Why I Write

I was not allowed to be expressive at home. My mother's mood disorder was coupled with an obsessive notion that anyone not agreeing with her was a show of utmost disrespect. I was not allowed to explain myself. I was not allowed to rationalize with my mom. I was not allowed to cry when she made me angry, otherwise, she would get just that much more angry.

So, I cried behind closed doors, very much like I do now. I learned to smile when there was NOTHING to be smiling about. The facade we created for neighbors, friends, and relatives was a pseudo one. They knew we had problems but no one was brave enough nor willing to speak out loud, what we knew about Mom and that was the undeniable fact that she had anger issues. Momma could curse, Momma could hit, Momma could tear you down with words. But daddy would not defend us much. Aunties turned their heads in denial. My older sisters left rather than hang around to share the onslought of rage that their much younger sister was used to and often had to deal with alone and in silence.

I suffered along with my father who drank and worked and found his escape outside the home. My only escape was school and friends. But my diaries were where I expressed most of my pain. With my blank books and black or blue ink pens, I chronicled my emotions on a near daily basis. I threw some of the journals away later in life because reading them would make me literally sick. It was sometimes hard to relive a date and revisit the inernalized pain and anxiety I was feeling as mom and dad fought and then I was punished for things I had nothing to do with. RE reading the unfairness of it all was like watching old films of how people in history have been mistreated and then you just get angry all over again and wanna just turn the program off.

I hated being hit. I hated being called out of my name. I hated that I was an overachiever whose rewards were met with great appreciation from a mother who would forget about them the second they were announced and then slip back into her nasty moods. There was no pleasing her but I lived my life to do just that....make an unhappy woman, happy. It was all in vain.

So, i write to get the poison in my system out. I want the world to know what the emotions look like from the eyes of a child growing up in a household where mental illness exists. People can be told that your family member is "sick" but until they have concrete examples of how a day becomes an eternity as a child sits unkowingly, waiting for a storm to pass that has no time limit, they really have no idea what it is like. Until people "get it", they won't be inclined to help change it and deal with it on the societal level. Unlke the adults who can get away from dysfunction, the child growing up in a crooked house has no escape.

Resilience, strength, hiding, and great character seem to be cosistent themes among us. I pray more people pay attention to the children of mental illness as this has got to be one of society's best kept secrets. WRITE your story, and FIND the stories of others....and share and compare. Kill the stigma.

Melisande Randall