My Childhood with Mentally Ill Loved Ones
Hi, I’m Elle! Welcome to Distressed and Distracted! Thank you for taking the time to pop in and check out my blog. If you’re here, it means you’re probably struggling and looking for help. I’m hoping to share some of what I’ve experienced in life so others going through similar things don’t feel so lost.
A Little Background
As a child, my mom got sick and years later was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was hard on my whole family but impacted me the most. I was only ten when she had her breakdown. When I told people my mom was being weird, they chalked it up to stress. My mom has been laid off, we lost our home to foreclosure, and her and my step-dad separated. It’s enough to drive anybody crazy. But she kept getting worse.
My friends were afraid to come over, their parents didn’t want them around my mom. Worst of all, my family didn’t see what I saw. They weren’t around all the time, living in the same home as my mom. Nobody thought it was as serious as I kept making it seem. My grandma, my mom’s mom, finally started to notice. She had seen mental illness before, in her wife who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. But schizophrenia and bi-polar are vastly different and it was hard for my grandma to understand that at first. And at the time, my mom hadn’t even been diagnosed yet or acknowledged that she was sick at all. It made things very difficult.
We started doing research and going to support groups. My grandma kept a very close eye on me to make sure things were OK at home. When I was fourteen, I moved in with her and her wife as my mom started going in and out of treatment facilities. But going from a home with schizophrenia to one with bi-polar wasn’t much of a relief for me.
Throughout high school, my mom was moved from place to place. She still didn’t believe anything was wrong with her, and hospitals couldn’t keep her for long. It wasn’t until the end of my senior year that my mom started to accept what was going on and agree to get on medication.
Where I’m at Now
It’s been five years since I graduated high school, and my mom is doing much better. She will always be sick, but she has medication that works great for her and she can lead a fairly normal life. But it took seven years to get her on medication at all, and then a couple more years to find the right mixture and dosage. This was the most traumatic time in my life, and I remember feeling like an outcast.
As I mentioned above, I went to support groups but I was the only kid with a sick parent. The rest of the members were people whose adult children were sick and they had quite different experiences. I remember thinking, “if only I could meet just one other person my age who’s going through this, I wouldn’t feel so alone.”
That brings me to my blog. I’m starting Distressed and Distracted for people like me. Kids and young adults whose parents or guardians are sick. I hope to make them realize they are not alone. I’ve been through it, so I know they can get through it.
Until Next Time,
Elle
