Mental Illness & Mothering, my hard truth

Ok. At the risk of losing all of my friends and followers but in the interests of ending the stigma, I am going to be brutally honest in this what turned out to be extremely long winded post. 

Mothering with a mental illness is hard for me, some days its fucking impossible.

I love my kids to the moon and back but sometimes, oftentimes, I can’t stand to be around them. It’s nothing they have ‘done’, yes they fight and act up and demand attention incessantly but that is what children do, they are no different to anyone else’s kids. No, it’s me with the problem and while I am aware of that, I find it really, really hard to change.

I have four kids, not a single one of them was ‘planned’. My first child was born when I was 17 but it could have been a lot earlier, I knew better but my insecurities and hypomanias made me careless and I am just lucky that the guy who eventually knocked me up turned out to be my soul mate.

 I am so very glad that my babies exist as they are each wonderful little people, such different personalities with so much to offer the world, but a big part of me often regrets having them because I am so very worried about just how much I am fucking them up. 

At 32 I still struggle to raise myself, I wonder how the hell I can raise four children.

On the days that my self-hatred reaches boiling point and I am struggling to look in the mirror without punching my own reflection I just don’t have it in me to give them what they need, yes they have a roof over their heads, clean clothes and food on the table but they don’t have the motherly emotional stability and support. They need that and I am not providing it. It breaks my heart. 

During a depressive episode I often resent them for making me interact with the world, getting out of bed to take the kids to school is only slightly less impossible than the thought of keeping them home and having to deal with them all day. I am then forced to get dressed because that one time I didn’t I had a flat tyre on the side of the road and had to change it in my pyjamas, I live in a small town full of sticky beaks, stigma and questions.

During a hypomanic episode I surprise them with pancakes and spontaneous trips to the beach, until I haven’t slept for 4 days and get over stimulated and irritable and just yell at them for breathing.

When I look at my offspring I see myself in them, they all have my eyes and love for animals, some have my nose, my daughter has my hair but when I see my mannerisms, my insecurities or the volatile way I react to situations come out in them, it scares the shit out of me. 

One of my children in particular seems to be following in my wonky footsteps, he was diagnosed with global developmental delay, anxiety and a ‘mood disorder’ at just three years old. He is definitely my most empathetic kid, he feels EVERYTHING to his core, he is kind to everyone except himself and when he drops something and unleashes hell in a tirade of swear words and self-doubt, it is like looking in a mirror. 

The haunting scars on his 13yr old arms and the memories of the time he ate washing powder because he wanted to die during his first depressive episode at age 11, which was kicked off by my own suicide attempt & subsequent 2month hospital stay, that’s what rocks me to my core.

I caused that. He didn’t have the same understanding and coping abilities of his siblings, I turned his little world upside down and I wasn’t there to pick up the pieces when he needed me.

I don’t want him to be like me, but he is and while you would think that would put me in a great place to understand him and help him, it doesn’t. Well I understand, but I don’t know how to help, I don’t know what to say and I get frustrated. It all feels too close to home and I haven’t yet learned how to cope myself let alone give advice on the matter.

 I open my mouth to comfort him and anxiety shuts me down. He is doing ok at the moment, he’s angsty but not depressed, the psychologists say that only time will tell if he also has bipolar, he is moody and quick to temper, sometimes gets silly and talks too fast but he hasn’t had a definable hypomanic or manic episode. Yet.

Now days I often feel that I had no right to have children and inflict my genes upon someone else, but I did and I can’t change that. I have only really come to terms with the fact that I have mental illness myself in the last 4 years, before that stigma owned me and I didn’t want to think about it. Denial is a river in Egypt. 

My biggest fear is that I am verbally abusing my children. When I am in a mood episode I yell a lot. I yell a hell of a lot. I swear at, to and about my kids. I am trying really hard not to, I can get in a rage suddenly and for no reason and words just come out without a filter. I hate myself for it.

The worst thing I have ever done in my life happened five years ago when I chased after one of my children yelling, while I had a knife in my hand. I don’t even remember what caused it, but I was quite irritably hypomanic and had been chopping something up in the kitchen and was holding a kitchen knife when I lost my shit about something my son did, he ran outside so I chased after him still yelling, I was absolutely not considering using the knife as a weapon, I just happened to still have it in my hand so it went with me.

Even at my angriest I don’t smack my children at all, but the child involved freaked out and thought I was going to hurt him, in that moment he honestly believed that his own mother would stab him with a kitchen knife, I will never forget the look on his face. As soon as I realised what he was thinking I immediately dropped the knife and tried to hug him, I apologised over and over promising I would never hurt him while he just backed away screaming and screaming in terror. No child should ever, ever have that fear. I don’t know how badly that damaged him and I will never forgive myself.

My kids are lucky to have their father in their lives, he is stable and loving and has done a great job of navigating them through my mental illness. He was the person who had to tell the ones old enough to understand that I was unwell but safe in a psychiatric hospital, then he had to tell them I had tried to kill myself while I was in this so called safe place and was now on life support. He was the one who had to deal with all of their fears and questions while trying to be positive telling them that the doctors would make mummy better while not knowing if I would wake up brain damaged or even wake up at all.  He is a true rock.

I don’t know what the future holds for my family, my moods have already done a lot of damage and I can only hope that things improve with time. I have support around me now, the older kids seem to understand that my mood swings are not their fault. 

Nobody asks questions when I eat a different meal to the rest of the family each night, they give me extra hugs and make me "I love you mummy" cards when they notice I am spending more time in bed and not wanting to answer the phone, they dance with me when I have the music pumping at 7am having baked my 6^th batch of cupcakes and give me a wide berth when I am unreasonably irritable. 

Mental illness is hard, while we may not have the perfect home life we love each other and are trying our best to make it work.   

Mental Illness Vs Crime

What is our responsibility level as mentally ill people? What are we accountable for, what is our personality, what is our illness and at which point does the fact that bad or criminal behaviour isn’t “us” but our illness cease to matter in the interests of public safety?

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In the aftermath of the tragedy in Melbourne on Friday 20th January 2017, Australia has been left reeling with anger and questions. Mental illness is now in the spot light again but for all the wrong reasons. 

If you are unfamiliar with the story, on Friday the 20^th January 2017 a man by the name of “Dimitrious Gargasoulas” went on a rampage through the streets of Melbourne that ended with him driving a car into the busy Bourke Street Mall and ploughing down anyone in his path. At the time I write this 4 people are dead including a 10yr old child and many others in serious and critical condition in hospital.

The perpetrator received a gun shot wound to the arm and was dragged from his vehicle and arrested, images show him lying cuffed on his back wearing nothing but red underpants while other images show the now empty mangled pram that was dragged along the street. 

Australia understandably wants blood, as more information comes into public light people are calling en masse for the death penalty. It seems the man had a history of mental health problems, drug use and violence and was actually out on bail relating to a stabbing incident the previous weekend.

 Most troubling are his recent Facebook posts, religious themes and delusions of grandeur indicating that he was probably in the midst of a psychosis. This is particularly upsetting because the start of the tirade of posts predates his recent arrest which means he was questioned by authorities while obviously mentally unstable and he wasn’t sectioned or held in custody, he was bailed.

Facebook post from 9^th Jan “TODAY THE GODS HAVE GIVEN ME WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE. THEY HAVE AWOKEN ME. IHAVE MY ANSWERS ALSO VISION OF A FUTURE THAT IS CLOUDED THE WORK OF SATAN TO FACE ME AND FAIL OVER AND OVER AMUSES ME RATHER THAN SHAKE ME TO THE GROUND”

Facebook post from 16^th Jan: “I DECLARE WAR ON TYRANNY TODAY YOU DOGS WILL HAVE THE OPTION TO EITHER BELIEVE IN ME AND HIS POSITIVE ENERGY HE OFFERS AND STAY FAITHFUL TO ME OR SERVE THE ONE WHO ESLAVES YOU AT HIS FEET I OFFER FREEDOM NO WORK NO BILLS JUST THAT WE ALL KEEP FAITH AND BELIEVE IN THE ONE GOD THE ONE HIGHER BEING BEING FOR THE GOOD AND PROTECT THE ENERGY THAT HE GIVES WITH YOUR HEART GOD BLESS EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IT IS ABOUT TO CHANGE XOXO”

Note the escalation of content, lack of any punctuation, grandeur, capital letters and phrasing. I write this way when I am manic.

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 An overwhelming amount of Facebook commenters are angrily saying that “he will just be let off because of his mental health problems” while “drug induced” is a common phrase, they are also fearfully throwing words like Bipolar and Schizophrenia around like they are dirty and dangerous.

I fear that this incident will undo a lot of the good work and results we have been seeing over the last few years to end the stigma surrounding mental illness. Situations like this are not the norm. This scares the public, this scares ME.

During my stays in psychiatric hospitals I have seen many, many people with what I will call “organic” psychosis, an episode brought on by their illness – bipolar, schizophrenia etc – the majority of them are in their own worlds, opinionated yes, perhaps an unintentional risk to others, but not really what I would call “scary” dangerous. 

ICE induced psychosis however was a totally different ball game. That was TERRIFYING. I remember one guy in particular coming in with about 6 police officers, 2 ambulance officers and half of the staff in the unit trying to hold him down just to sedate him. If a two year old had walked up to him and smiled he wouldn’t have hesitated to rip its arms and legs off.

Mental illness is certainly unpredictable; does that automatically make people with mental illness’s dangerous? Does that make ME potentially dangerous? Could I actually be capable of doing such horrific things? 

During manias I have certainly experienced the feeling of being “God” or at least “at one with God”, I have made very poor judgement calls and been paranoid but I have never, ever wanted to hurt anybody other than myself. Could that change?

I can say now while I am well that if I were ever to do something like this I would want to be imprisoned, because even if I was ‘unwell’ and ‘not in my right mind’ when the incident occurred, just knowing that I was capable of such horrific things if I was to become unwell again is enough to make me fear being allowed to walk in public.

Frankly, sick or sane, in most instances if we commit a violent crime I feel that we should be held accountable for that. We can’t just let dangerous people out on the streets because they have a mental illness. If someone is deemed ‘dangerous’ they need to remain in custody / hospital for the duration of the time they are considered dangerous, then if a crime was committed and a prison sentence is required, it should be served.

I guess this is what happens when are ill and we get sectioned. It’s happened to me, and as much as I hate being sectioned because “I know better”, I have to respect the fact that the doctors don’t know me as a person, they can’t see inside my head and feel my feelings and if they declare me “a danger to myself or others” based on my outward actions then they are doing that to prevent incidents like the one in Melbourne and I want incidents like that prevented.

You have to wonder if this tragedy could have been prevented if only Dimitrious Gargasoulas had received proper care for his psychotic episode earlier, or if he had not been released on bail only a few days earlier. Is he just an asshole criminal who belongs in prison with or without mental illness as a factor, or is he changed into this terrible person only when he is unwell?  

When all is said and done, every criminal incident involving mental health factors needs to be treated individually based on the persons lifestyle choice, interest and willingness to maintain good mental health ( I hate to use the word 'compliance') and of course scale of the crime and chance of repeat offence. There simply is no 'one size fits all' solution.

I send all my love to the victims and families of the Bourke St Mall tragedy, I pray that Dimitrious Gargasoulas is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, regardless of his mental illness and I sincerely hope that Australia can continue working to end the stigma regarding mental health in times of fear and uncertainty.

The Final Imprint

I often wonder what my last post, last text, last tweet, email or status update might be. It's that final documented statement that ultimately becomes your legacy, at least the legacy of your online life.

25 years ago those final written statements would have been personal or private letters to family and friends, but now we live in a world where social media rules and the final public statement to ultimately define our character could well be that we "ate brussel sprouts for dinner, yuk! " or that we "like" a video of a cat chasing a squirrel.

What about the more meaningful stuff? The stuff that gets lost in the mundane day to day goings on. Sure the little things are important too, after all it is those that collectively form our opinions about the big things. But often we are so busy documenting every meal and every movement that we neglect to take the time to piece the tid bits together and form holistic opinions.

Carrie Fisher's second last tweet -once you read it enough times to comprehend the meanings behind her erratic emoji use - seemed so eerie given the manner in which she was taken from us, it was as though she knew what was coming. Quoted below, scuze the format issue...

IsYRbody DKayingdeth marchiever closer?®the sands F timecruelYshudarresteda d©beach?Get©g,perspective dw/"

Time and time again through my depressions I find myself preparing 'final' status updates for in the event that I am suicidal that I can quickly type out if I decide to take the plunge. Stuff just cryptic enough not to give my headspace away if I survive, but elude to everything if I dont.
 I suppose I just want to leave behind meaningful words, I give thanks and messages of love and hope, things that say 'despite what I have done, I am still thankful for the good things and there have been so many of those'.

As much as I can be desperate to die at times, when it has gotten to that point I have never been bitter, I don't truly hate anyone and I have had so many incredible people in the weird and wonderful chapters of my life, so many amazing memories. All of the challanges I have faced led me to special people, places and worlds I could never have otherwise imagined.

I have experienced joy in its most pure form, enlightenment, love and complete oneness with the universe. But as with all things the light must have it's dark or else we could not truly appreciate the beauty of the day.

There have been no clear cut "reasons" for me to ever be suicidal, no motives that the casual observer could understand and yet the chemistry in my brain holds reason to ransom and I am time and time again sent emotionally to the depths of darkness and depression. The plunge is cold and exhausting and I know deep down that it will ultimately kill me.

I suppose I just want my words to have meant something to someone, when I pop into the mind of an old friend after I have passed, I want them to look at the final update on my Facebook page and smile, knowing that despite my suicide I was happy and I always knew I was loved. Not just that I hated the slow service in Mc Donalds yesterday afternoon.
 

Woe is me

Well my New Year New Me goals have already taken a turn for the worse… Rather than stop self sabotaging I have instead taken self-sabotage to a new level. I am so intensely disappointed in myself that I am emotionally numb.

I have managed to hurt my ankle and it was completely self-inflicted and stupid. You see I knew that the increasing pain I was getting in my ankle while running was a warning sign. I KNEW that I should stop and rest for a day or two or at least reduce the speed I was running at or the distance I was going. I KNEW that I was at high risk for stress fractures. *face palm*

 But that eating disorder voice in my brain that has been slowly reduced to a nagging whisper over the last year or so, beaten into submission only by strict routine daily treadmill use, that voice became suddenly louder at the thought of potentially ‘missing a day’ and the somewhat encouraging ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality quickly became “just push past it you fat, lazy, pathetic whinging bitch!”

Of course I listened, I clenched my jaw and I ran, I ran until tears streamed down my face and my foot finally made the decision for me. In that second as my ankle gave way with a searing burn, I knew it was all over.

Images flashed in front of my face, I saw my reflection expand almost as quickly as my ankle swelled. A moment of stupidity and I had condemned myself to a lifetime of weight gain. That little fat kid from my past absorbed back into my body as I sat on the floor crying, images of all those school yard bullies dancing around my head laughing maniacally.

Since October 2015 I had missed a total of 4 days on the treadmill and each one of those was because I was away from home at the time and each time caused anxiety attacks and sleepless nights but at least I had been able to create an alternate form of exercise. I thought I was in control. Ha!

Now I am facing a minimum of 6 weeks unable to walk, let alone run. My New Year’s resolution of running the ‘Mother’s Day Classic’ fun run is dead. I am already the heaviest I have been in 5 years which has been unacceptable for my eating disorder and the thought of getting any bigger….          

    

I just can’t.

I can feel the cloud of depression setting in, I can’t stop randomly crying – mostly from the agony of losing control rather than the pain of the injury. I suppose at least there is a reason for depression this time, normally there is nothing.

When it happened, I didn’t want to go to the Emergancy department because I felt like it was self-inflicted and thus not an emergency, I didn’t want to be anymore of a waste of time. So instead I saw a GP that was open on the weekend and he gave me a referral for an X-ray and ultrasound at the local hospital for Monday.

The GP told me they would give me crutches and a walking boot / cast at the hospital, but when I went in they couldn’t do an Ultrasound until mid February so I would have to go private for that and the doctor who read the X-rays wasn’t in, so they just took the images and said a report would be sent to my doctor in 24hrs. No crutches, no walking boot, no answers. 

I rang up to book an appointment for the ultrasound and as the poor women I was speaking to gave me information about where to park, much to her bewilderment I started sobbing uncontrollably. I realised walking that distance would be nearly impossible without crutches and Hubby couldn’t help me because he was looking after the four kids.

I am heading off now for the ultrasound which should assess the ligament damage, with a bit of luck they can do something to speed up recovery and tell me where I can hire a pair of crutches. I am lucky at least because it is my left leg and I drive an automatic car so I can still drive. 

Yes I know that some people don’t even have legs, I know about the kids starving in Africa and I know I am pathetic and spoiled. I am sorry I am finding it so hard to be grateful but my mood is sinking fast and the life raft has drifted away.