Namaste Beautiful Souls 🙏🏼
For Mental Health Awareness Week I would like to share awareness about Schizophrenia. One of the most serious and difficult mental disorders we know. Many with people who suffer with Schizophrenia require a lifelong treatment, including my mother who’s been treated for about 30 years. Because it’s such a complicated and wide mental illness where symptoms changes from person to person, it’s very difficult to treat and heal from this illness.
My mom was hospitalised for Schizophrenia and depression when I was 6 months old. My dad has told me stories how I wouldn’t stop crying for hours and hours after she was gone, because I was breast feeding at the time and from one day to another she was gone. I have some memories about visiting her in the hospital, but what I really remember is nightmares growing up about her disappearing. I remember when I was in kindergarten and she was living close to the school, I ran away on our break to go to her house. All I wanted was to be with her.
My beautiful mom. Who would have been the best mom in the world, if she could have been. What I’ve accepted is that my mom never had a choice to be there or not. My beautiful mother who had so many traumas in this lifetime that I can not even begin to imagine how she managed to stay healthy for so many years before she got sick. Loosing one of her first boyfriends in an overdose when she was only 15 years old. Loosing her little brother, her only sibling, who was only 21 years old when he committed suicide. Her parents divorce that was never processed with any therapist. You gave birth to 4 children within 5 years, and the world didn’t know as much about postpartum depressions.
I guess none of your heartaches where really healed or processed, which breaks my heart. It was a different time where therapists and professional help was not as common as it has been for me. I’m grateful that my mom is living at a care home where she has staff 24/7, drinks coffee everyday with the other people who lives there and we write letters every week. A lot of people with Schizophrenia don’t want to talk on the phone so we have written letter to each other for as long as I can remember.
If you need someone to talk to about mental health, I’m here for you 🙏🏼
Namaste 🙏🏼