I have been extremely MIA for the past month online. As people have so graciously reached out to check in on me, I've been explaining that there's a family emergency without going into more detail. I debated keeping the facts private, but that option was quickly diminished due to the "emergency" being made painfully public by the family member in question. This led to me wanting to explain what is going on; you've all been supportive and loving, and I am still determined to be raw and real with you.
For those of you who don't know, mental illness plays an unfortunately dominant role in my life. Besides being personally diagnosed as bipolar, manic depressed, and having anxiety with severe panic attacks, I have friends and family that also suffer from different illnesses. Particularly, my biological mother.
Mom and Dad divorced when I was fairly young, and Dad remarried my beautiful stepmother. My Dad received custody while also allowing me to have designated visitation with my mom. Granted, the story is much more complicated than that, but I doubt you're interested in the details of custody battles.
It's not a secret that Mom suffered from a drug and alcohol addiction. The other huge factor, however, has always been mental illness. While the diagnosis have slightly changed throughout the years (it can be quite a nightmare to pinpoint an exact diagnosis in such severe cases) the basic factors have been schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, turrets, and multiple personality disorder. Keep in mind that there are many branches and sub-groups to each of these disorders, but I'm simply giving the overview.
The pattern of my life thus far with my mom has been watching her get sober, go to jail or rehab, get her medication adjusted, and get her feet under her for a long amount of time...only to be followed by a crash. Whether it's been a relapse into using or simply a mental break, that has been the reoccurring pattern.
For about three years now, we've had a solid relationship with a foundation that seemed unbreakable. I'm finally an adult and felt that I could make the decision to be involved in her life on my own terms. She's been kicking ass in her AA meetings, finishing off her probation, and landing job opportunities. On top of this, we got her settled in to a new apartment with a boyfriend that she loved. The last three years allowed me to tentatively believe that we were out of the woods. Hope planted itself in my chest; for the first time, I watered it and let it blossom.
But I have been a blissfully unaware fool. I forgot to remind myself that mental illnesses have their own agenda, and if you stop carefully paying attention...disaster unfolds.
Now that I'm an adult, the responsibility fell on me to get her back to a doctor and adjust the medication. But by the time I caught on, it seemed to be too late. She will not be convinced to get help, even by her own daughter, because a paranoid schizophrenic person (not to mention all of the other factors) believes wholeheartedly that the world in his or her head is reality. It's proving nearly impossible to convince mom otherwise.
I'll spare you the gory details here; just be assured that the last month has taken its toll. In turn, my own mental health has been put on the back burner. I resorted to one of my old dangerous coping habits, which is to isolate myself. I've been saying that I need personal space, which is typically a healthy tool I use to recharge. However, I need to be honest with myself: it seems that I've confused "personal space" with "hide from the world and my emotions."
So here I am, admitting this. Admitting that things are not quite okay. That I'm fragile, scared, exhausted, stressed, and completely out of my element.
I don't share this to receive pity. I share to expose how harmful mental illness is, and how it's not pretty or glamorous. It gets romanticized in pop culture (cough cough "Thirteen Reasons Why", I'm pointing at you) and fails to show the darker sides. Do you think it's cute hearing someone you love beg you to get the voices out of their head, while they simultaneously try to scratch them out? Do you think these people chose to fall back into the deepest corners of their mind, where they can't escape?
I also share this to say thank you. Thank you to every single individual that has been seeing me through this. You understand that there's nothing you can do to change the shitty situation, so you offer your hand for me. You stay on the phone and talk to me all night while I'm paralyzed with panic attacks. You drag me out of my apartment to do something fun. You are patient when I cancel plans. You tell me to stop apologizing. "Thank you" will never be enough. I have some amazing people in my corner, and I wouldn't be here without you.
This is more of a life update post as opposed to a helpful one, but it needed to be done so I could properly break my silence. I can't wait to get my creative juices flowing again. Creating content brings me such a rush of happiness, and I'll be damned if I let my mind stop me from writing. Life happens on its own terms, and the only thing we can do is approach by implementing my favorite saying: "One day at a time."