This is part one of a three-part series.
My mother is mentally ill.
Those five words. So simple; so short; so matter of fact. Yet it has taken me a long time to finally write them, years to finally work up the nerve to say anything about it to more than just trusted friends and loved ones. But this is something I need to share. With any luck, this can help at least one person in one way or another.
My mother is mentally ill, being afflicted with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. If you’re unfamiliar with these disorders, a (grossly) quick definition is that schizophrenia “is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves,” and bipolar disorder “causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.”
While there is a lot of overlap between these two disorders, the best way that I can personally describe someone who has these illnesses is this: It is simultaneously everything that it is described to be and everything it isn’t. There is no way to accurately explain my experience living with my mom. The only way for anyone to fully understand is for them to go through the experience themselves.
Needless to say, having a mentally ill mom has resulted in me having a very unique childhood. My dad worked a lot while I was growing up, trying to make as much time for me as he could, but the majority of my childhood was spent with my grandmother who took care of me in place of my mother.
My grandma was the closest thing I had to a mom. My mom knew nothing about me. She was never able to say what grade I was in; she didn’t know when my birthday was; she couldn’t give me girl advice; she wasn’t there for me at all.
I grew up being scared of what people would think of me. I didn’t have friends over at my house because, frankly, it wouldn’t have been safe or healthy for friends to be near my mom. I thought I was just the freak child with an insane mom I didn’t think I could even love. It’s awful to say, but that’s what I thought.
Of course, she didn't choose to be afflicted with the disorders. She did nothing to deserve it. She was perfectly healthy before I was born. She didn't show any symptoms until about a year after I was born, and her mental state has gone downhill ever since. This fact, though, only served to bother me more, making me wonder if my family could have had a better, healthier life if I had never been born. Maybe my birth is what made her sick.
I could continue to write pages and pages describing every incident that has occurred — the screaming, the delusions, the violent outbursts — and you would never fully understand. Suffice it to say that there has been a lot of awful experiences that have shaped who I am today, for better or for worse.
As a human being, I’ve struggled with the fact that I should love the woman who gave birth to me — yet to even tolerate her has been a struggle for years. As a Christian, I’ve wrestled with constant questions directed towards God: Why would you do something so unfair to her? Why am I stuck with this? Why won’t you make her better?
As unique as I may think I am for having a mentally ill mom, I’m just someone who has been willing to share a story. I can guarantee you that there are so many people who have known me since elementary school who have never known any of this about me. Imagine who you might know who has some secret like this hidden as well. Life is never as it seems.
All of this, and so much more, make up the bad. But, as hard as it may be to remember, there is certainly more to all of this than the bad.
This is part one of a three-part series.
