Growing up with a depressed parent: How to feel “good enough”

Growing up with a depressed parent(s) is an ACE (adverse childhood experience). They may have loved you more than words could express, but their depression would have made it hard for them to show it – and for you to feel it. 

This experience, during a key stage of your life, can leave a lasting wound. A wound that, if we just stick a little plaster over it, can interfere in different areas of our adult lives. This might include:

• your self-esteem and overall image of yourself
• your confidence
• your ability to feel safe or fully yourself in relationships

I could go on and on. My hope for this article is to help you understand how living with a depressed parent might have impacted you. But also, how it might be a hidden driver behind your struggle to feel “good enough” now, as an adult in your 30s, 40s or 50s. And to offer some short activities that might help you understand yourself more and start a process of finding lasting change.

I will also say this; while I’ve used a “how to” in the title for this article, I want to underline that developing your self-worth is a life-long, messy and often, uncomfortable journey. Even though we live in a culture that loves quick fixes in tidy boxes, there isn’t a simple “top five things to do” list that will work for everyone. But my hope is that this article starts something off for you – a process that’s filled with getting to know yourself on a deeper level and discovering the untapped self-worth that’s always been inside you.

Parental depression

What their depression might have looked like:

• Often appeared quite sad or low in themselves.
• Regularly tearful and often might have a cry out of nowhere.
• Nothing really seemed to please them or bring them joy. Even when something amazing happened, they may have found it hard to express their joy.
• They didn’t seem to have much drive or motivation.
• Oversleeping a lot of the time.

I could write a much longer list. But the thing about depression is that it can look different for everyone. Some of the things on this list might bring up memories and some might not resonate at all, and that’s ok. My intention here is to help you think about and remember how their depression showed up at home.

Three things every child needs

Heinz Kohut was a well-established psychoanalyst in the 1970s. Kohut believed that a child’s self-esteem and development would be greatly hindered if certain needs weren’t met in childhood. As a result, they would look to other sources to gain a sense of worth and value. The three core needs that Kohut identified were:

Positive mirroring

The process of our parent(s) acting as a mirror for us. A mirror that might show us a loveable, wonderful reflection or a burdensome, stress-inducing reflection. It’s not always going to be that black and white, but for a child, it will likely feel that extreme.

Question: What kind of reflection/image of yourself might you have had reflected back to you?

The need to idealise a strong, calming adult

Every child needs to have a bond with an adult who’s consistently in their life and who can make them feel calm, safe and comfortable, especially in moments of danger. 

Question: How safe did you feel in moments of danger? To what extent did it feel like your depressed parent could protect you, keep you safe and make things feel ok again?

Twinship 

As a child, you would have needed to feel like others – a sense that you’re really similar to those around you.

Question: Did it feel like your depressed parent felt different to everyone else’s parent/s? If so, can you recall what might have felt different?

These terms might sound like typical therapy jargon – and they kind of are. But they’re also so important to the healthy development of self-esteem. When these needs aren’t met during our childhood, our mind creates a template for our worth. If we never gently look at that template, we can carry it with us into our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, you get the picture. It can impact our career, our relationships and most importantly, our self-esteem and perception of our worth as a person.

Three ways that the hurt child might show up in your 30s or 40s

An always-on hunger for validation and a pressure to over-achieve at work

This might feel like a never-ending hunger for praise from parent-like figures in your life. For example, the older manager you admire a lot at work and desperately crave approval from. When they don’t give you this, you might feel deeply wounded. 

A lingering struggle with your self-esteem and feeling “good enough”

The cloudy, grey weather you experienced as a child at home would have had a lasting impact. It may have led you to believe that you’re the central reason why things feel this way. As a result, your self-esteem and perception of yourself took a bit hit from a very young age.  

A struggle with emotional intimacy or over-dependency in your relationships

You might struggle with attachment issues, either fearing intimacy or being overly dependent on partners. As a way of coping with your depressed parent, it may have been easier to shut off your feelings – which, over time, might have created a pattern of avoiding intimate feelings of emotional closeness and trust with others. Or you might remain in a state of anxiousness about losing the love you are receiving now. You would have spent so much of your life being deprived of essential and consistent love that the thought of losing it feels deeply devastating.

If there’s one thing, I hope you can take away…

At this stage, I want to underline something. Your depressed parent would have been carrying and repressing so much. But their depression led to a numbness. A numbness that made it extremely hard to show you how amazing and brilliant you were. 

And even though it may have felt like it back then, their depression wasn't your fault.

Connecting with “little you” 

You might have noticed a theme from this article. I’ve tried to offer a few prompts that I hope have helped you start to connect with “little you”. Again, this might sound like typical therapy jargon, but there is truth in connecting with the vulnerable, child-like parts of yourself that can be transformative in your healing and growth journey.

It’s also important to say that tending to damaged self-worth that stems from an unsettling childhood is a long-term process. There isn’t a quick fix that will just seamlessly untangle those beliefs. However, understanding how our history informs our present will go a long way in starting this process.

How therapy can help

Therapy can offer you a safe and consistent space to make sense of your history. It can help you discover things about yourself that were hidden, which can open the door for change and growth.

• The impact their depression has had on your self-esteem.
• Why it feels so hard to emotionally connect or trust our partner.
• Why we feel a deep worry about our partner leaving us, without much evidence to back it up.
• Why we might feel so responsible for how other people are feeling – “They seem down, I must have done something wrong”. 
• Why no matter how much we achieve or succeed, something inside of us feels unfulfilled or unhappy.

Ultimately, therapy can help us form a different kind of relationship with ourselves – a more understanding and gentler one.