The Reality of Teaching My Kids About My Mental Illness

By Jessica Azar

As a woman who has grown to completely accept her bipolar disorder diagnosis, I have done my very best to acquaint my four children with the realities of living with a mental illness. They need to know that my diagnosis doesn’t define me as a person. The same goes for other people living with mental illness.

Mental illnesses are frequently inherited, and I would be remiss…

Jessica Azar
Jessica Azar

Jessica Azar writes while raising four stair-step kids, known affectionately as The Herd, with her husband and college sweetheart in her Alabama hometown. She blogs at Herd Management and humorously details the adventures and mishaps of being a work-at-home-mom in addition to raising kids with a country lifestyle. She also happens to like yoga and single malt scotch a whole lot. Jessica co-edited a mental health anthology entitled Surviving Mental Illness Through Humor, and has had essays published in humor anthologies like Clash of the Couples, It's Really 10 Months; Special Delivery, and I Just Want to Be Perfect. Look for her other published work on Redbook, Marie Claire, Country Living, xoJane, The Southern Weekend, elephant Journal, POPSUGAR, Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, NickMom.Com, Venn Magazine, BluntMoms and additional online locations.

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