It has taken me a long time to write this post. I've reviewed it a thousand times and revised it more than that. It's not an easy thing to talk about. I have a parent with a mental illness and that makes life... well... complicated.
When I first started writing this post I asked myself a thousand questions. Like, if I write this particular sentence what will my family think of me? Will they judge me? Is it oversharing? Should this part stay in or not? Do I think this will offend people? Do I care? Do I not care? If I don't care, am I insensitive? Have I not tried hard enough? How will this look from the outside? What will it mean for me and my family. In the end, I needed to write MY story, from MY perspective, how I see it, and how I still struggle with having a parent that has a mental illness.
Mental illness runs in my family. When my parents divorced my dad got very depressed. So much, that he attempted suicide. My mom saved his life and I am forever grateful for that. My great grandmother (dad's grandmother) was successful in her suicide attempt back in the 1970s. I have alcoholics on both sides of my family. And I have also gone rounds with depression over the years. Yet, the person that suffers most greatly from mental illness is my mom.
She's formally diagnosed with bipolar, but I don't think that's an accurate diagnosis. I think it's borderline personality disorder, which can look a lot like bipolar, but on steroids and not manageable with medication, which is why the medicine she's been taking hasn't shown any results.
Now, I didn't just come up with this diagnosis on my own. I was led to it by my therapist. I had gone to therapy to gain some insight in managing my relationship with my mom. Upon discovering this disorder, I then called another therapist that was close to my family to ask if she had the same conclusion. She did. It took a little bit to convince my brother (who has a master's in psychology), but he has come to the same conclusion.
Dealing with someone that has borderline personality disorder can make you feel like you're the one with mental illness. My mom has accused me of whispering about her while we were having dinner, so we would shut her out, that I never wanted a relationship with her, and that I loved my father more than I love her. These things couldn't be further from the truth, but that's what she believes. Despite my best intentions to overcome these beliefs, my mom has painted me as "bad" in her black and white world. Having a black and white world in the first place is one of many symptoms of this disorder. I tried to show her love and kindness, but it never seemed to be enough. So when that didn't work I yelled back at her. I'm not proud of this, but it's the truth.
My mom is paranoid and thinks that everyone is out to get her or make her life miserable. She holds onto negative interactions and that shapes most of her relationships. She's struggled with alcohol addition and has struggled to control her impulse to buy things, which has led to money trouble. At the end of the day she feels empty, like no one loves her. I just feel exhausted, and guilty at the same time for feeling like I'm getting the better end of the deal.
I will never forget the day she came back from the hospital after my dad had been rescued from his suicide attempt. He was still on a ventilator fighting for his life and she said to me, "He knew what he was doing. This is just a ploy to try and get me to stay, but it won't work. I'm still moving out. And you know what else? HE NEVER WANTED TO SEE YOU AGAIN." Those words were like daggers to my heart. She was not afraid to take down anyone that got in her way, even if she crushed her teenage daughter in the process. To this day, she stands by those statements as being the truth.
One of the best books that I've read about the disorder is "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me" by Jerold J. Kreisman. This is the mantra of this disorder. It's a very informative read and I cried as I got through the book. This. Is. Her. This is my mother. I can check just about every box for every symptom presented, even though I didn't want to.
When I get too involved with her life, I describe it like being sucked into a vortex. I'm in a tornado of her skewed reality and I can't escape. It's like a bad roller coaster ride that I can't get off.
Then, I'll find a way to stop the ride for awhile and the fog will clear. I'll think, "I'm so glad I'm off this ride." Then I'll start to feel guilty again. She is my mom after all. I'll reminisce telling myself, "It wasn't that bad," or, "She can't help it," or "I should be the one to try and help her." Then I'm back on the ride again.
The breaking point for me has been my kids. When my mom lived with us for six months my son witnessed some of our explosive arguments. I was 7 months pregnant with Caitiejane when I lost it on my mom. I cried and screamed, like Gardner had never witnessed before. I decided then that I couldn't put my unborn daughter in danger and allow my son to listen to us scream at one another. I sought therapy, just as I had in the past and finally discovered the disorder that mom has been suffering from for as long as I can remember.
Learning about this disorder has brought clarity to so much of my past and in a sense has given me closure and comfort. It made me realize that I wasn't crazy, that I didn't do anything wrong, and that she just can't help it. At the same time this opened another dilemma. Do I allow my kids to have a relationship with her or not?
I made a decision after I gave birth to Caitiejane that my mom had to move out. And she did. We haven't spoken much since. On one hand, I feel like I'm doing the right thing to protect my kids from the chaos that she causes, but on the other hand, I know that she deserves love and compassion from me and deserves to have a relationship with her grand kids. I want her to know my kids so badly, but I also want to protect my kids. I believe that my kids deserve to have grandparents that spoil them, love them, and play with them.
She asked me once after a big fight if I was going to shelter my kids forever and if I was never going to fight in front of them. My response was, yes, I will shelter them as long as I can, but that what Gardner saw between my mom and me wasn't just fighting, it was emotional abuse. And no, I wasn't going to expose him or Caitiejane to that. It broke my heart to be so emotional and upset with my mom that I couldn't even care for my son. It broke my heart to see him cry so much and not know what was going on. Gardner deserves better. Caitiejane deserves better. I deserve better. Mom deserves better too.
With borderline personality disorder you never know who you're going to get on a minute to minute basis. And yet, I will have to explain to my kids one day either why I didn't let them see her or why I subjected them to her less than ideal behavior.
The thing is, she's not always behaving in less than ideal ways. She has plenty of amazing traits and we've had a ton of positive memories together. I've seen her be the most fun Nana to her grand kids. She has more energy than I'll ever have. In these moments of clarity, as I'm watching her have fun with them I think, why can't she be like this all the time? If only they could know this side of her exclusively. Then we'll FaceTime at Christmas and she'll barely acknowledge them because she's had a fight with me earlier in the week.
Deciding whether or not to make her a part of my kids' lives is the one thing I wrestle with more than anything else that relates to raising my them. It makes deciding whether or not to stay home and home school my kids or send them to public school seem so trivial.
My husband says I feel guilty, and he's right. I think my mom and I want the same thing: a positive relationship. It just makes it so hard when she behaves so badly in front of my kids and tells me that "I don't love her as much as I love my father," and "I'm living in the past and have never forgiven her for divorcing my dad." These things aren't true, but they are her reality. A reality that I try to overcome, though, probably not as often as I should.
I realize that my mom felt unwelcome in my home, though that was not my intention. I realize that she thinks that the fights we had were "not that bad." I'm sensitive to the fact that she has an entirely different take on this story. And that is hers to have.
I can't imagine how she must feel on a daily basis. I couldn't imagine what it's like to be her. This is why I struggle so much with my decision to keep my distance. I can only hope that she is getting the help that she needs and that some day we may be able to fully reconcile. I try not to be too hopeful about this because I know this mental illness has a hold on her and it will be something she deals with for the rest of her life. I just don't know how much my life and my kids' lives will be intertwined with that. It's a prayer that I pray every day.