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Parents with depression: "Children often feel they have no right to a life of their own"

2019-10-03T12:47:16.935Z


Children of depressed parents often feel guilty - some suffer into adulthood. Teenager Katja wrote letters to her father after his attempted suicide and so processed her feelings.



When Uwe Hauck decides to end his life, his 13-year-old daughter Katja is in school. She is new to the class. Together with a classmate she grates carrots, the students want to bake Tarte Flambée. She still remembers her mother suddenly coming in and talking softly to the teacher.

"I thought I was doing something," she says four years after the day she'll never forget. Only at home, the mother explains why she has brought Katja and her two brothers so suddenly out of the classroom: The father was "upset". Too much stress. He is now in the hospital, the children need not worry, she says.

"I did not believe the explanation from the beginning," says Katja. Nevertheless, none of the siblings asks. They feel it is not the right time, the mother is tense, even the grandparents have come. The father stays in the clinic, weeks pass.

Only much later do parents tell Katja and her brothers the truth. Again they all call into the living room, again Katja thinks she has done something. Instead, she learns that her father has tried to kill herself. Out of a panic attack, Uwe Hauck had sent his wife a farewell message via WhatsApp. So she had found him in time.

Do you think about taking your own life? Talk to other people about it. Here you will find - also anonymous - help offers in supposedly hopeless situations. By phone, chat, e-mail or in personal conversation.

"Of course we were shocked," says Katja. "And at the same time, I wanted to find out immediately what depression is and if I have anything to do with it." She has so many questions: why would you want to kill yourself? Can it happen again? She researches on the Internet, is relieved when she reads that a depression is well treatable - her father is now in treatment. At last.

Affected people tend to feel guilty

For years, the 51-year-old suffered from depression and anxiety, without knowing it. "I always thought, that's just me," says Uwe Hauck. "I thought it's part of my personality that I'm melancholy and thoughtful, often unfocused or over-stressed." He increasingly felt that his family was better off without him. Until the day of the suicide attempt.

"This is typical of a depression," says Ulrich Hegerl, psychiatrist and CEO of the Foundation German Depressionshilfe. Affected people tended to blame themselves in the disease phase. "They do not experience depression as an independent disease that can affect anyone," Hegerl said, "but as a failure, as someone who does not work through their problems or can not cope with workloads." The step of realizing that it is an illness is very difficult for most people. "Some need years," says Hegerl. "For the relatives this is extremely stressful, they often feel helpless."

Katja also does not know how to deal with her father. "In retrospect, I realized that the depression was to blame for much," says the 17-year-old. "He was often absent, for example, his answers did not fit my questions." When he came home from work, the children had to go to their rooms to avoid stressing their father. Nevertheless, she had a nice childhood, says Katja. She also wanted to tell her dad, 'You do not have to feel bad.'

She decides to write him letters. For a year father and daughter write each other, sharing their feelings. This year they have the correspondence in the book "Dear dad, are you crazy now?" released.

Uwe Hauck

Katja and Uwe Hauck: "Dear dad, are you crazy now?"

The handling of Uwe and Katja Hauck is loving, there are no allegations, no embittered words. Especially children of depressive parents suffer especially from the emotional stress. "When mother or father are sad, children quickly feel that they have done something wrong," says Michael Franz, medical director of the Vitos Clinic for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Gießen-Marburg. "Then they often feel the need to help or make up for something."

The biggest problem is the so-called parentification, a role reversal that occurs when a parent can no longer properly care for themselves due to the disease. Especially for single parents, children take over tasks that are not child-friendly, "to restore the balance in the family," explains Franz, who offers special coaching for children of mentally ill parents. "They help in the home, go shopping or even look after the sick parent, encourage it to take medication or comfort."

At the same time, the children are outwardly acting as if everything is alright - because of the stigma that still lies on depression. "Children love their parents, no matter what they say or do and whether they are healthy or sick," said Franz. "This can lead to loyalty conflicts."

"When my mother has to go to the hospital again, I always think that's what I did." (Luke, 17 years *)

"Instead of going to school and doing homework, I should stay with her as she sits there every day, sad and alone in the dark house, and I always see her picture in front of me, even at school." (Elisa, 13 years *)

"I was even rude lately and I thought, hopefully she will not kill herself." (Ben, 11 years *)

* Statements from participants from the psychiatric counseling center of Vitos-Kliniken in Gießen-Marburg. Name and age have been changed by the editor.

This often gives children the feeling that they have no right to their own lives. "Such people are often burn-out-endangered as adults because caring for them is difficult - they quickly get a guilty conscience," says Franz. "Their experiences can also be an opportunity and make them stronger."

End the silence

Katja Hauck begins therapy after the suicide attempt of her father. There she not only learns what her father's illness means - but also to be open about it. "My classmates had so many questions that made me realize there was not enough talk about them," she says.

Uwe Hauck, too, feels the open handling of his depression as a liberation. "I used to experience as often as people said, 'It'll be okay' or 'tear yourself down'," he says. "It does not help in those moments, and it makes me feel even more like a failure."

more on the subject

Suicidal thoughts What people and relatives can do

During his stay in hospital, the IT specialist tweets #ausderpaps under the hashtag. "Suddenly, I got a lot of messages from all sorts of people saying, 'I feel familiar, I think I'll go to the therapist too.'" It surprises him how many there are. Therefore, it is important to end the silence around the depression.

Today, Uwe Hauck knows that brooding is not part of his personality. He always carries a chili candy for panic attacks: "Sharpness distracts my body from panic," he says. "That's how I get a grip on anxiety." He takes antidepressants that stabilize him, has revived old hobbies and does a lot with his children. "Hospitalization is the best thing that could happen to us," he says. "The depressive phases can come back, but I've learned to handle them."

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2019-10-03

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