Getting my mom out of the swamp
After 9 years of being in the process of immigration in America, I finally received my Green Card and was able to go back home to my Mother. I had known her briefly in my life but I had always cared for her deeply. Being in foster homes from 7 years old to majority made it difficult for me to know what is a healthy Mother-Daughter connection. Since I can remember I have tried to help her with her addictions problems but my efforts never quite made any difference. Being separated again while I was prioritizing my own journey was difficult, I often felt selfish and ashamed to not be physically there for her but I knew deep down that I had to discover myself first. I just didn’t know it would merely take a decade, I guess I had a lot to learn and discover about myself! Going back home after all these years made me realize how much I have changed and I don’t regret any of it. I have cultivated the strength required to be a light-worker, I went and did it!
2 Angels came down from the Crisis Center in Quebec and helped my mom out of her room where she had a chair blocking her door because she thought she was in such danger. Together we helped her find the strength to get out of there and go to the hospital. After a few nights at Enfant Jesus she was transferred at Robert Gifford a Mental Institute where she received the help she needed. I couldn’t have done it myself and I thank everyone who took her situation seriously and helped us reach the light. We did it!
For more than a decade my Mother had lived with her mental illness with no prescribed medication, no treatment, no support. It seems like she had already been diagnosed in a Mental Institute with schizophrenia after a traumatic psychotic episode but somehow her medication had not been transferred to her doctor and because she had little knowledge of what her condition was and wasn’t inform of the severity of her situation, she continued to live her life in constant fear, isolated, with recurrent psychoses and multimodal hallucinations. I was first really mad at the system and at the social worker who visited her and didn’t seem to find her condition alarming. She self-treated herself with beers and excessive amounts of cigarettes because her head was always exploding. The isolation felt like a symptom of depression and the mess, the self-sabotage and crisis was to blame on the beer addiction. I realized I was mad at everyone around her for not seeing she was mentally ill because I myself didn't know this was more than a depression or an addiction problem. I had heard once as a teenager that my Mother had schizophrenia and I should not be taking any drugs but because I knew very little about my Mother I didn't know how to process that information. At that time, I had never been around people having a positive outlook on mental illness so that subject was scary for me and I had buried it. As a child I had memories of her drinking and screaming stories about aliens experimenting on her, "rock machine" people coming to hurt us and her being attached on a chair and being electrocuted. Our situation was so bad we had baseball bats by the door and the windows and I was sleeping under the couch. The insanity as a very young child was really hard to process and it still affects me till this day. Because of my experience, I realize now how important it is to raise awareness about mental illness and we shouldn't bury our stories even if we feel shame and regret for not having been seeking answers sooner. I feel today is my future and what I decide to do with it can change the world.
I went back home, got my mom out of the swamp and into the light.
