My niece is 5. She is aware that I have health problems and that I don't work and need to live by my mom for help. I know I sleep a lot during the day and don't sleep well at night. Just recently she has started noticing my face is sad and that kind of thing. I want her to grow up knowing that this is part of my life and my sister and I have discussed how important I think it is for this to be a matter of fact part of her life (since she was a fetus in fact). So we talk at dinner about my needing medication or my therapist says or whatever. If she asks about a mood she's noticing I tell her how I feel. My sister gives more information when needed, in manageable amounts. We're going to use the movie Inside Out as a talking point, I suspect soon since she's asking more now and she saw it with me for the specific reason that we'll discuss things that way.

Honestly she takes it in stride the same way she did when I had ankle reconstruction surgery and spent 4 months in a cast or walking boot. Her friend had broken his leg so she knew about casts and even requested a pink one, which she got. Her whole life I've either had a brace on or been recovering from surgery or just have to be a little careful of that ankle and she's so used to it that she was sitting on my leg while I was squatting the other day and she actually asked if she was on the leg that could hold her.

I figure mental illness will be the same and I'm glad for that. It should be an open part of our family. We have bipolar in both our father and our maternal grandma and possibly some cousins. Depression and anxiety run wild on one side. Her father has depression and anxiety too. And honestly my niece is very, very, very much like me in ways that raise eyebrows sometimes among the adults. She needs to know. Her risk just on family history is higher than usual and she needs to know always that she should never just take ADs but needs a psychiatrist who knows the family history and monitors for mania; she needs to know it could happen but not in a way that scares her, and she needs to know who I am. Bipolar is part of that.

(On the other hand we won't be discussing the PTSD until she's an adult so maybe I'm something of a hypocrit. I'm not sure but I think that's just too much for her really ever).