Mental illness swallowed my mother whole. She was born with bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder, but those things didn’t exist back then. Add to those conditions that she, at five years old, found her father’s body after he’d committed suicide in the family car in the garage. Now there’s PTSD. There’s more, but nothing extra is needed to suggest that she lacked the required parenting skills she’d need to raise four children as a single parent.
The Family History of Mental Illness
I was also born with bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder. And I went through multiple traumas of my own.
There was physical, sexual, emotional, and what I’d call spiritual abuse in my childhood. We were hit with belts, hangers, mirrors, dishes, the back of Mom’s hand (rings and all) — and, in my brother’s case, her fists.
She’d marry multiple times and then divorce.
In between marriages, her boyfriends would move in. When she went to work, they’d have their way with her children.
We were told not to talk about it. It embarrassed the family.
We’d put on our pretty dresses and wear our fake smiles to church to worship a god we feared would burn us in eternal hell and refused to save us from the hell we were in.
It wasn’t until my adult life that I’d realize that my mother and grandmother both attempted suicide. My grandfather, his brothers, their cousins, and also my grandmother’s family members, succeeded in that fatal task.
Suicide is in my blood — on both sides of my family tree.
I also created three human beings that wrestle with genetic mental illness and childhood trauma.
Layering PTSD
In my young adult life, there was more trauma. My partners died.
One died in a car crash when we were eighteen and parenting a two-year-old. Two more were suicides after we’d split up.
I earned the nickname The Black Widow. I hated it.
So now I’m like my mother: born with chemical deficiencies in the form of bipolar disorder and anxiety disorders with panic attacks, traumatized in childhood, and adding layers to PTSD.
