I’m still a warrior, the battle is still raging as I’ve accepted it’s a battle I will always be up against. I find myself emerging from year after year of fear, uncertainty, and such deep sadness. The war has changed me, I am wounded I am not the brave solid person that ran into the darkness seeking light. I went into the darkness to find my husband, I went into the darkness to find myself, I was seeking light and I came out less.
I went into the darkness and a part of me got sucked into the vortex of despair. I am changed, because you can’t go up against SMI and not come back damaged. I am mad. I am raging against a system that so blatantly brushes of the mentally ill. I am mad that there is no solution and progress seems so out of sight and out of mind. I am scared because I know this battle doesn’t stop with my husband but continues on to our offspring and future generations. I am guilty and ashamed for not being more that everything I am. Because no matter how hard I try my efforts will never be enough.
Our children have had to bear the consequence of a broken system and a broken man. He came into the world broken, of no choice of his own. I want to scream, and yell and demand that my voice be heard. But my voice is just one pebble of sand on an ocean floor. I never had the kind of high aspirations that my 3 siblings did. For me it was enough to be a mom, and a wife that was my ambition all I ever wanted. I am blessed for my family, I am burdened with guilt, because this disease has robbed them of so much. Moments I can never take back, pictures with a noticeably absent figures because illness had taken them away that day.
Will my children be better people for it? I can only hope the compassion they have learned and knowledge of people and this struggle will embolden them and not leave them bitter. Do they see me? Do they know every ounce of my being has been to be a good mother, I could not shelter them from the harsh reality of this. I’m not sure I wanted to, I hope I’ve been a good example. That when we are long gone they will remember us as a love story and not a tragedy. That beneath the surface of the madness our foundation is and always will be love. Love for my children love for my husband.
I have a deep profound love for those I haven’t met who share the same struggle. The strangers that you lock eyes with in a waiting room, the ones you pass in the hall ways with tears in their eyes and stress lines on their faces that mimic yours. The one’s you see on the unit, bearing the same burdern. Riding the same long ride to the seventh floor. You are seen, you are loved, I hear everything you are saying without a word because I’m saying it too. Just keep breathing, keep going, better days are coming. I think…I have to believe it keep telling myself that even on the days when I’m so unsure of how we’re going to get there.