Oceans apart

Dear Mom,

Oceans apart. I've always felt oceans apart from someone that I should feel the most close to. When I was little I never really got why my mom was so different. I knew that other moms or even just other people didn't act like her, or react to things like how she did, or behaved the way she did. I just knew that in the eyes of others she was abnormal. And I didn't see anything wrong with that. My grandpa would look at her and say that she was apart of a very small portion of the human population. He said 99% of people would look at her and find her abnormalities as a bad thing, and the remaining 1% were people that were just as weird. That's the category she fell in to.

When I was a kid I didn't see harm in her actions and I didn't understand why people didn't like her because of it. Hell, I was just like her when I was young. That's probably the reason I didn't have many friends growing up. To me, she was herself. A human. Somebody that was wholeheartedly herself and didn't feel shame for it. To me, her abnormalities weren't a bad thing, they just made her, her.

As I got older, I became more aware of her differences. Instead of being unbothered I began to be embarrassed and ashamed. I was excruciatingly aware that my mom was different from others, and not in a good way. Communicating with her was like talking to someone who was mad, which isn't too far off. The ocean grew larger and larger as I grew up. It wasn't until I was older that I started understanding what those oceans meant.

When it comes to a mental illness, it's hard to truly comprehend what it is. You can see physical illnesses. You can look at someone with a bald head and pale skin and know they have cancer, you can look at someone who is on crutches or in a wheelchair or with an oxygen tank. Physical ailments or disabilities are, for the most part, easy to see. But the things that are encapsulated within the human mind are nearly impossible to truly understand. When I was a kid I didn't know my mom was bipolar. Or that she was depressed. Or that she was a hypochondriac. I didn't know that her life was full of trauma and hurt. To me, she was Mom. She was weird and unusual and behaved different than all the other moms. However that didn't change the way I looked at her, or the amount I loved her. I knew that her actions hurt our family, like when she would come home drunk, or when she would leave us for days, or when there would be no food in the house. But in my mind, that wasn't her fault, because that was the part that I thought was normal growing up.

When I finally was invited to a friend's house in 5th grade, I was downright dumbfounded at the amount of food they had in their fridge. It blew me away to see the way that my friend's mom seemed so organized and put together. I remember her dad coming home and the first thing him doing was kissing his wife on the cheek before running to his daughter to give her a hug. It was a display of affection that had never been prominent in my own life. I thought all families struggled with money, and that all families had parents who fought and all moms would sometimes drink and sometimes be real mean. But that wasn't true. It was a false sense of security that I had provided for myself. Cuz yeah, I could have a weird mom that stuck out in social situations, but I told myself that my family was just like everyone else's. Because if my family was just like everyone else's, then that means that nothing was wrong with the way it was.

The thing about mental illness is that it's unpredictable. Yeah sure there is a set little list of symptoms and signs that suggest what a person has and a novel long list of medication that are meant to tackle certain disorders, but there is no way to predict exactly how and when a person will act a certain way. It felt like I was raised by two different people; a selfish woman who was full of hate and resentment, and a woman that had all the love in the world in her heart. I try to remember just the nice memories. Now I know that my mom is not a bad person by any means. She is a woman who was faced with trauma and didn't react the proper way. Instead of choosing personal progress or growth from her past, she chose to turn to different substances. She always felt so much all the time that I guess she wanted to feeling nothing sometimes. With bipolar disorder, there are the highs and the lows. The highs are always really high, but always come crashing down with the lowest lows. It can be hard to focus on the good parts when all of it unravels soon after.

My shame and embarrassment grew larger and larger as I got older. I looked at the way people would look at my mom and want to be nothing like her. I would tell her that she didn't have to come to school events and activities because I knew she would embarrass me. The distance between us was so vast because I was scared. I didn't want her to hurt me again. I didn't want to get caught up in the highest high when I knew that it wouldn't last. I didn't want to think things were good again and start picturing this perfect family only to let myself down. I had worked really hard once I got to Highschool to put on this front that my family was "normal." I would preach this falsehood that I was raised by two put together human beings that loved and cared for me and for each other. And I don't think my mom ever stopped caring for me, she just didn't know how to show it sometimes. It was hard for her to put herself in my shoes or realize the hurt that I would be in because of the way she acted. But it wasn't always her choice.

Mental illness is still a disease. My mom made a lot of bad decisions because she faces mental illness. And for the longest time I held so much resentment towards her because of those actions, but I now I know that it wasn't always her fault. No, it wasn't her fault because "all moms act like that sometimes, but because she didn't have ownership over her own mind. My mom has suffered from so much that she doesn't have the proper skills to form healthy coping mechanisms. And I hated her because of it. I was the selfish one for not realizing that earlier. My mom has this heart and this soul that is so full of love and nourishment, but throughout the years she has become a shell of who she used to be. Her mindset is skewed and broken and fucked up, but I know that she's still down there. I know that none of her actions have malicious intent and I know she loves me. I know that she is hurting. I know that she feels alone. I know that she's damaged. I know that she'll never be fucking normal. But she's my mom. I love her and in order to show that to her I have to be willing to let go of that resentment.

It was always my worst nightmare to turn out like my mom. The thought of "I never want my children to go through what I'm going through right now" has gone through my head about a million times. But the truth of the matter is that she's still the woman who raised me. She made me the way I am. All I do is feel and feel and feel. My emotions guide my relationships with people, my feelings control all my decisions and I lead my life according to my heart. Yeah, sometimes that's a good thing, but it sure is a way to ensure that I'll get my heart broken over and over again. I know that a huge part of who I am was given to me by my mom. When I find myself becoming manic or having a complete episode where I shut down, the thought that I'm just like her just makes me more overwhelmed. I see so much of her in myself that it scares the living shit out of me. I want to be conscious and I want to be able to control my feelings, but it's damn near impossible. I can only hope that I am able view my conditions as a way to help guide me to cope healthily and allow my past to craft me into a stronger person. But inevitably, my biggest fear still stands. A fear that I'm creating my own ocean, not just with her, but with myself.