Living In a Secret World

There has been a growing international discourse regarding the experiences and needs of

children living with a parent with mental illness. However, there remains a paucity of

research and dialogue surrounding the experiences of adult children who have lived with

childhood parental mental illness. The limited available research which considered adult

children highlighted increased risks of anxiety, depression, suicide, and limited

psychosocial functioning. Furthermore there is a limited discourse surrounding the adult

child's own parenting role. Qualitative research which invites adult children to construct

their parenting narratives, (being parented and their own current parenting role) is

unique.

Methodology

A social constructionist philosophy was adopted to underpin the study. A Partnership

Framework for a Reflexive Narrative for Researcher and Participant was generated

specially for this study. Participants were invited to meet with the researcher if they had

experienced childhood parenting by a parent with a diagnosed mental illness and if they

themselves, had not been diagnosed or treated for mental illness. During a metaphorical

research space, the researcher met with individual participants to work in partnership to

construct their narrative of being parented, alongside their own parenting role. A multistaged

thematic analysis process was used thereafter. In addition, a chronological

mapping of participant's experiences highlighted important themes from childhood, the

teenager period, adulthood, and subsequent adult children's parenting journeys.