My Darlin’, My baby

As Mother’s Day approaches I think on each of my children.  All of them are special, unique, and have become remarkable adults.  I have three of them: my two sons, to whom I gave birth, and my beautiful daughter who came to me along with her father, when she had just turned thirteen.    My daughter is the youngest of the three, but she was not my baby.  

This little essay is for my baby,  my Darlin’, My baby.  

That is,  my youngest son:  a hulking, huge, almost 35 year old man.  He is over six feet tall (by a bunch), has deep brown eyes a person can get lost in, thick gorgeous black hair, and a beautiful smile that occasionally lights up his face and makes me think of the double rainbow in the sky the day he was born.  I love him beyond expression.   

I also haven’t seen or heard from him in months.  

He suffers from a mental illness that makes it hard to be around him.  He has a mind that experiences incredible highs and devastating lows.  Even the highs,  manic episodes during which his mind races so fast and hard he can’t keep up with it,  are difficult and have from time to time forced him into situations where he attempts to hurt himself, without completely understanding why.   

I’m not even sure if the above paragraph really describes what he has lived through, because surely, I do not understand what it is, no matter how much I have tried.  These are his experiences.  They belong to him.

Here’s what I do understand.

Mental illness is a family disorder.  The person who has the dis-ease often feels alone and bereft, lost, and misunderstood.  But, as John Donne so eloquently said, we are not islands; we are all members of a tribe.  All who love anyone, suffer when that anyone is hurting.  My other children, his friends, his child, anyone who loves him, are affected by what he, apparently, has chosen not to control, but rather to embrace.   I admit I do not understand his choice, but I respect that it is his choice. 

So I have chosen to watch my child from the sidelines.  Some might call me selfish, loving him only from afar.  But it is better for me, and it is probably better for him. 

So this brings me back to Mother’s Day.  I want to take this forum, this little blog that very few people read, to explain how very proud I am of this person I call my baby.    When he loves, he loves without a seat-belt.   Well, really, he has lived his whole life without a seat-belt, a crash helmet, or a safety net.   When he was only a teenager, he spent time taking care of a grandparent at the end of her life.  When she slipped away he was inconsolable.   I remember he called me and wanted me to hop in the car and drive the ten hours to where he was.  Right now.  It’s what he would have done.

I am proud of him for doing what he thinks is the right thing to do.  I don’t agree with much that he does, and he has made some extremely poor decisions in his life.  But I don’t think he ever gives up.  I always imagine a person taking two steps back, and one step forward.  He takes the one step forward.  He takes one step forward.   

This is for you my Darlin’…  I am choosing this Mother’s Day to remember all the reasons I have ever been proud of you. 

At the very least

Recently I was scrolling through the forest of bumper stickers that Facebook has become and almost stuck my foot in it.

We all have opinions and many of us just can't understand why the rest of the world don't agree with us... At least that's the way I feel.

Each morning, after I read my local paper, I peruse my Facebook "news feed". I joined the social networking site a few years ago, and have been overjoyed to reconnect with many people I used to see every day. Folks I went to elementary school with in Ohio. Folks I went to college with, the beautiful people I lived with in a series of Urban Communes when I lived in California. Women I Koffee Klatched with when I was a young mother in Colorado. And more. It's exciting to see where people are, what they are doing, who they have become.

But since before the election it's become more of a place to post information about our favorite causes, express our opinions on volatile issues. The latest is Gun Control.

I recently wrote a letter to the editor after the Sandy Hook shootings. I said we need to "settle down" and focus on the issue of how we treat Mental Illnesses in this country. I think all the excited rhetoric and activities about gun control is sort of a knee jerk reaction.

Like it or not, our Constitution guarantees you and me the right to gun ownership. It's in the Bill of Rights, and that makes it arguably non-negotiable. I agree we should not shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but I do not believe we should mess with the Constitution.

Don't get excited. I don't have a bunker in my basement, but it is true that without our individual ancestors bringing their own guns to the war, forming those Militias, we might be all British Citizens today.

I have written about Mental Illness. It's a horrible disease. It's life threatening...not just for the ones who suffer from it. It's dangerous. It's the underlying reason behind all the mass killings that have ever been perpetrated. In my opinion anyway.

Can't we get excited about the sad, severely lacking state of Mental illness treatment in this country? Can't we look for a cure for Schizophrenia, Bi Polar diseases, and other Mental diseases with as much passion as we do for Cancer, Heart Disease and Birth Defects?

If in my wildest imaginations I thought President Obama would see this blog post, I would ask him to create a Mental Health Task Force. At the very least.

If I thought Bill Gates or Warren Buffett would see this post, I would ask the to set up a foundation that would research diagnoses and treatments for Mental Illnesses...especially the most dangerous of them. At the very least.

Can't we just settle down and focus?




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Omaha

The Horrible Disease

A thousand miles from here, a childhood friend is burying her son.  He died of that often fatal illness, schizophrenia. Another childhood friend, when telling of it described it as "this horrible disease that told him he had no disease."

My heart breaks for my old friend, who had watched her child try to cope with his mental illness for years.  In various communications about memorial services, times, places and such, it became clear that there are others among those of us who spent time together as children, who have watched helplessly, as our own children fight the unseen specter of the many faces of mental illness.

When I was a child, growing up in the 1950s and 60s, we didn't talk about such things. And frankly, not much was known about some of the various disorders we now have names for: ADD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, Aspergers, even depression.

I graduated school with about 50 women, some of whom I had known since preschool.  We all grew up in the same city, and most of us have attended at least one reunion.  When we were in our 20s and 30s, we went on crash diets, bought new outfits, plastered smiles on our faces and went to our reunions firm in the knowledge that no one knew of our deepest secrets, the impending divorces,  financial troubles,  problem children.  But we came together because we love each other.   By the time we attended our last reunion we had been through enough together that most of us no longer worried about "looking good".

For example, when Katrina hit, friends from all over the country rallied to help our New Orleans classmate get her hands on some money until she could go back to her job.  That one event opened me up to the fact that in many ways, our childhood friends remain our closest friends, even across vast distances of time and space.

In 2010, when I returned to the city of my birth for a reunion, I met with a childhood friend who has Aspergers Syndrome, a form of autism.  She told me how when we were small, her parents didn't know what to do with her.  How she herself didn't understand what was "wrong" with her, and turned to alcohol at a young age in an attempt to cope. She told me how, as a recovering alcoholic, she now understands a little more about herself.  We spent an enjoyable hour together, I was able to make amends for the thoughtless cruelty I, among others, treated her with when we were children, and she was able to say, she hadn't really noticed but forgave me anyway.  She also told me how hard she works to make eye contact with everyone she meets, and I was able to tell her I thought she did just fine.   I left our meeting feeling refreshed and renewed.

With the death of one friend's child, others of us rally around her.  Those of us who have children with mental illness now openly discuss and support each other.  Mental illness is an incurable disease.  It is sometimes invisible.  It is insidious, treacherous, and crafty.  It tells some of its sufferers that they have no disease. It requires constant vigilance, but most cases it is treatable.  It is also exhausting.   Its sufferers must cope with it day by day, breath by breath.  My own loved one suffered for most of his life before finally, after several suicide attempts, he now has a tenuous hold on understanding himself, sees his doctor regularly, takes his meds, and seems to have let go of misplaced shame.

Day by day.

Breath by breath.

Those of us who have loved ones who suffer from mental illness need to hold fast to one another, we need to understand that it's not our fault, and we need to give each other hugs.  Lots of big, bone-crushing hugs.