Saturday, May 5, 2012

My Mother's Illness

I don't know how to write this, start it, anything...
I've been feeling for a long time now that I should talk about my mom. Appreciate her, Share my life growing up with her condition, and the way it's affected me and the way I parent and just plain old live. I don't talk about it often. On one hand I don't usually say anything because some don't understand and they could judge her for something that is in no way her fault. I also don't usually tell my story because if you're looking at it from the outside in, it sounds horrible. it sounds like I had this horrid life and what kid should have to go through life like that. Me. that's who. I'm ok with the things that happened. If it were her fault at all, I'd probably be a lot more angry, but it wasn't, so I'm not.
This blog is my life, my journal, my thoughts, my memories, my stories. It started out as a way to keep in touch with friends and family that I don't see as often and it has overwhelmed me with the amount of love and opportunities I have received on getting to know other people and having those that might have assumed things about me, or didn't know me at all, get a chance to know the truth.

so. here it goes.

I had the absolute best mom in the world, until at the age of 8 nothing was ever the same again. Not for her, not for me. She had a sudden onset of some huge scientific name that essentially means hard to treat depression. The doctors that first saw her said that she was untreatable and wanted to have her committed for the rest of her life. Her amazing husband, Brian refused to give up on her and switched her around. They found a doctor and he worked like crazy to help her. She eventually was able to come home but in no way was she cured.
  I remember tidbits of when it happened. I can recall one of our cousins coming to stay with us while my mom stayed in the hospital. I'm sure someone tried to explain it to me but I don't remember it, and it must not have made sense. All I knew was that she wasn't doing ok and she had to stay somewhere else for a while. I remember when she came home things were different. She cried a lot and most of the time I couldn't figure out a reason for it. I vividly remember her curled up on a chair in our little kitchen sobbing with the giant kitchen window lighting the room. I didn't know why. I knew she was taking medication. I knew that when we went on vacation she went for a run and Brian started to panic when she didn't come back for hours. I still didn't understand at the time why he was so worried, I assumed that he thought some bad person had gotten to her. I saw the overjoyed relief on his face when she showed up saying she'd gotten lost. There was one time that we planned a family trip to Disneyland and she had tried so hard to put on a show and act like everything was normal.
As I got older I started to understand more. I also started to learn my role as big sister. When Brian  told me to take the boys downstairs because they shouldn't see the ambulance he'd called because she'd accidentally taken the wrong combination of medication,so I took them downstairs. When she was crying and couldn't stop, I put on Aladdin. When she had taken a sedative to finally get herself to stop crying and was then loopy and spouting off things that were too scary for the little ones to hear, I took them elsewhere in the house.It was my job to shield them from anything they shouldn't have to see, and it worked... kind of (but that's another story.)  I remember quite a few times crying in my room to God. I would ask him as genuinely as I knew how to make her better, to make her happy, I would ask why, and then why me.  Why couldn't I be a normal child with normal problems? I always stopped then, and took it all back. Make her better, but if she isn't going to get better than please please please make sure I'm the only kid in the world that has to take this on. I don't want anyone else to have to experience this.
It eventually got worse and the medications weren't working. She went back to the hospital, and they had to do E.C.T. for those of you who don't know.. look it up on Wikipedia. It essentially means they send an electric current through your brain until it has a seizure. They do that multiple times a week for weeks on end and it's basically a last ditch attempt to help. It is so trying on your body. It also has this nasty side effect of making you loose your memory. She forgot all sorts of things and anything that happened in that time period while the treatments were going on would never come back.
Afterwards she got a little better, they found some new medications for her and she fought. That is one thing you can never say about my mom, is she has never stopped fighting. She lost a few battles but she's won most of them. There were a lot of days she just couldn't get out of bed, but we learned to cope. We had almost a daily ritual where I would come home from school, go straight to her room, we'd talk about anything and everything, boys, teachers, friends. Chances are if you talked to me on more than one occasion she knew (probably still knows) your name, and all of what happened between us. She knew all my crushes, she knew all the people I wanted to be friends with, she knew my insecurities, she was my genuine best friend, and I have to say, she has some killer advice even if I didn't always follow it :)
As I've gotten even older things got worse before they got better. She's opened up to me more in the last 5 years since I've graduated which has helped me understand her even better. I want to make it one hundred percent clear. I have never in my life resented her for anything that has happened because none of it has been something she did, it is all things that have happened to her. In fact, That awesome doctor that took her under his wing, he only accepted the hardest patients, He retired about a year ago and he congratulated her on her fighting spirit. (I still cant' believe he told her this) Apparently all of the patients that he had at the time he took her on, have now taken their lives, except for her. She fights, she has such a will to keep going and move on.

She again recently had her medication fail her and she'd tried all the available medications so they went back to the last resort again, they had to to ECT again. It was horrible especially since I was old enough to actually, genuinely, comprehend what was happening. She was so sick, and so feeble, and even though she saw Porter twice during the month of her treatments She doesn't remember seeing him. She loves that little boy. I absolutely believe that he was sent here not only because I begged for him, but to give her something to light up about. After that horrible horrible treatment month things didn't get better. She said that things have finally gotten better within the last few months because she's changed her outlook. She said that she's always been praying that this will lift and she'll go back to who she was before, and that didn't work. So one day she changed her outlook, She now asks that for that one day, that those suicidal thoughts might go away, that she can be happy and accomplish things for that one day. It's been helping so much, she's been gardening again, going out in the sun, running errands, it's been amazing the difference. As with her illness though, every day is defined by itself. There are good days, bad days, and sometimes mixed days that start off one way but end very very differently.

I was told in my childhood and teenage years many times that I seemed more mature for my age, by teachers, by parents, sometimes by friends. Granted I acted very childish sometimes as well. The truth is that I had to grow up fast, I had to be there when my mom couldn't sometimes, and she always made it up to me by being there for me when I needed someone.  Honestly, minus the depression and struggles that she has been through (because I am not nearly as strong) I want to parent like her. I want my kids to come to me after school and tell me things, I want to let them know that when they need someone I will be there, I want to teach them independence. I  want to do as much for my kids as my mom did for me, seriously you should have seen the birthday parties she threw, the activities she did (she'd be the one posting her own stuff on pintrest that everyone was jealous about), she showed faith in me that I would make the right choices and for the most part, I did. I want my kids to do the right things because they know I taught them right.

So many people have no idea about depression, how deep it goes, how it really affects you and those around you. The truth is that it's just so unknown unless you have been through it or you've been with someone going through it. No one will ever know unless you share your story. Mine may not be about my battle with my own depression, but I'll fight to the death for my mom. There's so much more I could say, good and bad. I like to say that the worst part about such a horrible situation is that there's no one to blame. It's not her fault, no one gave this to her, she didn't do anything wrong to make it come out, it just did. So I support her, love her, care for her, and try my hardest to always show her how much I love her. To me, there's no stronger person in the world.

1 comment:

  1. XOXO. People who have never dealt with scary things like depression or mental illness or mental and physical disabilities and cancer...will never understand the toll it takes on the person going through it as well as their families. Jace is just barely getting an insight I.to my life growing up and now as an adult. What people don't understand as well is that while times were/are hard and scary...that they have shaped and molded us into who we are. I'll be forever grateful for my experiences. They have made me more aware. More understanding. More service minded. more compassionate. And I know that its done the same for you. Love you girl.

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