Adult children of parents with mental illness - any kind of support groups/chat?

[Starberries]

I am a 23-year-old child of a mother with bipolar disorder. Raised by her for the first 12 years of my life before social services removed me. Have a lot of emotional baggage from that, and hardly any relationship with mother left as a result.

Have really lately wanted to speak to other adult children who were affected by this in childhood but can't find hardly ANYTHING. Anyone know of anything? Or anyone on here who wants to start something maybe on the board?

Thanks in advance, feel like roadblocks at every turn.

Both my parents had depression and attempted suicide, no time to chat but bumping your message x

I dont know what support I can offer you but I was raised by parents who both had mental health issues. They both had alcohol problems too when I was growing up and we had a hellish childhood as a result. My relationship with my mother is pretty much non existant too as a result.

Unfortunatly I'm suffering from a lot of problems right now so I'm not the best person to offer support, but I just wanted you to know you are not alone. I'm a bit older than you and to be honest I wish I'd had more intensive therapy for this when I was younger because I tried to make out it didn;t affect me so much and now I'm realising it really has quite severely.

What I would say to you also is try not to feel too bad about not having a relationship with your mother right now as it may well be for the best. I kept mine kind of limping along for years out of guilt and misplaced loyalty and it really didn't help me or her and in hindsight (great thing) I would have been better off out of it. Thats just my experience, and I'm not saying its the same for you though.

I hope you can talk this through, even with a therapist if you cant find a group- its really important to try and vent the feelings it leaves you with and sort through a bit of that baggage if possible. People really do recover from this, it just takes time and an active commitment to do so I think. Hope I dont sound patronising, I dont know if you have alreaady had therapy.

Really wish you all the best x