Parenting after Mania and the Psychology of role reversals

What is most bothersome to me right now is how this wild ride has affected my kids and my ability to parent them...

It has been so hard on them. To watch their mom first break and become emotionally unstable, tired, foggy, forgetful, etc from a car accident and the PTSD* that followed then to watch her break a thousand times worse from a therapist.
...

"It is not normal for people to fall in love with their therapists," my son expresses to me about a month ago when I am trying to get to the bottom of what is really going on with him. Why he is failing all of his classes, impossible to get out of bed in the morning and other things...

Chastise me if you want, for not keeping this hidden from my children, but when you break as big as I did, it is handled the way that it was by the providers that should be helping you, you are as openly honest about things as I am, and it lasts as long as it did, things like that will not stay hidden from your teen kids or anyone. And it might also be worth noting that the area of my brain that is specifically built for keeping things in is actually broken and the space for this kind of storage is now smaller which means I can retain and refrain less... I wonder if that has also contributed. 

But I also think it likely could have been even worse if I had kept it hidden. 

I think this because I know what I was experiencing and it was hard to keep from blowing up completely even with letting out some of the steam as it built. But I also say this because I know of too many people on both the parent and child side that have experienced a lot of emotional distress from keeping hidden what was really going on. Often they are referred to as "skeletons in the closet" or "swept under the rug" and from what I have witnessed hiding the truths and realities is not constructive or healthy and often leads to far worse as people bury more and more, and hide the truly heinous acts that are happening. Unwillingness to face and talk about issues has not ever proven constructive or healthy to me.

AND besides all that, that is exactly what they Neuroscience Institute was doing with me, why on earth would I then repeat the same neglect and abuse with my children? 

They had lost there mom. I may have been physically present but I was too often lost in the madness and unavailable because of how hard I had to work simply to stay ahead of the death sentence I was given. 

They deserved to know and they deserved to know why. 

It has been so hard on them. 

And still they are such amazing kids and so much more compassionate, understanding and even practical than the adults and professionals that were supposed to be. 

When my son said this, what do I say?

Caught off guard and heart broken for him I was not sure how to respond, but two things I remember doing. I explained that it actually is normal for people to fall in love with their therapists and it is very common. What is not normal is their therapist falling in love with them or implying that they had and then dropping them and refusing to ever have anything to do with them...that and I apologized, because I am sorry for all that has happened and for how hard it has been on him. To which he replies, "It's okay, I know it's not your fault." And I try to make sure, I hope and I pray, he is not now burdening himself with guilt for his feelings and frustrations. He is entitled to them and they are not unjustified. But his loving forgiveness and understanding, regardless of his pain, lets know how lucky I am.  

He and my daughter have both said this to me, more than once... They are such sweet, good kids. And I am grateful that even though they have frustrations with me, and they have this pain and cross to bare, they know when things have been very much out of my control and they were stalwart and strong when I was so very broken. They carried me so many times.

I love and am so grateful for them.

But there is a flip side to that coin; this type of role reversal (even though it was not a complete role reversal) makes it very difficult to return to more normal parenting and having parental expectations. 

It is confusing and hard for all of us -the psychology of it I don't want to delve into right now because it exhausts my brain. But I do know that it is another way that I now feel incredibly insecure. I almost feel like I no longer have the right to parent them...

...At a times when they are unravelling and when the fall apart some themselves because of this, as I improve and become more stable. 

* note: The PTSD that followed was linked to a TBI I was hospitalized for at age 12 -this put me reprocessing from both an adult and childlike state.
** this article is being published with my son and daughters permission. When I asked them if they think it has been a good or bad thing that I have been as open and honest with them about this as I have my daughter plainly and confidently says, "I think it has been good" while my son points out that he thinks it has "probably" been good because, "you know that I hear things that I am not supposed to hear and don't hear things that I am supposed to hear. So if you had tried to keep it hidden I probably would know even more about it but it would be a very different version." He would  not have really understood or had a clear picture of what was going on in addition to feeling like he could not talk about it.