You know the saying that if you look carefully, there is always a comical side to anything.
Regarding having Mentally Ill Parents - still looking ...
I am Italian, just in the sense of 'born in Italy' - our Mothers are well known for being crazy, although in popular fiction/series, they are endearing-kinda-crazy, there's either a genuine caring or a genuine loopiness, we never get to see how a cruel mother looks like and we don't want to see it or talk about it either.
Why?
Because it's uncomfortable, if we toy with the idea that some mothers may be sincerely cruel, it would be a big blow to one of the Pillars of our society and of our Psyche.
Aren't ALL mothers in Love with their children, supportive, sweet, happy to take care of them? ehmm, no, actually not.
I can testify that cruel mothers exist, they don't live in peace, always at war, their emotions for their children oscillate from love to hate, from appreciation to depreciation, from the desire to be with them, to the need to run away from them.
I have watched my mother's explosions for years, she winds up like a spring and then a tiny reason/disagreement/expression on my face, a tone in my voice, a look - that only she sees- and wham, she is all over the place, listing all my imaginary faults while waiting for my mandatory agreement on her version of reality, before we move on to my apologies, which she will grandly dismiss, because apologies are not necessary, it's enough that I understood my 'faults', this point is not negotiable, I have to agree to her distorted version of reality or we'll never hear the end of it.
Personally I think this is the cruelest thing my mother - and many others do -, it's not the blow ups, the neglect, the presence of these on/off mothers, their way to chain you to your past, never acknowledging anything you have done but only your mistakes, making sure you remember that You are the Mentally Ill person among the 2 of you, that in someway, somehow, you regularly acknowledge that, for example by agreeing on how much chatting with some friends is 'helping me' to be more balanced.
We must gloss over the facts that regularly unbalance me, like her behaviour, because we don't talk about those things, we talk about her mother's abuse on her, we talk about how I hurt her, how she fears that we may not get along if she comes to live with me when she is old - here specifically we don't talk about the fact that if she would just stop to do what she does, like blowing anything out of proportion, storming out of all the homes I have had in the world over a minor - if not completely imaginary - offense, while feeling entitled to be rude, aggressive, bossy and with a license to kill, with her sword/words, we would surely, eazzzily, get along.
So the question would be, why doesn't she stop? Because she can't.
I'm her emotional regulating system, when the tide comes up, she opens the floodgates - on me- and then projects on me what she has just done, basically because 'she is not the kind of woman to do or say such things'.
So, yes, Gaslighting, this is the cruelest thing to do to children and one that shows that these parents either don't love their children or they are insane - a sane parent would never impair their child's ability to decode reality just because they have this little habit of rewriting reality FOR themselves AND their children, consistently invalidating the child clear perception and memories of an event - to be replaced with the newly crafted ones, more suitable to how they imagine themselves to be - like Mary Poppins - almost Perfect in Every Aspect.
Sometimes I hope that she could wake up and see that she ended up being mentally Ill by keeping on being mentally ill - not sure if this makes sense but in my experience, there is always a moment when one can stop, rephrase, reconsider before being completely inconsiderate, hostile, mean to the bone, so, it's always a choice.
Yes, there are biochemically imbalanced mental states and honestly, I wish one day someone diagnosed my mum with that, because it would be comforting to be able to justify a Myth, to return to it some Integrity, - see my mother find her place as a good loving mum - who is -simply- Mentally Ill.
Here is the bitter funny note maybe - when you would rather have a Mentally Ill parent than a Cruel One - they are both Cruel, mind you, but in the Mentally Ill one, the Pleasure to Harm is a Pathology - and not a Kick they get from the Hurt on Their Children Face.