The next posts are going to be a little heavier, so they need a trigger warning. I will talk about a lot of mental health disorders and issues.
When I was a teeny tiny Megan life started out pretty good, I guess. My earliest memory dates from when I was around two years old. It was evening and I was laying in my crib. The door of my room was locked on a metal hook and my two cats fit right through the small opening. They were playing and wrestling with each other and I wanted to pet them. So I climbed out of my crib and when I wanted to pet the cats, they left the room. I walked to the door and heard my parents talking and laughing. I think my mom was still okay at the time.
For as far as I know and as far as I’ve heard, things started to change when I was around three years old. My mom’s mental state changed. A lot. I don’t know how it began or what actually happened and why, but I do know what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard from others (including my mom). At first people thought my mom had a late postpartum depression. She didn’t want to do anything, she stayed inside and wanted to sleep all day long. After a while the diagnosis changed. This happened multiple times. The list of diagnosed disorders is pretty long and consists of postpartum depression, depression, anxiety disorder, psychosis, schizophrenia, hypochondria, prescription drug addiction, eating disorder and I’m sure I forgot a few.
With every diagnose came a special treatment, prescription drug or both. I saw my mom in and out of mental institutions/hospitals. Especially in the beginning. Later on it was just prescription drugs and staying at home.
My mom once stayed at a place with the most awful vibe. I wanted to visit my mom, but I also didn’t really feel safe at the place she was staying at. The common room was silent. Like…extremely silent. I remember it felt like there was this huge ball of warm air around my ears that just took away all the sound. I could hear/feel my own heartbeat in my head. It also felt like something bad could happen at any time. I visited with my father, brother and sister, so I wasn’t alone. But I was still kinda afraid. We never stayed in the common room, we always went outside. We had a little walk and went to some sort of restaurant or snack bar, I can’t really remember what it was. But it was better than that common room.
When my mom was at home, she wasn’t really present. In the beginning she was calling doctors and hospitals a lot to ask if she could have another scan or another examination. She was reading a lot of medical books and was convinced she knew what was going on. She just wanted the hospitals to check and confirm it. She also called her friends and my grandma and aunt a lot to ask the same. To ask what they thought was wrong with her. When they told her something she didn’t want to hear, she got mad or kept on pushing that it was something else. Every phone call my mom made was ended by someone out of anger. Sometimes by my mom, but most of the time by the ones she called. All my mom’s friends ended their friendship with my mom. They couldn’t take it anymore. If my aunt and grandma could have done the same, they probably would have, I think.
I visited my grandma and aunt multiple times a week. I think I was at my grandma’s at least twice a week and I was at my aunt’s once a week. I stayed there for dinner and watched tv or played boardgames or did some pretend play. I had a “pharmacy” with my sister at my grandma’s, I kid you not. We had all these used/empty medicine packages and did a lot of roleplay, where we pretended to be complaining customers. We also pretended to have an answeringmachine that we made from a taperecorder.
My grandma and aunt were always very sweet to me. I loved spending time with them. But I also knew they were very mean to my mom. They yelled at her, ignored her, hung up on her and sometimes they didn’t open the door for her. One time my mom was at my grandma’s and I was there too. I was in one of the rooms playing with the pharmacy when I heard my mom and grandma arguing. At some point my grandma yelled at my mom: ‘If you continue this way, you’ll be dead before you know it.’ I don’t know why, but this had a huge impact on me. I was constantly afraid my mom would die.
Every night before I went to sleep I was saying these sentences in my head: ‘Please don’t let my mom die, please let her stay with me for a long long time’. And whilst I was doing this, I felt guilty to other family members. So I continued with: ‘Please also let my sister live and my brother and my father. Please don’t let my grandma die yet. I know she’s old, but I can’t miss her yet.’ I didn’t do this once. I could do this for a half an hour a night. Every night.
There was a reason why my grandma said what she said to my mom. My mom was very self-destructive at the time. I will tell some more about that in a next post.
