I’m a 25 year old female. 

I struggle with severe mental illness, including depression, borderline personality disorder, PTSD, etc. 

Ideally, I would love to have children - a big family to be exact. But, I just don’t think that’s realistic when I have severe mental illness. I also think it would be selfish of me to have kids when I know I have severe mental illness. I can’t bring someone else into the world and drag them through the mud with my mental health struggles. 

When I am really sick and have severe episodes, all I do is sleep all day to escape the pain. Just the other day, I felt like I needed to go to the emergency room because I was triggered by a traumatic event from my past. I don’t want to have kids if I’m in and out of the psychiatric hospital every other month. When I have anxiety attacks, they last a long time and it’s all I can think about. If I didn’t take my medicine, I honestly don’t know how I would be acting. I would probably be worse than a drunk or high person. 

If I had kids, they would be ignored during one of my depressive episodes. I legitimately wouldn’t be able to take care of them. My kids would probably grow to resent me because I would probably be in the psychiatric hospital every other month, or just generally not involved in their life. That’s a lot for a kid. It’s a lot for an adult too, but especially for a child. 

I also would love to get married, and I don’t feel that that’s the same type of responsibility as having kids. But I also know my husband would probably resent me for bringing so much stress and pain into his life because of my illness. At this point, I’m seriously considering just staying single and childless my entire life. 

In y’all’s opinions, would you ever have kids despite having a mental illness? And if you do, how do you manage it?