Yesterday at the park I talked to a fellow preschool mom in length about her father, who left for a loaf of bread when she was one year old, and never came back. He had many breakdowns, was hospitalized about 20 times, and was eventually treated for bipolar disorder. The family has never discussed it. She only knows all this because as a young child she found the divorce papers and read them. Now she worries about the genes that predispose not only herself and her siblings to mental illness, but also her children.
I hugged her, feeling a piece of her pain, and trying to keep from tearing up (it's been awhile since I've cried at the park!), as I looked at David climbing the ladder to the big slide. How I wish I could protect this little boy of mine from the torment of mental illness. I am so afraid for him because he (more than Katherine who luckily got Eric's brain) seems to have inherited my fragile chemistry and acute sensitivity. I want him to be happy more than I want just about anything else in my life.
Then, just a minute ago, I read the very moving message from reader Elemgee on the "If You Can Dream" post, about growing up with a mother who suffered from a severe, clinical depression, but was undiagnosed at the time--and about how she and her siblings would sit in their living room next to the stereo speakers, singing along to the refrain "you are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here!" based on the poem "Desiderata" I posted a few days ago.
"We kids were isolated from many of our next-door-neighbor peers," Elemgee wrote, "mostly because their own mothers kept them from playing with us. They got together and talked about our mom, making fun of our house being so messy, her occasional alcoholic episodes during the day, her late night suicide attempts and subsequent hospitalizations. Then the kids would get on the school bus with us and repeat their insults, taunting us in public, humiliating and shaming us for something over which we had no control.
"The truth was, we were often terrified when our mother acted out, and sometimes we even hated her for being so different, but when others picked on her, it was one of the most painful things in our lives, because we knew that deep down inside, she loved us and was trying to be a good mom."
Now that I reread it, I am in full-blown tears.
So much suffering. In the midst of so much love.
I cry because I've been the scared child, wanting more than anything to stop my mom's tears and pain...and I've been the mother sitting on a little boy's bed, bawling my eyes out, not being able to stop, and hearing him say (as he plays with his toy cars) that I am in the back of his little police car, because that's where they put the bad guys.
"Why am I bad?" I asked him.
"Because you cry so much."
"But...."
But what? How can you possibly explain severe, clinical depression to a three-year-old boy who wants a stable, cheery mommy--one that can take him to the park without breaking into tears behind a tree, or miss his great karate achievement because she had to bolt to the restroom and let her body shake with anxiety like a woman with severe Parkinson's.
How I wish I could take back that time--the two years between his third and fifth birthday--and replace it with nothing but happy memories of my son and me at the park playing, shooting basketballs, coloring Spider Man coloring books, filling the driveway with colored-chalk drawings.
But I can't go back, I can only go forward--and work at this sanity thing as best I can with all the tools provided to me (medication, therapy, cognitive-behavioral techniques, plenty of light, exercise, a healthy diet, regular sleep, supportive friends, helping other depressives, writing Beyond Blue, knowing my limitations).
I have to stay well. For myself. For Eric. For Katherine. But especially for little David.
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Now He is mad because I gave are dog to a new home and I thought he had said ok, but he didn't , but since he is never around and didn't let me know he would take care of boo, I didn't want to give him up, but I thought it would not be fair to the dog if i had to move. please somebody talk to me!!! So now he is mad and says i do things without thinking, i thought i had thought it out, but i didn't want boo our dog to be left just anywear. I do have a problem though of doing things spir of the moment and i don't know how to stop!! Help me!!
When is someone going to help me with this!!
Tracy,
I'm not sure what, if anything I can do for you. I'm reading that you're scared. Is there a community mental health program you can call. A crisis center. I feel for you, and I've been where you're at.
Please call someone. And please, don't ever post your phone number on this or any other public forum.
I feel for this poor Tracy person. has anyone heard from her since May? I feel blue and tired too a lot but I don't let it get the best of me,not too badly anyways. But i have filed for disability and am up for a hearing come Sept.08, I feel I have loads of health problems and only one of my doctors is for me getting the SSI. I have a 14mos. old daughter and had her last May since having her I've had 5 operations back to back. the first starting with my thyroid. THIS was depressing because I was breast feeding my daughter still and tried my darndest to pump so after the surgery I could go back to nursing. I was in so much pain and all the meds that it was just too much trouble to try and pump so reluctantly I gave it up. Then the next surgery was my left hand from carpal tunnel syndrome, then my left shoulder scope, then just in April my right hand for carpal tunnel too and the later most recent a tubal ligation. All of which I feel I went through somewhat alone. My husband has to work out of town and with the rising cost of gas took an apt up north from me and returns on the weekends. If THAT isn't hard! I have 4 kids total. If I can do this ANYONE can!!!! Sometimes I cry to my husband because of being separated like this and we almost divorced,but we dug in our heels and we're still together. I hope this can be somewhat of an inspiration to you mom's who feel you are all alone and that you can't do it. There IS help out there and support groups and meds and psychotherapy. Go get it and take the bull by the horns, and do it for your kids, they need you and they are #1 and of the utmost importance in your life. LIVE for them!
Tracy, and others, who find themselves crying instead of smiling at their children......do not feel ashamed. Some of us FEEL more intensely than others. Some of us are clinically depressed, perhaps even bipolar. So, what of it? Cry. Crying cleanses the soul. SEE YOUR THERAPIST. You must find someone you can trust to talk this out with. Chances are you really don't know why you are crying...the real reason. It may take years with a good therapist to figure it out. Don't give up. I am the child of a mother who suffered (and still suffers) from depression...in her day it was manic depression. I don't remember ever being afraid of my mom. Her mania wasn't dangerous, neither was her depression. She just didn't socialize or show affection like other moms. That's ok. She loved (and still does..loves) us. I am a bipolar mother..just like her. I think I started crying over my children before they were born. I still cry over them. THAT'S OKAY! My boys know that mom's gonna cry, but she's ok. Please don't be so hard on yourself. We are to be parents of our children, not their best friends. No child alive will have idyllic memories of their entire childhood....people just do not operate that way. Please see a therapist. Get the right meds. You may always be a crier...maybe a little more depressed than most, but it does not have to grind your life to a halt. You deserve a life with your child/children....get the right therapy and medicine so that you can have it. And, yes, your child may "get lucky" and inherit from you. I remember the day that I told my mom that I had been diagnosed bipolar. It nearly killed her. However, WE have learned to draw strength from one another and support each other. It's not a death sentence if you don't want it to be. Depression is awful when it's untreated. Please get some good help. Peace be with you.
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