Recovering From Family Trauma: Strategies for Reducing Complications and Supporting Recovery

If you have a family member living with a complex mental illness, don’t assume it isn’t your problem. Not only does that loved one need your support, you need guidance for coping with and managing your own resulting mental health issues.

Mental illness, especially complex situations with severe co-occurring conditions, can have a lot of effects on family members:

• Increased risk of mental health diagnosis
• Financial problems
• Stigma and discrimination
• Unstable home environment
• Emotional turmoil
• Difficult relationships
• Behavioral challenges, such as acting out at school for children
• Trauma and trauma disorders

While there are many harmful potential consequences of mental illness in the family, trauma is one of the most serious. The chaos of the home environment, which may include abuse or neglect, is a major risk factor for traumatic experiences.

Children may be particularly vulnerable, but studies show adults may struggle with trauma as well. One group of researchers found that parents of patients with schizophrenia, especially those who experienced violent outburst, have an increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Trauma is a reaction rather than a specific event, and it causes a range of mental health symptoms. Certain types of events or experiences, such as abuse or a natural disaster, are more likely to cause trauma, but how people react varies. Some people may become traumatized in a home with mental illness, while others do not. Noted risk factors for PTSD include family psychiatric conditions.

If you have a loved one struggling with mental health issues, the best thing you can do for the whole family is to make sure they get adequate treatment. Even for the most difficult mental illnesses, treatment can be effective, both for the individual and for the family.

Consider a residential treatment program that will allow your loved one to spend a focused amount of time in a safe, healing environment. Residential centers can provide expert staff, individualized treatment plans, family therapy and support, and aftercare.

The best way to deal with trauma resulting from a mentally ill family member is to prevent it. While the mental illness cannot necessarily be prevented, how the family copes with it can have powerful repercussions. Poor management can lead to ripple effects, including trauma. Positive support for the family as a whole can prevent trauma.

Mental illness is not restricted to the one person with the diagnosis. It impacts everyone in the family. The individual who is ill needs family support for recovery. In turn, every other family member must have positive support to cope with the complications. When families approach mental illness as a strong unit, openly and with consideration for everyone’s needs, trauma can be minimized or prevented.

What does treating mental illness as a family illness look like? Simply recognizing that it impacts everyone is not enough. You must take active steps to treat and support the entire family. Start with your loved one’s treatment program. The best facilities include families because they know how important it is.

You should be able to participate in family and relationship therapy, family psychoeducation programming, and support groups. These will help you learn more about your loved one’s mental illness, how to support them, and how to cope individually and as a family.

Total involvement in treatment will strengthen family relationships, improve communication, and provide the foundation for creating a more stable, healthy home environment. It also means that any other family member who needs more dedicated individual help can be identified and supported. For instance, a therapist in a family session may see the signs that you are struggling with depression, which requires diagnosis and treatment.

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Any member of the family can be negatively impacted or even traumatized by mental illness, but children are always most vulnerable. Parents and older siblings can be instrumental in minimizing or preventing trauma by providing as many protective factors as possible:

• Open communication—age-appropriate, of course—about the individual’s mental illness helps children understand difficult situations and know that it is not their fault.
• Stability is essential and is hard to provide with complex mental illness. Anything that makes the home more stable, such as routine and scheduling, is helpful.
• Kids need good self-esteem to face potentially traumatic experiences. They can develop more confidence by getting involved in hobbies and activities, sports, community groups, and by having responsibilities in the home.
• Strong, loving relationships with adults are highly protective. When a parent cannot provide this, having other adults in a child’s life is positive. Aunts and uncles, grandparents, older siblings, and even trusted friends, coaches, or teachers can play this role.
• Children are not too young to learn positive coping skills. They can benefit from early practices in mindfulness, meditation, and relaxation strategies.
• Mental health care, including individual or family therapy, can help a child learn how to better cope with their difficult home environment and relationships. Even if they are not diagnosed with mental illness, proactive care provides benefits.