Doing Well - Living Life with Mental Health

Recently I’ve been left with a lot of time on my hands to question things - to do some reflection and determine where I’ve come from and where I’m heading. It’s something that I’ve done more often in the previous several months and for me, it’s a good thing. I need that. I need those reminders of where I’ve been – how bad it has been at times and how good the possibilities actually are.

A reminder from hospital, made during therapy.

Some days I also feel like a fraud. I’m here writing (and talking in real life) about how well I’m doing, how under control my moods are – how level I’ve been – and how well I’m managing the Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms… and really, I’m speaking and writing the truth. I am doing well. But it isn’t without struggle – something that I’m not always able to properly articulate in my blog posts because the fighting and the worry and the constant watching is all under the surface. It’s in the reminders that I have around the house, the conversations with myself debating whether or not I have a legitimate reason to be upset or happy or energetic. It’s in the everyday fight to maintain the good things that I took time and effort to set up – everything from routine to what/how/when I eat. It’s in the battle of my mind that still wants to creep up from time to time and tell me that I’m worthless, that wants to stop me from reaching out when I need support, and that worries endlessly that I will slip up – that I’m not doing enough, that it will never be enough to stay healthy and on track.

The beginning. I needed reminders to get out of bed.

At times it can be utterly and completely exhausting to keep up with myself, to stop and slow down racing thoughts and to force myself to remain in constant sleep patterns when I feel my mood start to go up. It’s more than a little tiring to force myself to get up in the mornings and get dressed when I feel like a cloud of depression is pushing me down, and some days it feels impossible to keep moving forward when all I want to do is lay down and sleep. And then when my energy is already depleted, to have to force myself to be open, to want to build relationships and stop pushing people away; to bite my tongue and not react viciously when the anger begins to build can almost be too much. And occasionally I slip. I fail. I’m not perfect and I don’t expect I will ever be.

But I can learn to cope, to take those moments of trial and use them to find things that work, to practice on building the skills I have learned and to be authentic with the people in my life.

A reminder of my last stay in the hospital, a painting I did in therapy.

I’m not a fraud. I am doing well. It has taken me many years of half-effort and lack of understanding to get me here. It has taken suicide attempts and hospital stays, psychiatrist appointments and support groups to help me understand. Mental illness is not something you can deal with alone and although it took a lot of ‘wrongs’ to get me to where I am, I’m glad I’m finally here, in the place that I can acknowledge it all.

Mental illness doesn’t have to be my weakness. It is one of the many things in my life that has made me stronger and more resilient. I have become more determined to change my life and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen – doctors, medications, support groups, supportive family/friends, research, talking, writing, self-discovery and self-care. My journey isn’t pretty. It isn’t filled with a doctor that took the time to counsel all of the reasons why I am this way, a single medication that has fixed my life and made everything look like roses. It has been filled with tears and fights and denial and ugly truths and hard lessons. It has been filled with days when I wasn’t sure I could go on, when recovery and happiness seemed completely impossible but I pushed ahead anyways. It didn’t always seem like it, but I know that it has been worth it. It sometimes seems so dark that you know that you will never escape, but I promise there is hope. If you are struggling, find help – reach out, call a friend or a hotline, dig your heels in and try just a little harder and you will find the light. It is there, just around the corner. Life is always worth it, even when you can’t see your happy ending. 

One of my reminders, (semi-colon tattoo) because my story isn't over yet. 

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Parenting with Mental Illness

Back in the summer I wrote about how mental illness has affected my relationships - most notably my marriage and other adult-based relationships in my life. From the time that I was a young teen I can look back now and see all of the ways that anxiety, depression, mania, and anger have affected my life; see the very real struggle that relationships have always been for me. It's easy to look back and feel the regret, to see the mistakes I made and the way my thinking was often distorted throughout my life; but I also see the changes I've made and the new (healthier) relationships I am finally beginning to build.

And then I look at some of the most important people in my life; my children.

Two weeks ago I was in the car with my kids. We were on our way home from somewhere and as we drove through town looking at the Christmas lights up everywhere, my 9 year old daughter brought up a night from the previous year - something that my husband had done with them while I was in the hospital. As I listened to her story, my older (12 year old) son interrupted her, reminding her that I wasn't with them and that I was in the hospital. Now he didn't say it sadly or angrily, he didn't seem as though it was something that bothered him - he simply stated a fact. I wasn't there because I was in the hospital. However my daughter stopped her story at this point, becoming very quiet for a minute before she blurted out to me: "I was really scared when you were in the hospital, I didn't know what was wrong and I thought you were going to die." Her statement to me really hit home at that point. She didn't know what had happened to land me in the hospital - we had talked to the kids about me being there and they had an age-appropriate reason given to them that explained a little about sadness (depression) and how the hospital can sometimes help people to feel better for all kinds of illnesses. But when she told me that she thought I was going to die, it threw me off because realistically she was much closer to the truth than I was comfortable with; realistically at the time I was in the hospital it was because I wanted to die.

How do you explain mental illness to a child? Sure, there are ways to do it. Things that you can say to give them an idea of why someone is in the hospital, why they have walked away from the family for a few days or weeks or months. There are things that can be explained in a simplistic way that hopefully they might grasp onto and not question further. But when happens when those children are teens or tweens who see tweets and posts about depression and suicide on social media and put two and two together? What happens when children of any age live with a parent with mental illness that is untreated/mistreated for so many years of their lives?

I don't have all of the answers right now but it is something I have thought about quite a bit. Because my children have been there. I have been the parent who was up and down, depressed and manic, angry and impatient, uninvolved and sometimes even disappearing. I have been inconsistent and unaware, I have gone from fun and loving and caring to frustrated and distant and unpredictable.

I don't have all of the answers. But the one thing I can say is that we (my husband and I) are honest with the kids... we are open about our mistakes and we apologise for our imperfections. We keep explanations appropriate to their ages and their levels and we let them see that we are only human, that we take steps to correct inappropriate actions. We also let them come to us - when they are hurting or confused or angry. We keep the lines of communication open and we try and see things through their eyes... even when we don't want to. I also am focusing time on my relationships with them. I don't want to be that parent - the crazy one that the kids end up in therapy for years over because of the pain they cause. The one that they won't call or speak to or visit because of their childhood - because their mother was not at her best and refused to get help. And it doesn't have to be that way.

I know my children love me - and we have many amazing memories as a family, of adventure and celebrating and life. But there are also dark shadows that I know still pop up, still taint some of their memories. The relationship between myself (a parent) living with/recovering from mental illness and my children is complex and while I know I can't change the past, I can change the future. I can continue to do what I'm doing - stay stable, seek help, build new memories, and strengthen our relationship. I can show them how hard work and dedication can be necessary but worth it... I can teach them about mental illness and what to look for, how to handle it if they encounter it in their own lives eventually. I can be strong and I can fight for them, for the rest of their childhood and for our relationship.

Parenting with mental illness does not have to destroy the family or ruin their childhoods. I won't let it. There is hope, and my four kids are worth the fight.

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A Future Worth Living For

Today (September 22) marks my birthday and for the first time in my adult life, I'm actually excited about what this year will bring me. For the first time in my adult life, I feel like I have a quality of life that is making the future worth living.

I don't want to make generalisations or assumptions about others who suffer with mental illness - either diagnosed or not yet diagnosed - but I know for me, the future has never felt exciting. I think for me, it began as a teenager... around the time that my moods became noticeable to me. I didn't understand it, and for years knew that I was different but had no idea what that meant. I always felt that I experienced emotions deeper, harder than those around me and couldn't understand how or why I would go from crazy happy to dark and depressed and then back up into a furious anger.

The older that I became, the more those emotions seemed to intensify and as a young adult, they began to consume me. Depressive episodes would last anywhere from a few days to a few months, and then it would shift; my mood would come back up and I would begin new projects and take on new adventures with an abundance of passion and energy. Nothing could stop me... except maybe my paranoia and bouts of uncontrollable rage.

With every passing year, it became worse. I knew that there was something wrong when I was in between, or when I was calm and collected and rational; but if I was too far one way or another I couldn't see reason. Living this way quickly became exhausting. Over the last several years, my birthday came and went. I tried to keep up a semblance of excitement and plastered a smile on my face when it would come and go. I refocused my energy, avoided thinking too much about it and placed all of my attention into my son's birthday the following day.

Overall, the future was not something I looked forward to, and my past was always there - haunting me with my mistakes, and reminding me that it would forever follow me around. Some years I wasn't sure whether or not I would live to see my next birthday - or that I even cared if I didn't.

Living in constant turmoil, with a lack of resources and understanding was holding me back. I have suffered since I was a teenager, I have been in pain and looking for help but not knowing where to turn as I held my tongue and tried not to talk or think about the diagnosis' that the doctor's gave me. They gave me pills and told me to come back in 3 or 6 months and I did as I was told, continuing on as though it was a simple fix - take the pills... be normal.

What I understand now, is that it isn't a simple fix. There are options, there are multiple diagnosis' and combinations of mental illnesses that work differently in each person's body. There are different medications that can be tried, different types of therapy and support that can not only allow you to speak up for once, but they allow other peoples stories in. Nutrition, exercise, alternative therapies when used in conjunction with traditional medications/therapies, or on their own are all different options that I have finally been able to explore.

For the first time, I have a quality of life. My emotions and my moods no longer control me, and while I'm not perfect and I know that I still have a long way to go, and it is still a lot of hard work, I'm excited about the journey. I'm excited about life without the constant ups and downs and fighting against myself and anyone who tries to help me. I'm excited for the future.

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