Understanding
I wish we could find other words rather than mental illness. I wish we didn’t have to label ourselves or our loved ones with diagnoses. Like a lot of other people my son has been given various different diagnoses. Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder. It doesn’t really matter what the label is. He and I deal with the symptoms. He’s had several psychotic breaks, and been hospitalized three times. The last time the worst. Tried to kill himself and almost succeeded. Every mother who has witnessed their child, even an adult child, be in that much pain and fear, knows how I felt. After the hospital he wasn’t better. I lost my faith in psychiatrists, at least most of them. Good ones will tell you they don’t really know what they are doing. It’s hit or miss, some meds might help, some might make it worse, all have side effects. We’ve been through so many. This time even anti psychotics didn’t work. I wouldn’t leave him alone, I even slept in his bed, played calming music, gave him medication so he could get a little sleep and escape the constant fear and self destructive thoughts, just for a while. I did this for a month, and then finally electroconvulsive therapy. Luke agreed to it, but in his confusion I think he thought that it was going to kill him and he was ready for that, although terrified. Three times a week for two weeks, I slowly saw him come back to reality. He hated it, but he knows it saved his life. My poor baby. 26 and still my baby. That’s how we mothers feel.
It’s hard. He gets angry, he gets frustrated, no patience. Thoughts disorganized, difficulty taking care of himself, only able to work for me because of course I understand the inability to be at work at 8 am and the days when he “doesn’t feel well”. But he tries really, really hard. He is a caring, loving person. He lives alone and I encourage it. He is a great friend and a loving brother, uncle and son. He is not a diagnosis. He is Luke and I am proud of him. I try hard not to nag too much. I have let go of a lot of expectations. But I refuse to treat my son as if he is mentally ill. I am waiting for the day when doctors do know what they are doing and will be able to pinpoint certain misfirings in the brain, or chemical deficiencies or excess.