Hello,
I'll come right out and admit something that I never admit to my many friends, my boyfriend or most of my family. My mother is crazy. I don't mean crazy in the "eh everyone's mother is crazy" way I mean she's schizophrenic, possibly bi-polar and incredibly paranoid.
Does that mean that I don't love her? Absolutely not. Does that mean that she's a bad person. No way. After my father passed away, she kept me in Manhattan and helped me study and do my homework. Sure some nights she'd be up all night trying to catch the "crazy" people who were coming in at night and stealing her things, but I figured everyone's parents were weird.
In those days, she had a job. She took care of me. She got me to doctor's appointments and she made sure we weren't homeless. Even though it must have been rough, she gave me everything she could, and I'm not starting this to complain or even blame her.
The truth is that she is mentally ill. I've always been too embarrassed to come right out and say it, but she is.
wow. that's a relief.
My purpose with this blog is to help anyone out there who might be going through this know that you are not alone. There's nothing to be ashamed of and most importantly there's help out there for you. I haven't found a perfect solution yet, but I'm not going to lose my entire life to her disease.
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I am 54 yrs old and was raised by a mentally ill mother. Hope I don't upset you but 3 yrs ago she ended it at the age of 82. I have dealt with some things as a child that has left me broken. It took a long time to even talk to her due to the fear and pain I went through. Before she passed I worked as a ACT case manager. I was at a function and a young lady gave a speech about her mental illness. At the end of the speech she began to cry because she feared her children would hate her for all the things she had did to them, it was at that moment I understood my mother had no control over what she did and said to me.
ReplyDeleteI called her and began talking to her. She would always say she was sorry for what she did and she did tell me she was (crazy) I corrected her and said she was mentally ill.
To this day I'm not sure if she ended her life because she was waiting for me to forgive her or she ended it because she could not forgive herself for the things she did to me. I will never know, but I will always wonder WHY.
I carry a guilt no one can understand. I was a Case Manager for the Assertive Community Treatment team. I did home visits to people everyday and some people 2× a day to make sure they ate, took their medication and kept their doctors appointments, but I could not save my own mother.
I hope I have not bored you to much, but I want you to know you are not alone.