Our mental heath care system is broken.

We are telling people there is no hope, they are broken, and not giving them the full story.

How we can start healing ourselves: Create mitochondrial health: nutritional psychiatry recognizes the need to prioritize nutrition for mitochondrial function. Eat food your ancestors ate. Mitochornial dysfunction is a key feature in bipolar, anxiety, and depression.

Want to have better relationships?

Stop over-explaining.

How to be clear and kind: Over-explaining is a stress response. When we over-explain we’re afraid that someone will get upset with us or misunderstand us.

Here’s what an adult child wants to hear from their parent.

(also called accountability) I know I didn’t always handle my emotions well, and I was overwhelmed often. I can see how that would have been scary for you growing up, and I’m so sorry you had to deal with that alone.

You can’t be a parent to your parent.

You can’t be responsible for their issues or happiness.

Here’s Why: Some parents look to their adult children to be their sole support system. This is especially true if they don’t have a spouse or within a marriage that lack support.

The parentified daughter has done it all alone.

She’s felt like everyone’s caregiver.

Here’s what she needs to hear: The parentified daughter has felt the weight of the world on her shoulders since she was a child. She should have been protected. She should have had someone caring for her.

If you were “mature for their age” you might have been parentified. Parentification is when a child is made to fill an adult role.

This is an invisible trauma that has life long impact.

HERE’S WHY: 🧵 Parentification is an extremely common family dynamic where children are expected to: manage their parents emotions or issues (most common is marital problems), take care of the home & siblings on a regular basis, or act as a peer to a parent.

1. Some of us always knew something “happened” to our mothers, but didn’t know what…

A tribute to the mothers who carried silent pain: Growing up, some of us knew our mothers had been through something extremely painful or unthinkable. Maybe it was how overprotective she was. Or her comments for us to cover up. Maybe it was the way we knew she wasn’t at peace.

Emotionally immature people (EIP) struggle most with: listening.

They can interrupt, talk over, or completely shut down to conversation.

Here's Why: Emotionally immature people do not have a fully formed sense of self. Their childhoods had repeated events of complex trauma, leaving them to become quickly dyregulated. They also never learned how to cope with their own emotions.

The New Generational Wealth:

Witnessing respect between your parents, even if they're not together anymore. The New Generational Wealth:

Growing up in a home where people apologize and repair after conflict.

If you were “mature for their age” you might have been parentified. Parentification is when a child is made to fill an adult role.

This is an “invisible” trauma that has life long impact.

HERE’S WHY: 🧵 Parentification is an extremely common family dynamic where children are expected to: manage their parents emotions or issues (most common is marital problems), take care of the home & siblings on a regular basis, or act as a peer to a parent.

In relationships that end, one thing is always lacking:

Appreciation.

WHY APPRECIATION MATTERS: Most people grew up in homes where their talents, traits, and unique quirks went unseen or unnoticed. This leaves people with an even deeper desire to be seen and appreciated by their partner.

How to be assertive (without being rude): Assertive people have high confidence.

They can: stand up for themselves, express their feelings, and are capable of being misunderstood.

The parentified son believes his role is to keep everyone around him happy. But inside he's drowning in doubt and wonders if he'll ever meet someone who appreciates him for who he is, not what he can do for them. The parentified son was the "little man" of the house when he was just a child. He felt the weight of his mother's stress and stopped showing any fear or sadness because she looked to him to comfort her. He still feels he's responsible for her life choices.

The end result of childhood trauma is: an overdeveloped sense of responsibility.

You think you need to fix everyone and everything.

Here's How To Break Free: Growing up in a chaotic, unstable, or unpredictable environment creates a core belief that we have to fix everything and everyone around us.

Someone is trying to guilt you.

This doesn't mean you've done something wrong.

Reminders for when you feel guilty: We feel guilt for many different reasons. Sometimes, it's because of our own behavior. Other times it's because we've been made to believe we're responsible for the emotions of other people.

How To Deal With Someone Giving You The Silent Treatment:

(A Thread) The silent treatment is when a person abruptly starts to ignore you and your presence as a punishment. They control when the silent treatment is given and when they'll speak to you again. This can last for hours, days, or even months.

You're not meant to be emotionally regulated all the time.

Being dysregulated can help us.

Here's Why: Sometimes, your emotions need to be dysregulated. When someone disrespects you, violates a boundary, or when you're heartbroken dysregulation is actually a healthy sign that you're connected to your own emotional experience.

Helicopter parenting creates adults who are easily frustrated and entitled.

Children need to experience loss, rejection, and hurt.

HERE'S WHY: Many well-meaning parents don't want their children to experience pain. So, they attempt to protect them from their feelings. They see them struggling with something and step in to "fix" it.

Normalize: having hope.

Understand your choices create your life, and you can overcome anything.

What we need to start teaching in society: Today, so much focus is on what we can't do.

And how systems are rigged, and we do not have much impact on the outcome of our lives.

As a child I had a nagging sense that someone was going to break in my house in the middle of the night.

Or, that my parents would die.

Here's why we have anxious, crisis thoughts: As a child, I remember staying up late with a deep fear someone would break in. I didn't understand my anxiety or why I had these "dark" thoughts. To cope with them, I made my room spotless.

Constantly reorganizing things.

Women don't belong in the workplace...

A THREAD 🧵 Women don't belong in the kitchen.

Or having babies.