It has big impact on your sense of self: Jane Fonda opens up about mother's suicide

Los Angeles: Veteran actor Jane Fonda has said her mother's suicide had a huge impact on her. In the new HBO documentary, "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", the star shared her experience about growing up with a mother who was bipolar and how she learned to understand and forgive her.

"If you have a parent who is not capable of showing up, not capable of reflecting you back through eyes of love, it has a big impact on your sense of self.

"As a child, you always think it was your fault? Because the child can't blame the adult, because they depend on the adult for survival. It takes a long time to get over the guilt," Fonda told People magazine. 

Frances Ford Seymour married Henry Fonda in 1936 and they had two children: Jane and Peter. In 1950, when Jane was 12 and her mother was 42, she took her own life by slitting her throat during her time at a mental institution.

The actor's father had told her and her bother that their mother died due to a heart attack. Fonda only found out the truth by reading about it in a film magazine.

"When I wrote my memoir ('My Life So Far'), I dedicated it to my mother because I knew that if I did? I would be forced to really try to figure her out. I never knew her because she suffered from bipolarity," she said.