Hi everyone, I’m a 27 years old guy from some country of Latin America, this is the first time in my life I open up talking about my life experience of having a mother with schizophrenia, I just feel so minimized in the world by having to keep this inside that I didn’t consider it fair to myself. It has been 17 years ago since it began.
When I was 10 years old, my father left the family (he went to his natal country, Spain) after he had a big discussion with my mother (he was alcoholic) and he left us, my sister 14 years old, me with 10, and my mother (later in life I heard that he got hospitalized in Spain for severe depression). She got very depressed, we moved city to stay in his father’s house but she couldn’t overcome the situation of having to rise two childs alone and that gave room to the disease to take our life to a hell… I don’t really want to get in the details of what is like having to grow up from the age of 10 living with a schizophrenic mother, It for sure gave me a lot of fears, low self-steem, frustration, traumas, etc.
She got hospitalized a lot, she stoped the meds every time she came out, and every time she turned aggressive to the point of beating my sister and stuff, she never had the courage to fight with me because I was so tired of ALL the abuse I received from the disease that I would definitely fight her back if I needed to protect me or my sister… but as a depressed and anxious person I am, I can definitely understand the harm that drugs can do to the mind and body, so I can’t blame her for stopping the medication. Later when I was 15, she went to the old city, to the old house, all alone, she of course preferred to live in her word alone, with no one trying to “help her” by sending her to a hospital every time…
I must say that I always felt empty of family love, beside from my sister who always was there, but I never felt a parent like support from my grandfather and her wife, (I never met my grandmother as she committed suicide because of the same disease when my mother was young). They were always locked on their rooms, leaving the whole situation to my sister, my mother and I, at the time she was living with us. I had my aunt, she was like a second mother for me… but, she left the country with her daughter and husband, so I felt abandoned again.
Two years after my mother decided to live alone, she got worst and started throwing rock at cars and stuff like that… so they called from the city and her step mother told my sister and I, that WE should be going to help her… So at the beginning I refused, but my sister and some members of the family made me believe that it was my responsibility… I was 17 by then. So I had to go to the city and hospitalize her by brute force several times, against her will, just to make her come to reality for a while. So I eventually got more and more traumatized for having to do that things to my mother, I was thinking I was doing the correct thing but… it’s complicated.
So after one hospitalization she started to get better with a certain treatment so hey!, for the first time, thing where going somehow OK so I started studying a career, believing in a shiny future, and just at that moment my sister tells me that she want’s to leave the country so she can find a better opportunity for her future, this country was VERY far away, and at that moment I was like 19 and what could I say to her, at first I told her to go, then later I wasn’t feeling very good about it… and I should have sticked a lot more with that… But I didn’t and so she left. So, my mother has 1 brother, living in another country and he doesn’t care a lot, the sister who left, and another one who got murdered. Her father I think could’t handle more of deaths and diseases so he just left any responsibility, I can’t blame that but… leaving your grand sons with that carry? .So my sister that was the only support I had, and she left. So I had not to take care only of my mother but also I had to sell the house in that city, to bough another one because that house was going down because some serious water filtration, and I managed to do it, now she is living a very decent house, and I send her money every 15 days, my sister also sends money so she can live well…
I was the only one remaining, I got a possessive girlfriend, (I had no kind of self value by that time), and that’s when things really started to get complicated, I had this job were I got an abusive boss, but it was ok to pay the college, but my mother got worst and we had to pay the hospital and I didn’t have money, so I asked his brother living in the US to help me with that, well, that was a mistake, he started to manipulate with his weird demands so I could receive the money, I felt so manipulated by then, not just by him, at that time my girlfriend was cheating on me, and my boss was oppressing me, and my mother too by always making me feel guilty. So I started to feel fear… fear about everything, about not having the money, about not graduating, about loosing my future, my relationship… It all started to come down… so I could’t handle it and ended that toxic relationship with my girlfriend, and I managed to work as freelancer to pay the rest of the university so I didn’t have to work in that place anymore. Then after the breakup I went with some old friends, having the belief that they would be supportive by all that was going on in my life… another mistake, I couldn’t be more wrong, they made me feel worse, I guess that non in purpose, but how could they be in my shoes and understand the kind of support I needed?.. so, I lost it all at that time and got depressed and developed weird anxiety symptoms like dizziness, memory and cognitive issues, feeling disoriented almost everywhere, feeling anxiety everywhere, foggy brain… etc. And of course I though of suicide all the time.
I felt like I couldn’t handle anything anymore, just to think on going to the city and hospitalize her made me sick, literally, my head started to feel weird sensations like if it were burning (not too painful), so each time I tried to think hard, my brain just… wont let me. Then speaking with people started to become harder and harder, and facing the problems too, the depression was attaching me to the words I repeated my self in the head -You are getting mental too. You are gonna end up like your mother-. Then I made a decision for better or for worse, I would end all… ALL my relationships… that was a drastic measure, but I ended just by having a relationship with my recent girlfriend, which has been very supportive where other ppl was not, and I focused on my work… I didn’t pay any attention to what was occurring to my mother, if she was alone or not, even in Christmas (she never wanted me to hire a personal health assistant for her, she was never aware of her disease) I was too depressed to even possibly care.
In a professional way this last two years were awesome for my professional and personal development, I really improved my economic situation and managed to raise a bit my steem enough to at least not feel like a trash, I told my self to feel better because I got in a better position than the friends who tried to make me feel less important. I still live with grand father and his wife because after 2 ~3 years being with depression and anxiety I still don’t feel like I can just, make my life. I have a disease too… But I live locked up in my room with my girlfriend so…
In dates like December I always struggle… a LOT… my girlfriend has been in another city with her family for the last 20 days ( I just can’t stand to be with another family on December, because I feel like I’ve already lost mine, and besides I don’t feel like celebrating) So that is to let you know that even if I decided to step away from my mother, it doesn’t mean that thing has been easier, or that I don’t question myself and doubt about my decision.
I’m sorry for the long history, but I need opinions… please… I need people to tell me what I’m doing wrong, WHY after all this years, I still feel guilty… what else can I do?.. I got some calls from the city, these are people probably wanting me to take responsibility over her… but I’m too tired of everything… I need some very wise words right now from experienced people that went through similar situations… thanks, Love to All, and happy new year.
