’I can remember growing up as a little girl about five or six years old… It was always me and mommy. My father was never around. I had two older sisters; one lived with her father and the other lived with other relatives. It was challenging and difficult. My mother worked hard as a domestic helper and education was very important to her. We lived in a one room board house in a tenement yard. I remember vividly that when persons ran pass the house, everything in the room would shake. You could even see light shining through the creases of the walls of the wooden house… there was no electricity… only our Home Sweet Home lamp. My mother would put the iron in the fire and iron my pleated uniforms to perfection. I would do my homework with the help of the street light that shone in the yard. My mother ensured I was always at school and I had all my books; she would put her money together from her little ‘partner’ and purchase the necessary items for back to school.
Going through All-Age School, I struggled with her being sick all the time. The doctors had diagnosed her with schizophrenia and she would be taken to Bellevue Hospital when she got sick. When that happened I would be sent to stay with family members or friends. There were times I could remember her being so afraid. I would literally see the fear in her eyes. Mostly, she did not want to be at home; she wanted to be out, and naturally I would be by her side, walking in the middle of the night. Somehow she felt safe by the Spanish Town Hospital, so that’s where we would go. I would fall asleep on the bench while she talked then the doctors would give her an injection to calm her down. It’s funny, because all I knew was my mother’s love. People would look at me with pity in their eyes but I never felt ashamed. All I wanted was for her to get well. Those around who never understood her illness would laugh and ridicule her and for years I grew up with the title ‘mad woman pickney.’
I continued into high school at St. Catherine High and after first form I went to live with my eldest sister; things were a little more structured all the way to fifth form. My mother was taking her medication on a regular basis so her getting sick wasn’t so frequent. She continued to work and ‘live in’ as a domestic helper and stayed with us on the weekends. I did pretty well in my CXCs and went on to Holy Childhood sixth form. By my first year of sixth form my sister migrated and I moved to a different community where I boarded. It became me and Mommy again. She worked out as usual and spent the weekend with me, but suddenly we went back to where we started as she was not taking her medication properly. I was in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people at the age of seventeen, and for the first time I felt ashamed of my mother’s illness.
One weekend my mother came home and made quite a scene. She was very sick and I was feeling overwhelmed. When she left, I took some of her sleeping pills and walked to a friend’s house to hang out. While there, I became unresponsive and was rushed to the hospital. I remember waking up at the hospital to doctors pumping my chest and tubes running through my nose. It was horrible. They say ‘bucket ah go well one day the bottom must drop out.’ I had reached my breaking point and at that point I realized that I had attempted suicide. I started questioning God. ‘Why MY mother has to be sick? Why can’t she be well? Why me?’ I asked him.
I did my A levels in sixth form but did not do well. There was just too much happening for me to focus. I went on to working at a bank, and there it dawned on me and I accepted the fact that my mother was fully my responsibility. I accepted that a mother who could take care of me throughout her illness, who taught me the importance of humility and prayer, who taught me that education would be my key to success and that I must be willing to work hard was worthy of me taking care of her and not being ashamed of her. She was truly my hero.
Living full time with my mother, I tried my best to monitor her illness. I stopped her from working and the personnel manager at the bank even gave me a week off to take care of her during one of her crisis. This was important for me to do for a mother that loved me all my life. When I started University part time, she was my rock and support. She would prepare meals for my study group and stay up with us all night. My mother died from a heart attack one month before I graduated from University. When she died, my world came tumbling down and for the first time I learned the importance of community. I wasn’t that little girl surrounded by a community of people calling me ‘mad woman pickney’ and ridiculing my mother… I was in a community with neighbors, friends, coworkers, classmates and loved ones who respected and honoured my mother for the woman she was. Her illness never defined her.
The part that left me with the scars was not my mother’s illness but the fact that I was sexually abused from as young as six years old. I was afraid to tell my mother, not because she was a bad mother but I was afraid telling her would make her sick. I lived with the scars of sexual abuse for many years until I decided I would no longer allow it to control my life. Many children suffer silently because they are ashamed and often times blame themselves. There are times when you may need to get professional help. Don’t pretend that it never happened. It will show up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t be a victim. God has already given us the victory.
On the topic of mental illness, it is real. We are supposed to care for our loved ones, support them, and become educated about the illness and how you can help them live a better quality life. As onlookers and passersby, do not become hasty in casting judgment on those who do not support their relatives with mental illness. Sometimes they just don’t understand and it’s too difficult for them to deal with and handle.
I am not ashamed. I really feel empowered because despite everything, I have achieved. It goes to show that no matter your circumstances or story, with determination and drive you can accomplish what you set out to do. So many times I wish my mother was alive to see and benefit from my accomplishments but I have learned that every single day counts and every day is important. I am happy knowing that I made her proud. In the simplest things she would find joy or pride and she never hesitated to say ‘I am proud of you and I love you.’ As a mother these are the words I now use to my children. I tell them how much I love them and am proud of them. I’m just hoping one day these words will mean as much to them as they meant to me.’’ (Smiles)
