A Story That’s True
My mother is homeless. She’s missing her front teeth and travels with her clothes in a laundry bag. She spends most of her nights in an airport. I’ve never seen her touch an alcoholic drink or drugs in my life. Her intelligence is staggering. Her laugh a cackle that is so big it takes up all the space around her. It’s so genuine that even when what has spurred her into a maniacal cackling fit is a mystery, you can’t help but laugh a little.
My mom never did anything “wrong.” Her condition isn’t given the same credence as addiction though. Her story is so taboo that to this very day there is still a place of shame I carry on her behalf. Growing up she was embarrassing. Sure, all parents are embarrassing when we’re cool teens, but this was different. She was weird. A weird that was noticeable. Not an endearing kind of whacky but an awkward and uncomfortable tension. Her world was not a place she shared with anyone else. It oscillated between dark and melancholy and erratic and unpredictable.
It’s hard for me to write this, me, who can figure out how to convey just about anything through the written word, but now it’s like forcing each letter out of my hesitant fingers. The place where I choose to keep it locked up is resisting, but then again, that place is simply doing its job. It’s protecting me. Protecting me from a world where I may be rejected, because she is rejected. But she is a part of who I am, and this is what I must do.
I didn’t speak to her for over 10 years. It was the easiest decision I ever made. She was never a mother - her main priority was always herself and we were bystanders, sometimes pawns. My sister and I would watch television and movies while she would sleep the weekends away, not once coming out of her bedroom. We would remember the times we were hit for spilling juice or asking to use the bathtub for a school project, never really blaming her, but also never really understanding why. Hair-pulling and hangers were commonplace for the short time we lived with her, before the court awarded full custody to our father— our mother documented as unstable — so the bruises and neglect met their end. We were fortunate to have a father who cared. Despite her erratic and unpredictable nature, dark and constantly shifting moods, she was still mom.
Growing up no one talked about it. No one explained that she suffered from bipolar disorder and psychotic episodes. Maybe it was because we were young and they didn’t think we’d understand, or because they didn’t understand, or worse, it would scare us. Eventually we came to understand that our mom battled with mental illness, and I can tell you one thing for sure, we were scared. Not for her, but for ourselves. Were our fates sealed to be crazy women who beat their kids too? Was our destiny to spend our waking hours lost in a far off [terrifying] world?
I went to go see her about a year and a half ago. It was the first time I had seen her in almost 15 years. She acted as if a day hadn’t passed since the last time we saw each other. She talked about the weather and how she spent most of her days lounging at the pool or beach. All I could think was that the woman who sat in front of me could not be my mother. It was unfathomable.
The last time I had attempted to see her was after she showed up unannounced and uninvited, with a garbage bag full of clothes demanding to be let into my fathers house. I couldn’t let her in. She was volatile and couldn’t be trusted. I called the cops. She was arrested. I had my mother arrested. I found out the next day from the officers where she was, an institution not too far away. I called her and asked if she needed anything. “White eyeliner and lip gloss.” I went to bring it to her. I made it as far as the glass windows to the waiting area where patients mulled about, caught one glimpse of her from the corner of my eye and quickly turned around and left. I was scared. The place gave me the creeps. I was 18 years old. I couldn’t handle it. I left the eyeliner and lip gloss with a receptionist in an envelope with her name on it.
No one likes to talk about it, but it’s a disease* and deserves the same attention as all diseases, and with that, the same support. I don’t want to be judged by the man who takes my credit card number for the pizza order over the phone while I explain that the woman who just shoved her pre-paid phone in his face is my mother and that no, I can’t come in and pay for it because I live in a different state while he tells me that I should come get my mother and take care of her.
I’ve had to make the same gut-wrenching, heart-breaking decisions that the loved ones of alcoholics and drug addicts have to make, but I make mine from a place of feeling shamed and guilty. Her sisters feebly attempted for years too, setting her up with housing, getting her government funding, doing everything they could to help her, the only condition was she had to take her meds. She refused. Still refuses. My mom doesn’t want ‘help’, she wants to live her life her way, it’s part of the disease - no different than an addict who chooses to stay an addict. The only way I can truly help her is to stop helping her. This decision still makes me cringe when my phone rings and I see her name. Choosing to support her by ignoring her is not something you can ever come to terms with in a way that feels good. It hurts. But you do it. And you move on. And at some point you realize that her life is not your life, and you have to live. Even if it means not knowing where she’ll sleep, if she’s in jail, a hospital or dead. Sometimes the latter sounds like a relief.
When I allow myself to think about the reality of it all it breaks me. The mere thought of her walking into a 7-11 for a diet coke or eating her meals at a back table in an Arby’s, alone, is more than I can bare. That’s because she’s my mom, and I love her. Regardless of her disease and what that’s meant for me and my sister I hate the idea that she should ever feel alone. Yet there’s nothing I can do. I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried. Everyone that loves her has tried.
Talking to her is so taxing I would be drained and anxious for hours after a 30 minute phone call. She would ask for money or to buy her meals or pay for her to stay in a hotel. A conversation with her is often paranoid word-salad and is only ever about whatever gibberish she chooses to harp on. My life is trivial at best, she asks questions that she doesn’t really care about the answers to. She can’t. It’s not part of her disease. Her sickness only allows her to think about…well, I’m not really sure. I suppose that’s half the battle.
I’d love to write about the woman she was when she was younger, but I can’t, because I don’t know that person. All I have is a few pictures and old movies with flashes of her before she took a hard left down a lonely road where she choses not to be saved.
Everyone has their stories, the experiences and events of their life that have shaped and formed them. Some stories are harder to hear, some inspiring, some joyful, some painful. I’m starting to believe that there is something to be said for sharing your story. Particularly the ones we quietly carry around like an invisible pack, weighing us down. We choose to keep the invisible packs securely fastened to our backs because we’re afraid. Afraid of rejection, judgement, shame, guilt and all of the horrifying possibilities that come with being vulnerable. So here I am, telling the world wide web about my mom, shedding my pack and prepared for the consequences, no longer seeing my ability to carry all of my shit around while protecting others from it as a badge of honor but letting my story be enough. Letting myself be enough. Bringing mental illness to the front lines because I know there are other stories like mine.
And yet, all I really want to say is I love you, mom.
*In the years since I first wrote this, reading back I cringe at the word ‘disease.’ The truth that I’ve spent a lot of painful time understanding is my mom is happy with the life she has chosen for herself. It may not be my choice, but it’s her path. Mental illness is a box, and I fucking hate boxes, I’m practicing not othering people, and this is a sure way to ‘other.’
My mom is a dark, mysterious, brilliant, unicorn who found her liberation in her own way. She is not at dis-ease, she is pleased with her life (she’ll tell you that herself). The repercussions of her choices is a horse of a different color that is too complex and nuanced to address in a blog post, so I guess what I want to say is my mom is not dis-eased. What is a disease is the overwhelming pain of our world and how we’ve bypassed compassion and understanding in the face of what’s deemed too messy or ugly. How quick we are to medicate and fix symptoms when the root is a throbbing ache of our humanness and how hard it is, and how much we need each other. And, I still love you, mom.