Maybe we embarrass them. Or it could be we're difficult and the unpredictability of our moods really challenges them. They probably just don't understand what we go through and in a world so fraught with personal anxieties they're better off avoiding our complicated presence.
Whatever the reason, and despite our foregone infractions, we who are ill need the support of our family. I write this column to my own peril because I am like many with whom I've been speaking who do not have this bolster. It's not that our relatives do not love us; they just use a long-distance approach.
So when I hear of a family supporting each other through decades of mental illnesses I am heartened, but also envious. As in the case of a woman in an amply prominent family who has seen her husband through 20 years of depression, her son through his entire life, and is now supporting her granddaughter's bipolarity.
My anguish deepens when I hear of families existing in the same household and one commits suicide, to the shock of the others. I wonder, can we really be so busy we don't notice? Or maybe those who don't have mental health problems are preoccupied with other cares, making it impossible to pay any attention to us.
I'm trying to determine if it's the years of not having familial support that have got me not to expect any, and then become suspicious the few times it appears. As I told someone I met after last week's column, "I don't know what would have become of me had I not been a strong-willed individual who knows the power of God."
It's true that the depressive has the ability to influence the moods of those around them. The negative energy of a person can suck the air out of joy like a powerful vacuum cleaner, but that cannot be the reason for family neglect.
Like faith-based beliefs, which I'll address next, therapy, medication, and support systems are all important in the fight against the relentless blackness of this illness.
Living with someone who has a mental illness can be very stressful for the entire family–don't underestimate the impact and don't overestimate your ability to cope. For that reason, says Wina Sturgeon in Conquering Depression, "We encourage you to get therapy for yourself and the rest of the family members–don't be embarrassed to reach out and get help. You need to stay healthy, both mentally and physically, in order to help your loved one. Do it for them, if not for yourself."
My son and I checked into therapy while he was at secondary school. To my horror, he moved out at 18, my only consolation being that he moved in with young men from church.
It really hurt that he left, but in a quiet place I fully understood his decision, and while I would've done anything to have him with me until today, I know the difficulty he faced through years of my illness running from violent to tear-filled days. I think he has fared better with the separation.
He was not a problem child. I was a problem parent.
My family seem never to recognise the dynamics. Only recently, a nephew came to me to explain his behaviour. Having listened to another older relative describe me as a person with whom no one could live or tolerate, he never returned to my place where he had come intending to spend a few days.
When he told her he had come to my home to spend some time, she responded, "That woman put her son out on the highway, and you going to stay by she? I'm giving you two days before you leave running."
It's gossip, so I can only hope that she told that story in the kindness it deserves for my son and me; we really were clueless about our difficulties–his as a teenager doing adolescent stuff and mine as a compromised existence.
You'd think that after talking sensitively about my difficulties my family would give me a bligh, right? No sah! In their minds, no amount of expos� could erase any of the evils I've done.
I did drop my son off so the police could place him with his father. The next morning, I defiantly told the police inspector she could arrest me for child abandonment if she so chose. To her mind, he could not have done anything so wrong as to warrant my action. To me, it was beyond my capability.
My sister Debra, overhearing the conversation, took the telephone and arranged for him to stay with her until I was over my crisis.
To hear that retelling saddened me. I'm left wondering if there's anyone in my family listening sufficiently to appreciate my adversity.
Would anyone be able to help with my therapeutic history with clarity or confidence if I developed some complication?
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