Writing this article has been on the backburner for a while
now. It’s not that I’ve actively avoided it, but I guess I was wary of
authoring a sob story, and I have been unsettled by the unknown path this piece
had the potential of travelling.
Most of us have recollections of our personal experience of
mental illness – whether it be our own, that of a friend or a family member. I
have no doubt that my story is one that is shared by others, but for most of my
life, my story has been kept shut behind closed doors; a family secret if you
will. The following explores some parts of those darker days and really what
the struggles were like for my brother, sister and myself living with someone
unwell and undiagnosed – our mother.
1996 was a fairly traumatic year for seven-year-old me.
That sounds pitiful, perhaps attention-seeking, but that was exactly how I felt
– traumatised. In February, I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes – a shock and
a ‘burden’ my mother will never forgive me for – and in August my parents
separated. At the time, I made no link between the two, and if it wasn’t for mum
I probably never would have, but she has made it clear to me since. At this point I would like to highlight that
my intention is not to paint my mum as a monster, I’m simply detailing my
version of events.
When I was younger, the differences between my mum and the
mothers of my friends were always noticeable. For example, we never knew what
would set her off, and we simply thought she was scary. Other mothers had delight
on their faces when they collected their children from school; ours was frequently
rushed and angry.
The severity of the situation, however, only became significantly
apparent as we got older. I’d like to think in part because deep down mum
possessed the ability to protect her three young children. However, I feel it’s
more likely that the escalation in emotional and verbal abuse coincided with my
new found desire to defend the three of us, which in turn provoked countless
situations.
Deep down I guess I always knew my Mum and my home life
were different. To me, her character was defined by irrationality,
irritability, anger, consistently holding grudges, hostility and manipulation. But we knew no different – this was our life.
For years Mum taunted the three of us with threats of
abandonment – it was always her ‘big plan’ to move overseas and return to her
birthplace, leaving the three of us defenceless and alone. Although we thought
this was unlikely, the constant threat was a punishment we assumed we deserved.
I can also recall several instances where she exclaimed she couldn’t cope as a
single mother any longer and needed us out of the house, but every time we made
alternative arrangements, she came crawling back. It was rare, if ever, that an
eruption like this was followed by an apology, but each and every time she was
able to guilt us into returning. A large part of this was due to the fact that
we were constantly reminded that money was an issue, and we felt awful that
what little she had was spent on us. We knew that being in her care meant that
she still received my father’s generous child support contributions, as well as
board from my sister and I (after we turned 18) and my disability support
payments. Although at the time I was
oblivious to the fact that money was her primary motivation in winning us back,
I can clearly see now that it fuelled most of her behaviour.
The most salient of these occurrences just happens to be
the final one of its kind. It was my brother’s 17th birthday and Mum had to work late. I knew that this in
itself was enough to trigger one of her ‘episodes’, so my sister and I offered
to do the dinner shopping and cook his favourite meal. Mum arrived home,
clearly agitated, so my sister poured her a glass of wine and tried to
de-stress the situation. We were only a few bites into dinner when she turned
to my brother and said “How does it feel that your father doesn’t want you on
your birthday?” I was furious; snide remarks and antagonising language like
this were commonplace, but it was his birthday for god’s sake. My brother
stayed quiet as my sister and I leaped to dad’s defence and, in the hope of
supporting my brother, fired back at our mum. In this short space of time,
she’d managed to drink a whole bottle of wine, which was not an unusual
occurrence, and the effects were clearly taking hold. What followed was a vicious
and nasty war of words and mum storming out to her car to go for a drive. We
were now in distress that she was behind the wheel in the state she was in, but
what could we do? We cleaned up and comforted each other. What seemed like a
very long half an hour later, mum reappeared, still fuming, and still spitting
venom. She announced to the three of us “This is my house, not yours, and you
are not welcome here anymore. You have half an hour to gather your things and
give me your house keys and I never want to see you again.” We had no time to process what she had said,
and the adrenaline kicked in. We bagged what we could and 32 minutes later we
were ushered outside. It was dark and raining, and we had no plans in place. We
assembled at the end of the driveway and called our father. He was still at
work, almost an hour away, but I could hear him gather his things and run for
his car. While we stood there and waited for him to arrive I think I knew that
this would be it – we would be saved. I turned to my brother and sister and
without any of us speaking a word, we knew we would never go back.
Although that night is one of the most heart wrenching to
re-live, I think we all knew soon after that it was a blessing in disguise. My
father lived with his partner and her children and without any warning for
anyone involved, we were the new Brady Brunch. When I think about my home life
with this new blended family, I only have fond memories. We were welcomed with
open arms and loved and cared for unconditionally – something which was almost
foreign to us all until that point. I will be eternally grateful to my dad, my
step Mum and my two beautiful step-siblings for everything they did for us and
the happiness they showed us that we deserved.
The grass was so much greener on the other side; most
people wondered why we didn’t leave sooner. My first answer is simple; we just
didn’t know how bad it was until we escaped it. More specifically, however, she
was our mother, and in a weird way we depended on her and hated the thought of
her being alone. It wasn’t until much later that I realised her behaviour would
never change, and the professional help that she so desperately needed, she
would never seek. The three of us were plagued with guilt for a long time about
what happened. Mum had convinced herself
and those around her that we had abandoned her. We endeavoured for a long time
to maintain contact and support her where we could, and in ways which she would
permit. Despite highlighting to her numerous times that events like that night were
not normal and that we genuinely felt we were victims of abuse; it wasn’t
enough for her to change her behaviour. After a string of volatile text
messages to me (almost 12 months after my brother’s birthday), that blamed me
for my parent’s separation, ruining her life after my diagnosis of Type 1
Diabetes, disappointing the family, consistently embarrassing her and
suggestions that I would never amount to anything, my siblings and I
collectively decided that we would cut contact with her. Here I would like to
note that to me, the saddest part of this interaction was that I knew mum
genuinely believed all of these points were true. Whether fact or fiction, she
had created this idea that I had destroyed all aspects of her life, and she
once again, was the casualty. She appeared to accept our wishes to cease
contact, but messaged us four days later to inform us that our beautiful puppy
had been put down. We decided not to play into the emotion of the situation and
simply asked her what had happened. Her response was “I am too upset about my
children abandoning me to talk about this.” She never managed to explain to us
what happened, but several friends of hers informed us that the dog had been
put down for unknown reasons. It was later confirmed that mum had convinced the
vet that the dog had turned nasty and was a danger to people. Considering this
was now the second instance in a pattern of similar behaviours, we knew,
without a doubt, that she had orchestrated this entire situation simply to
spite the three of us. This is something I can never forgive her for.
Eventually I became aware of her ability to completely
alter her perceptions of reality. This frequent tendency was so convincing that
not only did she unwaveringly believe them, but so did most of the people
around her. She had this extraordinary knack to manipulate anyone’s emotions
and convert your memories to coincide with her fictitious beliefs. Because of
this, we were consistently made to believe that the hardships and traumatic
events were our fault and my mother was always the ill-fated victim. I now
believe she possessed an almost complete external locus of control, whereby the
world was against her and she was always faultless and hard done by.
The past few years, combined with my qualifications in
psychology have allowed me to deeply reflect and develop a new perspective on
things. For many people in my life, my mum is that woman who constantly
berated, put down, tormented and emotionally and verbally abused her children.
However, to me she is a woman whose behaviour is largely explained by
unfortunate psychopathology. Even though we tried tirelessly to get her
professional help – even at times calling an ambulance or CATT team when she
bordered on psychosis – these attempts were never fruitful. She either
persuaded us that there was nothing wrong with her and she was a victim of
circumstance, genuinely believed that one session with a psychologist here or
there was sufficient, or convinced the health professional that there was nothing
wrong. An example of this was when I begged her to see a psychologist who I was
currently working with just before the event of my brother’s birthday. Mum had
a session with her following that night which led my colleague to ask me
whether I needed assistance finding housing because she knew “my father didn’t
want custody of us, couldn’t provide a suitable home for us, and that we had
told Mum that we were leaving her house of our own free will.” I remember
breaking down at my desk after realising that even trained professionals
couldn’t escape her traps. From bits of information I have strung together from
former friends, partners, family members and health professionals in Mum’s
life; the speculation has always been that she had long suffered with an array
of undiagnosed conditions. The most recent report to me was that she had a
culmination of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), Borderline Personality Disorder,
Alcoholism and Major Depression.
Some would say I was naïve to have not noticed the constant
red flags and I guess I don’t really have an answer for that, apart from the
fact that for most of my life, I just thought that’s how things were. Everyone
tells you that life is full of ups and downs and I believed that the ‘ups’ were
just around the corner. I often wondered if there was more that I could have
done to help her, or to protect my brother and sister, but the truth is, we
played the hand we were dealt to the best of our ability for most of our lives.
I think if mum had been formally diagnosed when we were still in her care, it
would have helped my siblings understand the situation more broadly and feel
less blame towards my mother. The inherent nature of NPD, however, means that
it is typically impenetrable by psychotherapy and I’ve long been resigned to the fact that there
probably wasn’t all that much we could have done.
I have often been asked and wondered myself, if my past
experiences helped mould my study and work endeavours in psychology and mental
health. In all honesty, I don’t believe so. I’ve always possessed an applied
interest in human behaviour, interaction and psychopathology. I do believe,
however, that it has helped shape the personal and professional parts of me. I
feel I’m far more understanding and empathetic these days, and for that I guess
I should be grateful.
My brother, sister and I remain estranged from mum, and I
don’t know if we will ever have the capacity to let her in our lives again. For
now, all I can hope is that she finally sought help and is as happy as she
permits herself to be.
ADAVIC Volunteer