Ok, so we all know Mental Ilness is not contagious right? Well in a literal sense it’s not, but what about the affect it has on those around the person with the an illness?
I can tell you that over the past 11 years I have experienced some horrific side effects of having a poorly brain! It’s no easy task being confronted with a person who thinks people are out to kill them or that in fact you are the one out to kill them especially when this person is your own mum, the person you have always been incredibly close to & have always had the most trusted bond with.
Ive often thought that our experience would make a really good movie, it would also be extremely harrowing. Some of the things we have been through as a family are almost too random & bizarre that I would have trouble believing them if I was being told them by someone else. The tricks a brain can play on its host are horrific. When someone is experiencing psychotic symptoms, there is no telling what they may think, see or do. We have gone from black nuns with guns (that’s not out of a rap, promise) to little flashing lights hidden in trees. At one point when I had mum living back with me during her illness, she went around my house filling any tiny little gap, crack & hole with chewing gum because she said there was gas being put through them. The thing is, when you are standing in front of someone & they are looking you square in the face begging you to believe that they have just seen a nun carrying a gun & they are so terrified, there’s a part of you which thinks maybe this is true! 🤷🏼♀️
Honestly, over the years I have felt myself going slightly mad (a phrase I use to describe how I’m feeling, not a word to describe people with mental illness) & at some points during my mum’s very psychotic episodes, there were times where I was so exhausted & stressed that I would actually start to wonder if what I was being told was true & that I was the one with the illness (fact).
The one thing I found the hardest is the fact that my mum, my best friend, all of a sudden turned on me. The mum I could go to & still plonk myself next to for a cuddle if was sad, or if I just wanted to, (I never had to ask for cuddles as mum always says) the mum who found such pleasure in looking after me, the mum I used to buy a local fresh crab with & sit at the table banging the the hell out of the shell with to get to all the juicy bits of white crab meat (we loved this process! 🦀) that mum, suddenly didn’t trust me, didn’t like me but worst of all was scared of me. The look you get from a persons eyes when they are filled with pure terror is like no other look & I doubt many people have actually seen that look for real. We’ve all seen horror films where the woman sees the man wielding a knife from behind the shower curtain & her eyes are wide with fear, but that is nothing like actually standing in front of someone you love so much & seeing them frozen to the spot because they are so terrified. There is also nothing like watching someone try to take their own life because they are convinced they are going to be captured & then tortured for hours my men dressed in fake uniforms. Just sit there & take that in for one moment. There are men pretending to be police, delivery drivers etc, they are looking for you & when they find you they are going to rape you, then torture you until you die. Pretty sobering uh? Well this is what my mums brain was telling her was going to happen for YEARS. It didn’t matter that even though this horrific scene never actually played out, it didn’t make any difference when I tried to convince her it wasn’t going to happen & the fact it hadn’t ever happened over the years, so that must prove to her that it was all in her head, it didn’t matter. To her, it was going to happen at any minute. When I say I have sat for hours on end trying to make my mum see it was her brain playing really bad tricks on her, I mean hours & hours.
Over the years I have met so many people going through similar things (never the same, but similar) & I have sat, cried & talked to these people trying to fathom out where it all went so wrong. Some of the people I have met, mainly in the hospital, were angry. They wanted their loved one to snap out of it, get a grip, to take the bloody medication & sort themselves out. I too have been there & feel incredibly guilty for those thoughts but of course it’s quite natural to feel that way. Some people decided they couldn’t cope with it so basically left & never returned. Some people came & went & tried to do as much as possible without it affecting their life too much & then you get the people like me, who spent every waking hour trying to find answers, reasons, cures & researched until the early hours of the morning feeling defeated & exhausted. I don’t say this to say “look at me, I’m so wonderful!” I say this because it’s the people like me that are in great danger of going down hill & also becoming ill.
One day out side the ward where my mum had been admitted, I sat on a bench crying, shattered & totally gutted. I had just signed the paperwork for my mum to be sectioned against her will. The gut wrenching feeling of guilt was insane! I knew I had to do this for my mums own safety & for my sanity but I never want to see that look she gave me again! The look that says “I have done nothing but love you, how can you do this to me” she was petrified, shaking, crying & worst of all begging me not to let them take her. So there I was on this bench, feeling like the shittiest person that ever walked this planet, when a lady appeared from nowhere & sat beside me. I didn’t look up as I was embarrassed of the state of my snotty nose & pin prick eyes from crying but I did acknowledge her & she put her hand on my back. She asked me if I’d like a cigarette & at first I declined, I had given up smoking years ago but then I said out loud “oh fuck it” yes please! Then I turned to her to get a light & looked at her. I was so confused at first because I knew I knew her but I also knew that I didn’t know her personally & then it clicked! Without a word from me she said “yes I am” & I then knew that in fact she was the very famous actress I’d watched many of times in films & different series. I lit the cigarette & asked why she was there (very rude looking back but I was in shock) she explained she had a very close loved one in the ward too. It was evident she had been crying also & we just sat, smoked, chatted & hugged. I wasn’t sitting with this very successful actress at that time, I was sitting with someone going through hell just like me, someone who just wanted to know ‘why’. A black car with tinted windows turned up to collect her & we hugged one last time & that was that. I never did see her again but I’ve always wanted to reach out to her just to say “how you doing?” But I don’t & I wouldn’t because there’s that fear of her thinking I’m just doing it because of who she is. But I hope she found peace & her loved one made it through this. We all hope we will make it through this. ❤️
Mental health (poorly brain) 