family and your mental illness

Branwell -- the part of your post about how your mother's response/feelings about your mental illness and viewing you as a "miniature version of herself" I think is a really important thing to realize/bring up, because I feel that is very common as well as potentially very difficult to deal with. I think it took my mom the better half of a decade to realize that my emotional distress would not be salved with "homemade toast with nice homemade jam and a cup of tea," the way hers were. Once she realized that I was not like her in that way, things have been a lot better. While my mother is a sympathetic person, she is very focused on helping in practical ways: food, money, money for expensive food ... at one point about 6 years ago, when things were really bad, she drove up and cleaned my kitchen, which in retrospect, did make me feel a lot better.

My mom is too out of it and consumed by her own shit at this point to really offer support. My dad tries on occasion (he was pretty great when I had a panic attack at their house) but the first time he ever found out my mom was on meds he flushed them and said no wife of his would see a shrink. sigh. Basically we just don't really talk about it unless required like the aforementioned panic attack. He is a lot better about my mom's MH now but that's only because it became impossible to ignore.