As we pass yet another Mother's day, and people rush to get flowers, gifts and cards for their mothers, I'd like to share something with all of you. What I have to say will give you pause, and make you stop to think for a minute. It may even change the way you see things for the rest of your life.
My mother was a vibrant and artistic woman who loved many things. She loved dogs, traveling, and was never camera-shy. She had an affinity for collecting a myriad of wonderful things she called her treasures, and she could sing like an angel. She was a sharp dresser and had immaculate taste. She was incredibly talented. She was lively and funny sometimes and everyone loved her. She also had a very dark side.
You see, my mother suffered from a mental illness that had, from what I know, developed from childhood trauma. Because of this, she would often devolve into fits of rage that devolved into physical violence when we did anything wrong. I grew up knowing fear, and life for me became a tug of war between that brutal reality and the music and stories I created to shut out the pain. Very few people ever saw that side of her outside our family, and those who did never came back. She drove away both friends and people I loved, and she had a way of making me feel I was never good enough.
I grew up living in that shadow, never knowing what I was coming home from school to and always afraid to tell anyone that mattered what was really happening behind closed doors. It left a permanent impact on my life, and on the lives of fellow family members. We each dealt with it differently. My way was to leave at eighteen. I made my way slowly through the world over the years, trying to understand why it had all happened, and trying to find a way to heal from all the emotional trauma I still felt twenty years later. I stopped talking to my parents for more than twelve years, so I could begin healing and make sense of what happened. I wanted them in my life, but needed to understand what had caused my mother to be the way she was.
In 2001, my mother was diagnosed with Leukemia, and the battle for her life began. Nobody told me... for two years. Then I finally got that call. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was told what she had and how bad it was. She had been losing ground in her fight all that time and wasn't doing very well. I was painting the living room of my apartment, something I did each year. And I stood there on the step stool holding the roller and cried. I could not stop the tears or the pain that filled my heart. I thought of all the years I had lost because of everything that had happened, and I knew any chance at trying to regain some of the time that was lost was gone forever.
I worked up the courage and called her, and we talked for a long time. I pushed aside all thoughts about her issues and the way it had caused her to treat us. All I cared about was the time I had left to try and get to know the woman everyone outside our family knew as such as different person. She was still very much a stranger to me and I had so few good memories of her. So, I took the time as often as her health would allow to call her, and sent her small gifts just to try and brighten her days. I only got three months.
My mother passed away in early 2004. I was in midair on my flight to be with her when she passed, so I did not even get to say goodbye. I will never forget stepping off the plane and seeing my brother. He was crying uncontrollably and saying "She's gone." I was in shock. I felt like a newborn bird who had fallen from its nest and landed on the cold, hard ground. How was it possible that time could be so cruel? We had only just begun to forgive and get past our history. We had only just begun to learn about each other. We had only just begun to become friends, and now she was gone.
I cannot pretend any of the weeks, months or even years that followed were easy. They were agonizingly painful to get through. My mother died without ever knowing the real me. She died, and I only had three months where I actually felt I had a mother. I felt cheated. And I wanted to know why... Why had our history been so wrought with pain? Why was there always so much anger under the surface of her smile?
I spent six years in therapy working that out, and then more time talking to my father to get to know more about our lives from the adult perspective. What had been wrong and why had it all happened? The therapist explained early on it had most likely been a mental illness brought on by childhood trauma, but it wasn't until I began having those difficult conversations with my father that I realized the therapist had been right. That was when I finally understood and could begin healing. However, it would be years before I could completely forgive her, because those wounds were very deep.
My mother had suffered through many traumas as a child, and these were what had caused the emotional imbalance that we lived through with her. Now back then, it was as serious stigma so people did not talk about it. However, mental illness is never easy to live with to begin with, and when diagnosed, a person never gets to live with it alone. Those around you live through it too. I cannot stress how important it is to love and help those who suffer from a mental disorder of any kind, whether depression born from trauma, bipolar disorder, or something far more serious. The people who suffer from these often feel very isolated and far more alone than even those of us who lived with the effects of it. The signs are not difficult to see for those closest to that person. It's in the way they act, the way they see the world, and in the way they ride a roller coaster of emotions.
For years, mental illnesses have been swept under the rug and hidden from plain sight as a stigma... something a person should be ashamed of... and it has cost many families their joy, happiness and peace of mind. Many children have stared out the windows of their homes, praying for an answer that was easily in reach for them if their family member could be treated without being seen as a pariah. People should never have to suffer from depression or some other mental illness in silence, nor should they be forced to hide their pain because society wants to put a label on it. If it is a physical illness, people are encouraged to get it treated without having to worry about how they are seen. Mental illness should be no different.
Had my mother been able to freely seek treatment without fear of being seen in such a negative light, my life... and hers... might have been very different. We might have been a family who shared more joy and less grief. And there might have been more good memories. Even today... seventeen years later, I think of her and mourn how much time we lost. We must bring the awareness that mental illness is not something to be ashamed of to the forefront of society so that people stop hiding it in the shadows and learn to live life again.
I miss my mother, and I wish every day that I had gotten more time with her. It was stolen from me, not by the cancer that claimed her life, but by the mental illness she fought with for years. My mother was stolen from me when I was still only a child because society put such a stigma on mental illness that she was not treated for it until it was too late. So, as you celebrate your mothers on their special day, ask them if they feel all right. Ask them if they need someone to talk to. And love them as they are... flawed, imperfect, and wonderful, just as God created them.
Dedicated to my mother - a wonderful, talented and beautifully flawed human being. I love you and will miss you forever.
K.R. Fraser