Showing posts with label Mothers and Daughters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mothers and Daughters. Show all posts

Saturday, March 8, 2025

Life Lessons Series: Life Is What Happens When You Are Making Other Plans - Musician John Lennon

Life Lessons Series: Life Is What Happens When You Are Making Other Plans - Musician John Lennon

Life Lesson #7

Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

My grandmother Alvira died on December 30, 2004, my 22nd birthday, in Guyana South America, thousands of miles away but it was exactly where she wanted to be. They say there is no such thing as an untimely death but the timing of Alvira’s passing always felt planned to my broken heart. You see, I was in Ottawa, ON the day she died, making plans for my birthday, making plans to reunite with my estranged boyfriend, making plans for New Year’s Eve, making plans for my final semester at Carleton University and making plans for my bright and shiny future. Then life happened. 

I walked into my 7th floor apartment the evening of New Year’s Eve, my mother standing by the dining room table tears in her eyes, my aunt and uncle stood frozen in my living room and three of my girlfriends who had proceeded me to the apartment stood awkwardly with party supplies in hand and regret in their eyes. I looked at my mom and the next words out of her mouth shattered my world, made all thoughts in my head disappear because life or rather death had happened when I was out making plans.


“Gran Gran Alvira died yesterday in Guyana,” my mother could barely get the words out past her tears. 


My response to the devastating news is silly to me now, “Yesterday was my birthday.” 


Then I fell to the floor and screamed from my soul where she had always lived and collapsed. I was never going to see her alive again, I was never going to smell her neck as I snuggled in her strong lap, I was never going to feel her arms around me or hear her soft voice telling her baby girl how I gave the best hugs, She wasn’t going to be at my graduation or wedding or the birth of my first child and we were never going to dance to Ella Fitzgerald or sing Summertime again. Life had gotten in the way of my plans.


After flying back home for the funeral and saying goodbye to my soulmate I simply stopped living life, I stopped making plans, I stopped smiling and laughing and loving the way I did when my grandmother was alive. She was 82 years old when she died and as an adult I understood she couldn’t live forever but the child she helped raise, that she encouraged to dream big couldn’t comprehend a world where Alvira didn’t exist. I spiralled out of control, I made a lot of bad choices after she died and two years later I found myself in a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit being diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder. That was never the plan but life continued on around me, life continued to happen to me regardless of whether I had a plan or not. Sometimes choosing not to plan becomes the plan and life still happens whether you like it or not.


Fast forward 20 years, I recently went back home to Guyana following my spirit, my heart and my soul’s calling to be in the last place my grandmother was. I spent a month there including my 42nd birthday, I celebrated Alvira, I danced in the rain, I laughed until I hurt, I explored my birthplace and I remembered things forgotten long ago. I found what I thought I had lost so many years before: I found joy, happiness and the freedom to be me.  I had no real plans for this restorative and transformative adventure home, It's how I’ve learned to live my life, minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day because when you deal with a severe mental illness characterized by unexpected highs and lows you learn to enjoy life taking things as they come and feeling gratitude for every little moment of sanity I’m blessed with. 


Thank you Mr. Lennon, you taught me that living in the moment is better than making plans for an unknown and uncertain future because no matter which way the wind blows life is what happens when you are making other plans.    
By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Life Lessons Series: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway - American Author Susan Jeffers

Life Lesson Series: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway - American Author Susan Jeffers

Life Lesson #6

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

I was in the sixth grade the first time I felt fear. The kind of fear that stops your breath and makes your heart beat faster, the kind of fear that makes your palms sweat and your head feel like it's about to explode. A fear of an uncertain future where death lurks in every corner of your fragile mind. When I was eleven years old I experienced my first anxiety attack. I found a postcard in my backpack that read, “In five days you will be dead, I’m going to kill you,” a death threat by an unknown fellow student in my elementary school. My inability to process the anxiety I felt caused me to faint and I was found by my teacher lying on the floor, pale and paralyzed with fear.

Emergency Services were called along with my mother. After the paramedics arrived and checked my vitals, I heard them tell my teacher and my mother that I had a severe anxiety attack brought on by stress. After being released by the paramedics into my nurse mother’s care I went home. That night I couldn’t sleep, I woke up from several nightmares unable to catch my breath, my mother laid beside me unable to sleep waiting for the moment that my skin would start to sweat and I would jump out of my sleep. She soothed me with prayers, held me in her arms as I asked, “Mama who wants to kill me? I haven’t done anything to anybody I swear,” tears of fear and confusion streaming down my face.

I stayed in bed for two days refusing to go back to school when my mother came into my room, sat on my bed and handed me a book with an orange and yellow jacket. I remember her words to me, “Read this book today because tomorrow you go back to school.” I looked at her in dismay but took the book and read the cover, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, Susan Jeffers.” That afternoon with much reluctance and curiosity I read the book that I had seen amongst my mother’s things for years but never bothered to pick up. Before the postcard I had considered myself a carefree and fearless little girl but the circumstances of life and possible death changed that. Once upon a time the unknown excited me but in that moment the unknown terrified me. 

I can recall the quote in this powerful book published in 1987 that helped me find my courage again: “The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.” The next day I woke up and made the decision to go back to school with three days left on the death threat’s clock. I sat in class feeling fear every minute of that day but I got through it, then I got through the next day and the next. I felt the fear every one of those three days; I felt the fear when I found a second postcard with an apology written on it in my backpack; I felt the fear when the school discovered where the threat originated from but I went to school during the worst week of my life, I sat in class, I hung out with my friends at recess, I was brave even in the face of my fears.

The incident in elementary school was the first anxiety attack I had ever had but I was not the last. Whenever I have felt fear in my life I remember those three days where a scared eleven year old faced death head-on and I remember Susan Jeffers book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway and I find the courage to be brave, to face life's challenges despite my fears because there will always be monsters in the closet, there will always be dragons to slay but guess what? You have to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Thank you Ms. Jeffers for teaching me how to believe and trust in myself despite the fear.  
By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Thursday, January 2, 2025

The Complex Mother-Daughter Dynamic: Growing Up with a Nurse Mom and Bipolar Disorder

 

The Complex Mother-Daughter Dynamic: Growing Up with a Nurse Mom and Bipolar Disorder

Just Pray

My mother has always been a devout Christian, there are actually a number of God-fearing women in my family including my dearly departed grandmother Alvira. The irony about my mother is she is also a Registered Nurse, a woman of science which in today's society is considered a contradiction. 

Since I was a little girl my routine was school and homework during the week and church on Sundays. Sunday was God’s day and no sickness or exaggerated stomach ache got in the way of worshiping the Lord. To honour my mother I had to honour God which meant look good for Jesus, go to Sunday school followed by a two hour service where I was instructed to sit in silence so as not to say anything to embarrass my family.

Even when we were back home in Guyana I was more of a religious rouge than a good Christian girl. I rarely received the Sunday school lesson, listening only enough to get the jist so I could report to my mom on our walk home. I was always getting caught in lies and half truths and I forever questioned the word of God. 

When I was 12-years old I was kicked out of Sunday school to the utter shame of my mother. Yep folks, I was a Sunday school drop out but I would like to point out that was the only education I didn’t complete in my 35 years of academia. After this incident I announced to both my mother and grandmother that I would never set foot in church again. I say this all to say this inciting incident was the beginning of the tensions between my mother and I, a tension that would fester and grow especially in the years that followed when my mental health became more and more precarious. 

In 2016, ten years after my Bipolar diagnosis my mother and I were having a talk about some adverse effects I was experiencing from an antidepressant I had started taking. I was concerned because I had developed insomnia and hair loss. My nurse mother’s response was the following: “I don’t know why you have to take all this medication, you need to get off of them, you need to just pray.”

She had a history of giving religious-like advice when I tried to talk to her about my mental illness but on that day in history I had had enough and snapped. My response to her flippant advice was this: I asked her why it was okay for her to tell her Bipolar daughter that she didn’t need meds and the power of prayer would cure me. “Why do you think you can pray the cray away,” I continued my tirade and expressed how tired of her not taking my mental illness seriously. I accused her of being unsupportive asking her why she couldn’t just accept my diagnosis because it wasn’t up for debate. I told her when she spoke that way it diminished what I’ve been going through for over a decade. 

Now all of this was said with a lot of yelling, tears and years of pent up frustration so before things went further in an even more hurtful and negative direction I hung up the phone on her.

At that moment I realized that even though my mom is a woman of science and a believer in God she had no real knowledge of psychology or how the mind works.

My mother had been with me every step of the way in the first 10 years of my mental health journey. She was the parent who visited daily with lunch and dinner when I was locked in the psychiatric unit of the hospital. She attended all my psychiatric visits post-hospitalization. She managed my medication; she nursed me back to health; she financially supported me going back to school and yes she prayed for me when I didn’t know how to talk to God for myself. But after that fight I realized her actions though out of love were mostly out obligation rather than empathy and understanding. My mom is an amazing human and an even better nurse and she did what any nurse would do–she took care of me even when she couldn’t comprehend my illness or how that illness affected my life choices. 

One thing that was a constant point of contention was the weight gain the medication and depression caused. Before my Bipolar diagnosis I was a size 4 once I started taking mental health medication I ballooned to a size 14 and my mother had a hard time accepting that. She constantly made negative comments about my weight not out of cruelty but rather out of a need to hold onto the daughter she knew before the chaos and uncertainty of mental illness entered our lives. This weight expectation was hard on my self-image, self-esteem and ultimately had negative effects on my mental health.

There was a lot of fear and misunderstanding that clouded my relationship with my mother. Fear of disappointing her because as soon as things seem to be settling down, it could be for weeks, months or even years. Mania seemed to be waiting for us around the corner. My mother and I experienced a lot of misunderstandings due to lack of education on both our parts around my illness and substance use disorder. It was only when I stepped away from her and the rest of my family was I able to find stability without familial pressures. It was during this period as well my brave mother sought help to understand her Bipolar daughter and all the challenges that came with my mental illness. 

After the infamous phone call of 2016, I realized I had a lot of bottled up and volatile emotions toward my mother and I had to learn to express myself in a more meaningful and impactful way so I started writing her letters, taking time to think about what I wanted to say and the best ways to say it. Once, I invited her to a therapy session where I read one of my more difficult letters to her in a safe space. We both cried and hugged each other. I practice this method to this day.

Final Thoughts

Now, my mother and I simply talk to each other, we take time to have the difficult conversations we were always afraid to have with each other. We practice radical honesty even if it hurts or makes one or both of us feel uncomfortable. We cry together, we laugh together and we dance together because we are in a much better place. I set boundaries with her around my mental health and she respects them. We go to church (yes church) every Sunday together and I finally understand what she meant not “Just Pray,” but “Pray” to say thank-you to God for watching over us and bringing us to a happier healthier place in our lives. My mother is not the first one I call in crisis but as strange as it is she will always be my number one person. 

We are still on a journey of healing and self-discovery both together and individually. Continued growth and education on mental illness has come as a result of open and honest communication. We have conversations that take us beyond the stigma into a place where the mother-Bipolar daughter relationship isn’t just surviving its thriving. 

“I love you a Universe Mama, thank-you for “just praying” for me and supporting me no matter where in the world my journey takes me.”  

By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)