When there is a history of mental illness or suicide in the family,it can have a deep and lasting impact on children. In many families, mental health conditions go undiagnosed, leaving the children to deal with the fallout all alone. We have worked with many clients who have reported that even in their adulthood they have flashbacks of their parents’ violent fights. Children grow up normalising such behaviours and sometimes repeat the same patterns in their own adult relationships. Children grow up confused, sometimes carrying the hate for one parent that is not even their own.