Mental Health 101

June 2, 2024 Stephanie Rese

Mental Health 101

This is Stephanie here.

I talk a lot about mental health for caregivers and parents in my book, Raising the Goddess of Spring: A guide for parents raising children with rare chromosome disorders.

I care about mental health so much that I went back to school to become a social worker and now I work in the field. I cannot stress enough how important it is to recognize when you are not coping well in your caregiving journey. Parents raising children with unique challenges can be at risk for anxiety, depression, and caregiver burnout, but we can also experience a lot of growth and self-development.

We don’t need to just manage regular stress. Some of us are raising children with very serious medical, developmental and behaviour issues, and many of us, myself included, didn’t know in advance the skills necessary to cope with the extra demands on our lives. We have to accept a rare diagnosis for our children. We have to balance our usual lives with new, untypical demands of newborns who may face extended hospitalizations, medical appointments while juggling the needs of our other family members and try to keep our heads above water. Some of us may even be managing symptoms of trauma if our kids have had very complex medical needs.

The good news is, you can do this! Lots of us do this. We have many new skills we can learn to help us come to acceptance, learn to cope with uncertainty, be compassionate to ourselves, build resilience, navigate changing relationships, balance expectations, recognize signs of burnout and hopefully, take steps to prevent it from happening.

You may have heard the analogy that if we are in an airplane and there was a problem, that we have to put OUR oxygen mask on first before we help the people around us, and that is what we need to do. I have learned there is no shame in asking for support. We cannot always do this on our own.

In some of the mental health series posts I will be sharing more on some things you can do to keep yourself focused.

In the meantime, if you are struggling right now – you can reach out for help: