There are parenting aspects to this mental health journey I’m currently on. To the point, the fact that I can’t be home with my kids this summer as planned because I’m in the Intensive Outpatient Program three days a week. What’s really getting to me is that they are both dropping to the lowest common denominator with this…they’re sitting around all day when I’m not here watching TV and playing video games.

I have them signed up to work Community Service hours this summer, and I’m trying to find things for them to do while I’m not here, but I don’t want kids in my house when I’m not here, and I’m worrying about the kids wandering the neighborhood; well, more Gillian than Aidan, he’s 15 and I trust him to make good choices. I trust Gillian’s choices too, but at 12 years and 80 pounds, she is so tiny I’m still afraid she could get grabbed. Even knowing she screams louder than a siren, I still worry. And she’s isolating, not wanting to spend a lot of me with friends. I can set up playdates for her, but I’m not around a lot to reciprocate, and I’m trying very hard not to let local parents know what I’m struggling with right now. I don’t want it to effect how her friend’s parents feel about her, and we live in a very small, suburban area.

The other aspect that I need to take into account is that I haven’t been present even when I’m present. I haven’t been emotionally or even mostly physically available to them, I’ve been so depressed and detached. or anxious and distant. I’ve been learning skills to stop this negative behavior, and change it for the better, and I’m already incorporating it in the time I have with them.

How badly am I damaging them while trying to get well? Is it better that I’m *not* here while I’m not well? They’re more or less used to me this way, sad as it seems. These untreated issues have persisted for years. I suppose the damage is done, and the summer is almost over, but I feel such deep sadness at the thought that so much time has been wasted with me unable to connect to my family. One thing I’m told over and over at my program is to stay away from the ‘coulda’s’ and the ‘shoulda’s’ and the ‘woulda’s', so I will try to concentrate on the positives and know that I’m doing better today than I did yesterday, and hope that tomorrow I’ll learn even more skills to bolster my parenting.

My therapist has told me that they’re not out of the house yet, so there’s still time. I need to make the most of that time to reconnect to the people I love, and believe that it’s not too late.

The way I approach writing prompts is to get one and begin writing without thinking about it. This turned into the note my husband would find on the table inside the front door… Oddly enough, he walked in while I was in the midst of writing it, and stood behind me while tears ran down my face, rubbing my back. I didn’t even have to tell him that it wasn’t real. Good god do I love him…

I never thought I’d be the one
to walk away
to run away
it’s always seemed like the man’s job
in my perception
in my memory

We’re still riding the Mental Illness train here on the blog, people. If you know me, I think you’d never describe me as “one note”, but this is such a huge part of my life right now that I can’t see the forest for the trees (the Pecan tree for the nuts?:)

When all of this came down, and I knew that I was going into an Intensive Outpatient Program, I spoke with my sister-in-law about how to handle the family aspects of the situation. She is a nurse, quite liberal, and often a good sounding board when I’m not sure about what to share with my in-laws. They are a very conservative bunch, and have the Irish-Catholic sensibility of “Let’s not talk about it” as opposed to my Jewish “Let’s over-talk everything”.

This pearl of wisdom dropped out of her mouth: “If you had something wrong with your kidneys, everyone would be concerned and want to know what they could do to help…Why should this be any different? If your kidneys were damaged, it wouldn’t be your fault. Your brain chemistry is damaged. What is so shameful about that? It’s not your fault.”

First, did you grow up in the same family that my husband did? Secondly, you’re right…What *is* so shameful about mental illness? I’m not walking around muttering to myself (well, not most of the time..). I leave the house fully dressed (albeit often without a smile). I’m not a danger to myself or others (except when I run with scissors).

Elyn Saks, professor at the USC Gould School of Law, wrote an article on why mental illness is so stigmatized for the Huffington Post Healthy Living edition. Having suffered from Schizophrenia for 30 years, I comfortably site her as a reliable source.

People who wouldn’t dream of saying a racial or ethnic slur glibly talk about nut cakes, lunatics and crazies. Perhaps they stigmatize the mentally ill because society always marginalizes people who are different. Or people may blame the person, not realizing that mental illness is a no-fault brain disease that you can’t just will away. Then again they may feel unconsciously that they are to blame. Finally, people may have an unconscious fantasy that mental illness is actually contagious — so one must stay away.

But in this moment, we should ponder how we think about and respond to people with severe mental illness. We need either to get them to seek treatment, or force treatment on them. And that will require all of us to resist stigmatizing what we don’t understand.

I’m so glad there are people like Ms. Saks out there, putting a positive – and rational- face on Mental Illness. Perhaps if, as she suggests, more of us can come forward and put a more positive face on this topic, the social stigma might begin to be put into a slightly less hysterical perspective.

And yes, I just had to add that. We’ll blame it on impulse control, because it’s expected of me:)

This writing prompt brought up some interesting stuff…We are asked to imagine that we are in a totally empty room with white walls, ceiling and floor. There is a door in one of the walls.
Here’s where I went with it…

A white sterile room with padded walls
Straight jacket folded neatly
On the floor of my mind
But for me, the door that leads out is unlocked.

And step out into the light of awareness
And the substantial world of being

I have a lot more to say about the journey I’m on, and what challenges life has given me since I stopped blogging. I’m gathering my thoughts on that, and putting it together. In the meantime, this was another writing prompt in the creative writing class in my IOP. Of course, most of the people there are not writers, and the class is used as a cognitive tool for self-expression. Lucky for me, I’m a writer who hasn’t written in years, and finding this class awakened a creative outlet I thought I’d lost for good.

The class was asked to think about the ‘hats’ we wear in our lives. Which is my true self? *note* – This one might be a bit hard to connect to, because it’s so specific to the imagery that was going through the inside of my head. I’d love your thoughts on this….

Is there a brass ring at the core of this carousel – circus animals devised of wood, steel and lacquer? Or am I a sum of these caricatures – Debilitated distortions, refracted reflections of the viable counterparts built from flesh and bone?