obligation with your parent with depression?

3. Question: Who do you turn to when you need to communicate or you need support?

4. Question: How do you think your relationships have been impacted by your relationship with your parent with depression?

5. Question: What are your coping skills or things in your life that allow you to maintain your self- esteem?

<center>References: [x][x][x][x][x][x][x]* </center>

*These can all be accessed for free on a database at your local library or university

<center>More reading:</center>

1 .Helping a Depressed Parent

2. Want to Help Depressed Mom, but How?

3. How to Tiptoe Around a Depressed Mom

4. How My Mother's Depression Shaped My Whole Life

5. Living with My Mother's Depression

6. The Truth About Growing up with a Depressed Parent