Hi everyone. I'm new here. I am a 41year old female who has been questioning my life and how I was raised. During my entire childhood (up until I was around 18), my mom was in a major depression (on the couch, crying, attempted suicide-unknown the me until I was an adult, etc.) My mother also never left the house unless my dad or her mom was with her... she says that she was agoraphobic. (sorry if I am misspelling the terms). My mom lost my sister when she was 18 months old on January 28, 1963 (the baby was sick and died in the hospital)... I was born on February 28, 1963 to grieving parents. My mom was never taken to a professional. My dad's way of dealing was to tell me not to bother mom with any of my problems and not to be a problem. My dad would buy car parts etc., let me know about it and tell me not to tell mom because "we" don't want to upset her. I feel now that my relationship with dad was like an emotional incest because he treated me like the wife and parent and my mom like the child. FYI-I am an only child too.

I felt bad all through childhood. My mom has not been in depression for years now (she never did get help) and she can go a few places that she feels comfortable. I was feeling pretty on top of things as an adult living my own life (I knew my childhood was messed-up, but for the longest time, I thought that it wasn't that bad). However, my dad died April 2003 and my 62 year old mom moved in with my husband, my 16 year old son, and me. I have had to show her how to write a check, put gas in a car, etc., because my dad, up until the day he died did all of those things and my mom wasn't really interested in these type of things. I know that my mom will live with us for the rest of her life because she has no money, has never worked, and is very dependent.

That was a long prelude to ask this, would I be considered an adult child of a mentally ill parent(s)? Now that my mom has moved in, I feel like I've gone into red alert...I might need to seek professional help to control feelings of being unworthy of good things in my life (I realized I was raised to feel bad or selfish in expressing my needs or having them met). I talk to my mom all the time about childhood and she appears to agree that I was "neglected" a bit, but I can tell that she cannot take much responsibility for it because she was depressed/phobic, etc.

Thanks for reading this and offering any words of advise.