Documentary
I’m one of the subjects of a documentary film titled I Am Still Your Child, dealing with parental mental illness. For those who don’t know, my mom was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was quite you and my childhood was… different than a lot of other kids. I think that the original writer and director as well as the rest of the film crew have made a pretty powerful film. And one that I hope will get people talking. The film’s website is at http://iamstillyourchild.com/. The IMDB page for the film is at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8228908/.
The poster for the film was designed by the amazing Sara Morley (Design Postimage).
From the film’s website: “More than half a million of Canada’s frontline mental healthcare ‘workers’ are less than twelve years old. They’re called COPMI — Children Of a Parent with Mental Illness — and there are 575,000 of them in Canada.
I Am Still Your Child explores the point of view of growing up with a mentally ill parent through the intimate and touching stories of Sarah, Jessy and Von, but their experiences speak to a much wider issue. We’ve gathered other firsthand stories here in addition to in-depth information and resources about the subject.
Children who grow up with a parent who has mental health difficulties are at risk for a host of grave repercussions, among which a much higher risk of developing mental illness themselves and reproducing a potentially toxic pattern. These children are vulnerable to life-long disability and yet they are virtually invisible to our healthcare system.
Our goal is to shed light on the issue and provide solutions that will help break the isolation in which children of a parent with a mental illness often live.”
Trailer
Streaming
The film was broadcast on CBC television throughout Canada on Saturday, March 31st, 2017 and streamed through CBC Gem for a few years after that.Unfortunately, the film is no longer available on the CBC. I don’t know exactly what has happened, but apparently Catbird Productions (the producers of the film) and CBC could not reach an agreement on a rights renewal, so sadly the film has disappeared from streaming options on the CBC. However! Somebody has posted the film along with the trailer on the Internet Archive. Apparently this happened in the spring of 2026, but I wasn’t aware of it until I received an “out of the blue” email telling me about it! I checked and yup, there it is! And you can watch it right now using the player below (or by visiting the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/i-am-still-your-child to watch it there):
Now, this is only the English-language version of the film. There is a streaming option for the French language version of the film (that can be found at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tonenfantpourtoujours).
