Lived Experience Forum

[Terry]

It's my experience that the families of people with mental illnesses tend not to be very helpful to their family members with MI so I thought I would start this blog so that people can vent and compare experiences so that they know that they are not alone and get tips for dealing with and coping with their families and seeing how others do the same.  I will start off the blog: MY FAMILY REALLY ANNOYS ME AND I HARDLY SEE THEM.  There you go.  Your turn.

[Former-Member]

hehe @Terry , totally fair enough! I dont have any contact with my family, my parents because they were abusive and my siblings because one is still very close to our father and I just can't have him finding me or contacting me again. and my other has gone down the same path as our mother with drugs and violence and using people, all the while blaming everyone else for the issues they have without ever doing anything different. I tried for a long time to be the peacemaker and picked up the pieces all the time for everyone but, found after i had my own children that i needed to put them first.. and by then I was already involved in a new/same disaster anyway gah!

It does seem very common on this site that people have fractured relationships/no relationships with their own families. I do have a couple of close friends (sadly not living near me now) who are becoming more like my chosen family. 

Do you have any close friends that help replace that sense of family?

LJ

[Terry]

Hi, yes, naturally I have close friendships that replace the friendships I should have with my family.  My close friends are wonderful, and jesus and god are the main ones (not that I actually feel like I am usually an obedient-enough christian).  It's important to forgive those who have wronged us, even those who have wronged us enormously, but do be careful how much contact you have with those persons after that.

[Terry]

you are very brave.  yes, most mental illnesses are caused by dysfunctional and abusive families (usually the parents, and nearly always even 'though they love their children and would not wish mental illness on them, and did not intend to 'mess up their kids' and/or regret having done so).  i keep 'distant contact' with my family.  it's important and interesting to note that they are all emotional cripples themselves, more or less, and they never had the emotional resources to raise a child in the first place, and certainly not to take care of an adult 'disabled' child with only the mental health system to 'help' them - an impossible situation!  however, if anyone wants to find hope in it, i am fit and middle-aged, well-dressed and have a beautiful home, formally not very educated but well self-educated and my work these days ranks at the top of its field internationally, even if i no longer try for paid jobs because i have learned that the discrimination is just too pervasive (and, of course, i have the abusive mental health system to cope with and no family support).  there is always hope.  only five years ago i was homeless and today i live in a beautiful home, which i own, surrounded by expensive antiques and oil paintings (true!) and i'm gunna win the pulitzer this year (i hope!).  And i might go out to lunch today if i feel like it!

[Terry]

ps. i realise that i am particularly blessed, especially for a person with mental illness.  god bless you all.

[Terry]

ps. admitting the 'homeless' thing is a bit 'embarrassing' for me - i actually was couch-surfing and not on the streets, thank the Lord.

[Terry]

it is rather annoying that i shoot my 'mouth' (keyboard) off so much at this site that i am easily idetifiable to those who know me.  i presume there are mental health staff reading this blogsite regularly.  that reminds me, i met the most GORGEOUS mental health worker last year, but i blew it (consciously/sub-consciously).  never mind.  OK, no-one is responding to my posts, so i'll be off to elsewhere in the blogosphere (or knuckle down to writing one of my books might be a good idea).  God bless all.

[NikNik]

Hi @Terry

Thanks for sharing your expeirence - I think many of us struggle with our families at some point.

I'd be interested to know what your family could be doing better?

Imagine there are people reading this who have a family with a MI - what would you want them to know.

Again  - thanks for your insight, It's something we can all relate to in some way or form.

Nik

[Terry]

Wow, thank you NikNik, I am honoured that you think my words might be of use.  Well, all i can say is that my little mummy (she is very short and little, sort of like cherrybomb's picture, but it's hard too see how big cherrybomb's picture's teeth are!  hee hee) - anyway, my little mummy CANNOT admit to herself what she has done (and she's not going to, as far as i can tell), and i have to understand this.

All people have hard lots in life, especially at times, and some people have harder lots than others.  we can all be 'refined by fire'.  even with the best parents, offspring can end up in a wheelchair (as happened to a friend of mine when he was young and let a drunk friend drive him) or they can run off and join a terrorist organisation or HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT.  It is simply too big for my little mummy to admit it to herself (and the years that she spent reporting me to the 'criminally insane' mental health service [if i can be excused for having insulted the actual 'criminally insane']).  So i dunno - i'm not usually big enough to forgive her, or i try to and then slip back, or we find new reasons to be angry at each other.

In theory, mental illness has wrecked my whole life, but in practice i have a roof over my head, enough money to go out to lunch on, NO obligations, friends, a 'volunteer' career (and awards, i might add, as i have mentioned) and i have wallowed in a lot of anger and unforgiveness.  i don't think mummy can forgive herself, certainly not until i've effectively managed it, and maybe i have to accept that she will never be able to face it - she loves me and it's 'too big'.  Nb. I DO not think that she loves me with motherly love - it's more because of 'longevity of association' and because I send her funny emails - just joking (I think).

Advice for the families?  i don't know.  perhaps forgive yourselves and try new ways to help your family member with mental illness.  i do find that taking things out on the person when you are frustrated with the failure of your attempts to help them is completely counter-productive.  really, it is hard to change patterns (although you can change a pattern in 30 days with dedicated effort, i think, such as changing an addiction or an eating pattern).  my mum read a few books on mental illness but never learned how to nurse me.  by contrast i am a 'layman's expert' on mental illnesses and have nursed four people in advanced states of psychosis, two of whom didn't end up having to go to hospital. families may have to change the patterns of a lifetime to help their loved ones (not forgetting that the families are usually emotional cripples themselves, and this is not their faults).  dunno.  forgive yourself.  do your best.  take a little time out for fun when you can.  i hope this helps someone.  Sorry, i feel that this reply is somehow inadequate, but I hope it helps someone somehow.

[Terry]

I actually will add one last thing, because obviously I could write reams on the topic but I won't unless people ask me specific questions.

I went out for a walk with my mum a few years ago and we both decided (at my instigation) that we would not fight.  From memory, mum tried to fight, and i just changed the topic every time she tried to do that (it might have been my fault too - i can't remember now).  Finally, we bought some ice cream and wandered home.  When we got home we saw the next door neighbour outside washing his car.  'We've got ice cream', we said, standing there eating our ice creams like two little girls - the neighbour was amused and it was a fun moment.

It's also important to note that motherhood is very hard work and, to be honest, I don't think my mum wanted kids - i think someone told her that marriage and children would make her happy, or she thought she had no choice but to marry and have kids.  Once one recognises that one's parents are badly damaged 'children' themselves it can help one to get past their abuse.

Once again, I hope these posts on the families (an incredibly sensitive area for people with mental illnesses and for the families) are useful to someone.