Living with a parent with a mental illness

This post is all about living with a parent with a mental illness and the effects it has. I think this post is going to be the hardest yet to write I’ve never really spoken about this to anyone really some of the closest people to me wouldn’t know of this. I bottle everything up so this is way outside my comfort zone.

For most of my life I kind of knew there was something different about my mam when I was growing up I knew my relationship with my mam was completely different than my friends with their mams. To be honest I didn’t really have a relationship with my mam. Like when a girl is growing up her mam is usually her best friend not for me. As long as I can remember I always remember my mam not being like my friend’s mams. She used to always lose it over something so small.  But growing up I didn’t really think of it being any different.  It wasn’t till about 5 years ago where we all noticed something wasn’t right my mam. In 2012 my mam had kind of lost the plot. Her mood was all over the place. My dad started his own business in our home town and it wasn’t till then where things went pear shape.  My parents have been separate for a good few years.  They did have a civil relationship but it was more so for us.

That summer of 2012 is where we all noticed things weren’t right.  My mother had recently moved into her own new house. We would notice that she wasn’t herself. My mam started having a mental breakdown. I can’t exactly think how it started but I just remember she used to come into my dad business and just loses it in front of the customers, she used to make up stupid story’s that weren’t true.  After a few weeks of this happening we finally managed to persuade her to see someone. She was prescribed tablets and that she was meant to take but she wasn’t taking them at all. After a few weeks’ things were getting worse, she wouldn’t eat or clean herself and was losing so much weight and her mood would get worse, she was still coming into my dad’s business and losing it. We tried so many times to persuade her to volunteer into the local psychiatric hospital but she wouldn’t. As the law had change it was so hard for her to be sectioned. It wasn’t until one day she was really bad that we finally got the doctors to see sense and get her sectioned.  As I said before it the law being so strict with how long she could be sectioned for this meant that she was out after a few weeks even though she wasn’t better what so ever if anything I thought she was a lot worse.

She used to think the devil was living in her fingers it’s such a horrible experience to have to see your mam think she’s processed with the devil. This was start of a long journey of her coming in and out of hospital. After being let back out a couple of weeks later she was back in hospital.  After a couple of months in and out she decided to move back to the family home.  We thought this would be good for her but little did we know this next year would be hell for me and my sisters.  My mam would have episodes every so often and each episode would really get worse and worse, and as there is no help for us so there was little we could do, when my mam wasn’t in hospital she would be part a day center called lincara. To be honest over the last 5 years of having dealing with my mams mental illness there is actually no resources to deal with her for us. When my mam would have her outburst it was usually late in the evenings or on the weekends and of course there is no help for anyone come past 5 o’clock on a Friday which isn’t good what do they think at the weekends people don’t have outburst. So because there was no help for us the only thing we could actually do in ring the guards, yes I know it may seem mad ringing the guards on your own mother but having to deal with her outburst that’s the only thing we had to do. If your unaware of outburst you probably don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. When my mam is on an outburst is actually one of the most fighting things ever to deal with, she would be so violent and would physically attack us for no reasons and say some horrible things, its mad though because when she wasn’t on an outburst she wouldn’t bring up what she did.  It was so hard when she was on one of her outbursts to try to keep calm, there been so many times where you’d want to lose it but you can’t. it so hard to just stand and take her physically attacking you, but my god it gave me a lot of patience

2013 was one of the hardest years for me, I think this was when everything was at the worse. In this year my mam was in and out of hospital so many different times. She had so many outbursts these outbursts were violent. She would physically attack us or either threaten to burn the house down, and as I said before with the laws being so strict even when we had rung the guards when they arrived to the house and if they didn’t actually see her on an outburst they couldn’t do anything about, like there was some nights that she would have a good few outbursts in one night and the guards would have to be called so many different times in that one night. It wasn’t till the 3rd or 4th time in the one night of the guards being called before they could actually do anything. And even sometimes at that she would be brought down to the station and be seen by the doctor down there, for that doctor to say that she was alright to go home.

The day care center she used to go to was no help what’s so ever. We had plenty and plenty of meetings with her doctor to be still in the situation as we were in the first place. Because my mam wouldn’t take her tablets they tried to put her on an injection for her tablets. From this injection she received a reaction to it which left her with side effects kind of like Parkinson’s. The doctors never admitted that they should of know the side effect before giving it to her. After all this going on she was in hospital for a good few months with no break home. So them couple of month were hell for us and her. Also through all this we had the doctors telling us first of all she had Parkinson’s disease and then saying she has Lewy body and she would only have a few years to live. Which in the end it turns out she has none of them, it’s so bad that they telling us the wrong thing. Like when they told my mam that she had Parkinson’s they even had a OT come out to the family home and try get the house set up for, its mad that they waste tax payer’s money on getting her to come out to the house for no reason.

Each month she would be in and out of the hospital when she was in the hospital she was grand but when she was out of hospital she was a nightmare for us all. I just don’t get why there isn’t any help for family members who have to live with a member of their family with a mental illness. Like there be times were I be crying down the phone to the day center asking for help and what should we do and at that they said they couldn’t bring her in and if anything happen to called the guards which is ridiculous because why waste the guards time when they could be out there fighting real crime. So I had to deal with this for the last 5 years when it first happened I just had no life I didn’t want to do anything go visit my friends anything. it just got to me so much and I bottled everything up so much, 2015 and 2016 was hard years as well for us. My mam was mostly back home and she at this stage had turn to drink she was drinking all the time getting so drunk that she would passed out. One time I remember me and my sister was out and came home and she had locked the door and was so drunk that we had t called the guards to break down the door. I think like are whole neighborhood properly would of know about my mam. I found these two years very hard, I was up in Athlone in college even though I wouldn’t be actually facing what was happening at home I still knew that it was happening. At the moment she is in hospital but she can’t stay there

At the moment she is in hospital but she can’t stay there for ever. she can’t live in home house or she can’t live on her own. So after the long 5 years of mam in and out of hospital they diagnosed her with bipolar. They said that she had it all her life and the reason it was so bad is because she left it so long untreated. I still think thought that this isn’t what she has, like fair enough she had her outburst but she was never a high.  We just don’t know what to do now. Through all this you really find out people have such stigma over mental health like some of my mams family don’t even bother with her anymore or some of friends don’t either, I think that is just sad, why gives up on someone just because there ashamed that they have a mental illness. I wish there was so much more help out there for us but there isn’t.