A Mother's Story

I wake up with extreme exhaustion. There is always somewhere to go, a meeting to attend or paperwork to be taken care of, sometimes long phone calls to straighten out billing issues.Drive hundreds of miles a week to hospitals or residential care and there begins to have no end in sight.I often find myself drifting in thought wanting to be happy, and have this all stop. There are no "have a nice weekend" or TGIFs. The day of a mom of a child like mine are all blurred together, without a break, until there is nothing left but the one thing I feared would happen to me, is the worn out mother who has no life outside of a tremendous and stressful care situation of a child who has become an adult.

Two years ago I met women that were about 30 yrs older than me.

Mothers sitting in chairs in mental health court, and they were claiming their "I've been doing this for 30 years" status with another. As I listened on, I moved.

I walked away into an area where I stood alone and observed them. I made a deal with myself that somehow, in some way, I would not be one of them, or anyone else following my path, because I wanted to change the system that for obvious reasons is not working, because if it was, I never would have met those mothers. I never would start to know so many people in so many arenas. In court, in hospitals, in outpatient settings.

I'm wiped out. I'm suffering from extreme exhaustion.The morning comes and there has been a most recently step down of my hope. There I sit and try and look at the spring flowers for any sign. Anything that can tell me something I want to hear. I want someone to tell me my daughter is back.That she is back in school, that she doesn't talk to me and turn her head and tell her voices to "stop it!" as we talk on a walk. I want her to be who I knew as she was growing up. I want to hear her laugh. I want her back.

The years that have gone by went so fast that I missed my life, it passed me by.

My older daughters gone off to college, graduated and here I am sitting in a standing still life that never moves faster than mental illness with boundaries that have started to diminish the idea that there is an answer.

I've searched for answers, I've argued points with doctors, I've done everything humanly possible to hang onto my daughter, to keep her safe inside hospitals, to watch over her, to find support for both of us. I am tired and I need support.

I sit and feel I am fading away, and I go to the grocery store and start to watch people and wonder what that feels like.

To shop with kids hanging on the cart, or buying picnic food for an outing, while everyone is talking at once, and loading up the car for a day trip. I long for my life.

I had that life.My kids gave me purpose, they give me hope, they teach me. I feel I've lost my youngest, and each day that goes by, I see my shadow as I walk appear slumped over.

My footing is slow and I am starting to think this is it. I've entered the "30 year club".

I long for travel, to see Europe, to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. To look at beautiful gardens. Sip wine on a patio. Have friends.

Friends have drifted away along with the years.

I've lost income and pretty much rely on the state for support for my daughter. As I walked out of her residential care facility one day, I saw it. My coat with a rip on the side, and my tired walk.

My heart leaving itself somewhere in the garden there.

Buried.

How can this be me? How could this have gone this far? My story begins to become unbelievable. Each year that goes by always had an ending in my mind.

Each victory was a victory and an end to a nightmare, but in fact it was never an end. It kept on going, and became more complex. My energy was needed for a solid year this last year to keep this going. I fear my daughter will end up in a hospital this summer again so much, that I feel sick.

If she is home on the 4th of July it will be the first July she has been home since 2005. How can that be? what happened?

The faces of the people I've met are etched in my mind.

Their stories never leave my heart.

My daughter. What happened to my daughter. Why did this happen? I refused to listen to those older mothers, I wasn't going to be one of them.

I would retain my youth I thought; I would have a life, my daughter will be well and happy again and this will all be a distant memory.

Then I take my daughter out and she has conversations with 2 people. There is something about talking to your child you've known for 20 years and when you realize they are not talking to you it is depressing.

Like happiness left the building.We walk, I chat, I smile, and inside I wish with all of my heart she was really here with me. Some days she is, and some days she is in both places at once. I will never leave her side. But I am tired. It takes its toll on a body. I feel more fragile than I appear. Maybe no one understands, when I say, "I can't take this anymore".

The salty tears that cover my face daily, the Saturdays where I hear her voice say, "Hey Mom!" are gone.
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stephany