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freshobservationcollection-blog · 8 years ago

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Mental Health in my life

How do I begin? I have struggled with mental health issues my whole life. Originally I was under the care and duress of a very mentally ill mother who until this day does not acknowledge her illness. Because of circumstances being what they were, I was very depressed growing up but often told by my ill mother to “get over it”, “you are just being dramatic”. Never once in my childhood was mental illness taken seriously. It was always considered that if you were closer to God then you would be fine. I learned early on not to trust my parents with my emotional being. I recall the fights wherein my father was emotionally and physically abused repeatedly by my mother. I remember my father threatening to take his own life because of how worthless she made him feel. Growing up in a “Christian” home made me long to see my savior sooner rather than later. Heaven was built as a glorious place, which I am sure it is, but it fed my depression and anxiety. I wanted to find ways to get there faster because it would be so much better there – with a parent who truly loved me for me, no more pain, no more humiliation at the hands of the one on earth who was supposed to love me.

I have read truly horrifying stories of others who have gone through childhood abuse – most instances worse than mine. It has taken me a long time to realize that that does not diminish what I lived through – what to this day are things I can’t always remember but my sister tells me is best that way. It does not lessen my PTSD symptoms. When I least expect it, when I am feeling “normal”- I will have a flashback, or nightmares unceasingly reliving the lies I grew up with about myself, the core of my being and the beatings that I didn’t always remember. I don’t welcome this, I don’t embrace it. I am not happy to say, yes I have forgiven but I can’t forget. More than anything I want the ability to forget forever. Hopefully heaven will allow that.

Dealing with my family history and my own issues, has helped me tremendously in the life I have chosen for myself. I am married to a mentally ill man. His issues run deeper than even he realizes most of the time. Times when he needs the most help are also the times he pushes people away the most, when he trusts the least those who love him the most.

I have been subjected to various forms of emotional abuse from him over the years. While it has gotten better, I am still regularly reminded by him of what he believes my weaknesses are. I have fought very hard to have a healthy self-image and am willing to admit I, like others on the planet, have weaknesses but the one you love is not supposed to use those weaknesses against you. If this same attitude were turned onto him, then I would be “attacking” and “criticizing while a man is down”. I have had to leave work in fear for the safety of my children – thrilled at the same time to realize that when we created a safety plan they were listening, and were able to implement it. I have been stressed over the fact that I am working and going to college, leaving my kids to the whims of my husband’s moods. I have been stressed to think I am not a good mother either way – working or not working. I have had my children take self-defense lessons from a trusted friend to defend themselves in the event he thinks he could get away with laying a finger on them. I have in my mind, distinguished between domestic violence as it is culturally defined and mental illness related “going off”. – Not that there is any research out there to really prove the difference, but with my history, trust me- there is a difference.

The things I have gone through have left me alone. The church does not check in with a couple struggling with mental illness within their family. Heck, I found out at 18 that some pastors will just say you are a wayward teen – even if you are trying to unveil the truth and get your siblings to safety finally. I think there are a few reasons that the church isn’t behind the family dealing with mental illness:

1. There are way too many people in the church who believe if your relationship with God were better you would be fine;

2. Along the same lines, people believe if someone were to just pull themselves up by the bootstraps and think positively the ill person would magically be better.

3. Mental illness is contagious – heaven forbid!!!

4. The person is a sucker- sucking the life out of everyone who enters their orbit without giving back.

5. The biggest reason- this is a long term care issue. Most illnesses have an ending time frame. Mental illness is life- long. Who has the time to commit to a friendship like that? Who even wants to?

After Robin Williams death, my mother started her platitudes about if one is closer to God then one will be happy. Apparently this is the same reason she won’t discuss her own nervous breakdown when I was 2 or3. Her belief is not that she was under stress with 2 children 16 months apart, and a mother who just died, but that all she needed to do was get right with God. I am a Christian. I believe God is Jehovah Rapha – the God who heals. I also believe as a church, we need to back off of this theology A LOT. In order for a church ordained healing to have taken place, there should be a further diagnosis from a doctor that symptoms are no longer present. There are some recorded times of this happening in the 20th & 21st Century. Just telling the world you are healed is not healing in and of itself. God still works today. I do not doubt that. What I have problems with is those who abuse this train of thought. Job was told by his friends that he must be disobeying God in some manner, have some secret sin. This was not the case; Job was still praising God through the storm. My own experience as a teen plays this out. I am sure that I am not the only teen raised “Christian” who thought life would be so much better on the other side of death then on this side. How could it be a sin to want to give your life and start life with God eternally?

People do not choose to be mentally ill, and especially when dealing with depression – can’t just CHOOSE to be happy. Have you ever woken up on a raining workday morning and the day has just sunk into your bones unbidden? If you haven’t, you are blessed. Depression is akin to the rainy morning, but it doesn’t stop when the sun comes out. It doesn’t stop if you sleep just 15 more hours because that is all you need – sleep. It doesn’t stop if you have things on your schedule that are a “must do” yet you are too lethargic to make the must do list. So, the thing that works for you every time, your favorite hobby is calling for you to help pull you out of your pit of despair – instead what you hear is you are a failure, you won’t amount to anything, you can’t even do the stuff you use to enjoy doing, who would want to spend time with someone so worthless?

It seems that those who have no heart for the mentally ill think that just by listening to another’s struggles, you will get depressed too. Seriously? Can that be any more wrong? Yes, I understand talking too much to depressed people may make you see things through their eyes. So what? Isn’t that what compassion and empathy are about?

About the great void created by the mentally ill in my life. No there isn’t one. It doesn’t suck you in. Mentally ill people who acknowledge they have an issue are nothing if not honest with their closest friends. They expect the same in return. One of my best friends has issues, and I can tell her, “Look, you are just too much like my husband right now and I can’t take it at the moment, I can only be a shoulder for one at a time right now. I will call you but right now he takes priority.” She understands this give and take. She understands that I love her enough to respect her while telling her constantly that she drives me crazy in the same way my husband does. She gets it – she sees the similarities.

At the same time, those who acknowledge their illness and are honest are the most loyal friends a person can have. These friends also seem to me to be gifted in some area and just don’t know how to apply that to the world at large. When they are stable, there are untold depths to their personality, person, character that people just do not take the time to see. The insight into their realms of subjects, their loyalty is unmatched. There is a wealth of information, philosophy and varied interest that lies within the mentally ill that many do not get to see because they judge first and never take the time to ask questions or get to know the person.

Please note that I have made a distinction between those who acknowledge their disease and those who don’t. People who regularly believe that they would be “…okay if…” are not accepting their diagnosis. It is normal, any psychiatrist will tell you, that once properly medicated, a patient will often begin to feel normal, and decide that the medicine is no longer needed. This is different than those who choose not to acknowledge their issues. It is common for anyone to just want to be “normal” and once that perceived state is reached, believe medicine is no longer a need. This is where good friends come in again- to correct the wrong perceptions of those in the struggle. Open, honest dialogue aids in the on-going care. The dialogue cannot be open, cannot be honest, can be thought to be traitorous if the true friendship isn’t in place.

The hard calls. Friends learn to make the tough decisions. I wish I knew when I was younger about calling the police to take my mom to the hospital so she would get treated. With my husband, we are at the point that we have long talks. Although he prefers never to see a locked ward again, we both know I would only do what is best for him mentally. My girlfriend, I am an ear for her to vent. I have had to consider the possibility of breaking her confidence, but somehow it all worked out.

Since I have learned over the years how to take care of me – because after all, not many others are looking out for my best interest –I am the caretaker. I have always felt a caretaker role but my depth of understanding has grown. No, I don’t have any college degrees (yet!); all I have is life as a teacher. There is no better student then one who wants to learn from the lessons life presents.

I have cried out for help, only to realize that none is really available. I have a son who was very young and couldn’t get to sleep because he was sure he would wake up with a knife in his hand and be killing us and him. Crisis response was that “he’s tired, calm him down and get him to sleep”. So the cycle continues in my life.

All that is continuously going on, all that I don’t really have time or the energy for - yet my kids deserve so much therefore - I will continue to make their lives the best I can according to my capability; according to the talents God has bestowed on me. Amid everything, we have a very open and honest relationship with the kids as to how this affects them personally and as people for the world at large. Their views of others struggles are so much more mature than that of their peers (and even a lot of adults I know) and that is an outcome I can be grateful for.

#iamstigmafree #christianresponsetomentalillness mentalillness childrenofmenatallyill #christian

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