My story is both hair-raising and mundane at the same time. I was a very promising student, talented musically and didn’t have too bad a childhood, but went down with clinical depression aged 19. Back then there was not so much awareness of the condition so I didn’t really get any effective help. Depression through my twenties came and went, I tried out ‘alternative’ lifestyles and was somewhat of a political activist, I didn’t pursue a career because it was kind of fashionable in my circle to be a dropout I guess. Also the episodes of depression would hit hard, still undiagnosed, still not really getting any help. Ran into problems in relationships, tried out being gay, found that even worse, I think the common factor was myself. Hid away from the world for about two years living like a hermit because people seemed to cause pain. Travelled to India for two years. Had massive psychotic breakdown in India. Returned to UK, first of many hospitalisations in psych wards.
Finally diagnosed as bipolar (very classic case of bipolar 1), revolving door syndrome of admissions to the psych ward on a section (forced). Fell pregnant by another psych patient (back then wards were astonishingly mixed sex), didn’t even realise my condition until it was too late to do anything about it. Ended up keeping the child because of my mother’s intervention (otherwise he would have gone for adoption probably). Struggled as single mother. Held on grimly for next seven years, felt pretty inadequate but did best, child was shuttled around between my mum and me when my illness struck.
Tried to get help from social services, none forthcoming. No one seemed to ‘get’ that I wasn’t really coping and couldn’t be everything to my child despite I was honest and open about it. Finally had huge meltdown following my father’s funeral (he was a somewhat abusive father who I had hated). Ran off in a state of florid psychosis/mania, leaving son alone with instructions on who to call. Ran to Paris. Long story short son went into long term foster care despite my best efforts to regain custody.
Feel like a failure at pretty much everything. But wtf. I am lucky I still have a relationship with my son and he is a bright intelligent boy (now 19) with a basic decency about him despite being somewhat prone to depression unsurprisingly.
Depression is the deadly enemy that I have to fight most days I guess. There is never a time when I truly desire to live, and I regard this life as a calamity and a predicament. My story isn’t even so very terrible when compared to many I have read or know of. The guilt and shame over my ‘failure’ as a mother has been pretty triggering. But it may also, finally, stop me from following through.
4 comments
Depression is tougher than most people realize. It is overwhelming, especially when you add other mental issues on top of it. You may have not been the perfect mother, but you had huge obstacles to overcome. They made it impossible for you to do better. Just think of the millions of parents that are terrible without any reason to be that way except for extreme selfishness.
Btw, I was in a psych ward about 3 months ago and it was mixed gender. I was surprised, too, as that was my first and only time in a place like that.
Thanks for reading and replying worthlessloser, working on forgiving myself for my failures and mistakes, I usually post here under a different name but this subject matter is pretty sensitive so…
Mixed wards were/are really a scandal in my opinion. And you are spot on about depression. I believe it to be quite the worst pain in the world to be honest.
Hi Meursault,
You obviously love your son very much and faced tremendous struggles dealing with your illness while trying to care for him. As a bipolar woman who never had children (probably for the best), I can’t begin to imagine what you went through. I hope your son knows how much you love him.
You feel like a failure at just about everything? Me, too. Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed by my disastrous choices and past mistakes that I can barely get out of bed.
Your feelings of guilt and shame are understandable, but I hope someday your boy will come to know how hard you’ve worked to try and keep it together for him. Take care.
Thank you Violet, to be honest I kind of wish it hadn’t happened. It was a harsh start in life for my infant son to be shuttled around here and there and later on too. It’s very traumatising and hard to fully get over, that we were sent to various ‘mother and baby units’ (dedicated psych wards to promote the mother-baby bond etc) and while one really helped and suppoorted me to cope with my son’s needs, another I was just way too psychotic/manic to have any real awareness of or sensitivity to my son’s needs. I often feel furious at life for doing this to us!
And how many people would understand or be able to relate to a situation like this? It’s totally taboo to admit you wish your child had not been born, or that his coming into the world is something you did not give informed consent to. All that mystique around motherhood doesn’t help either.
That I guess is why I end up posting here about it, even here I fear judgment and the wrong people reading it but sometimes I need to let it see the light of day I guess. Thanks again for reading/commenting so supportively.