I heard Katy Perry’s “Grace of God” for the first time yesterday. I guess I live under a rock or something, but there you have it. Deal.
By the grace of God (there was no other way)
I picked myself back up (I knew I had to stay)
I put one foot in front of the other and I Looked in the mirror and decided to stay
Wasn’t gonna let love take me out
That way. – <Katy Perry Official Site
First, it made me angry. Really, really angry. Then terribly sad. I cried. A lot. Finally, peace. Cause someone gets it. Someone who had the balls (anyone who can fly 200 feet above a football stadium, standing on a 12” platform, through fireworks, while singing, has a set!) to say it for all of us who can’t.
Those of us who live with the shame of staying when the world is now telling us that strong women go when the shit hits the fan. And the ceiling, and the walls.
It’s hard to leave when you’re the one who’s busy cleaning that mess up.
Some of us live with loved ones who have with real, live, diagnosed, often chronic mental illness. A LOT of us live in homes like this.
I do.
And it sucks. It absolutely sucks for the person who had to live with that condition. But it really sucks even more for those of us in relationship with a loved one who is suffering from mental illness.
Believe me, we suffer, too. Especially if we want to believe we are strong, capable women. When we are strong women.
We’re pretty damn sure we can fix it. Or should fix it.
Some of us live our lives intimately involved with someone who has a real mental illness, just like cancer, or diabetes. We know that. their illness could actually kill them. It often puts them in the hospital for intense treatment. And getting the right kind of help is frustrating as hell.
And we know they need us. They may even need us to survive their illness. Or at least we believe that.
We all pretty much hate the illness. But we work really, really hard NOT to blame the person who has the disease. To NOT become terribly, horribly, violently angry with them for what the illness costs all of us. A challenge some days.
We don’t blame them for being sick. Or we try no to, anyway. We can’t blame them. They’re sick, damn it.
Instead, we expend a tremendous amount of our physical energy and vast amounts of time working to keep them safe. We use a lot of our emotional support to help them feel normal. Even when they’re well, we spend way too much time worrying about when the shit will fly again. It’s just like any other disease, I guess. Except all bets are off in a world that has plenty of stigma about mental illness to go around. And where you really, truly believe it’s your responsibility to keep them healthy. To keep them breathing. To fix it.
And you love them. They are your husband, your wife, your parent, your child. Of course you love them. And don’t forget, they’re sick, right?
And yet, there’s not a lot of balance when you’re in relationship with someone suffering from a mental health crisis. The disease steals their who-ness. It lies about love. It demands their attention.
At best, they’re not thinking about your needs. They’re probably not even capable of it at that moment, even if they could focus on anyone other than themselves. They may not even be able to meet their own needs. So, they’re just not there. It creates a very special brand of loneliness. And you can’t talk about it. Not with them.
At worst, they are not particularly nice to be around. Depending on the illness, their behavior could be considered abusive, if not physically, then almost certainly emotionally. The damage to your relationship is huge, not to mention the potential destruction to far too many other areas of your life.
Then, add in that this is a disease where the sufferer has to want to get better. Has to want to be compliant with their treatment plan. You can’t do it for them, no matter how much you want to.
It’s one big f-ing mess. And it is absolutely, totally exhausting.
But you love them. And they’re SICK, damn it. And, for the most part, the bad times pass. There are effective treatments, and when they are working, all is well. And sometimes, when the crisis passes, the bad times never come back.
Then there’s that stigma. You don’t want to talk about what’s going on because, well, it’s just not fair to your loved one to share their issues with the world. You can’t out them for their problems – it could hurt them more. But you’re hurting too. Live with it long enough, and you get sick, too. There’s a lot of research on that one, by the way. But you can’t talk about it. Its their private business. So it becomes your private pain.
Or maybe you’re ashamed. Embarassed for yourself. Afraid you’ll be judged and hurt, too. Not only do you have to live with the stigma of mental illness in your home, now there’s a new stigma attached to staying in relationship with folks who aren’t always nice to you. Who aren’t respectful to you. We heard it at the Grammys, in a 3 minute speech from a woman who “got out.” That strong women deserve better. Deserve to be loved in the best way possible.
And those of us who stay in relationships that don’t look so pretty to folks on the outside, with people who aren’t always so nice to us, in situations that make us feel bad sometimes– we have to fight that shame, too. Because everyone judges us when the shit hits the fan. When the partner we love, when the child we raise, implodes, or explodes or they see us, or, god forbid, someone else, gets hurt.
I am a strong woman. I have a therapist. I question my choices every single day. Yes, I deserve to be happy, and frankly, not every day is a happy one, especially when mental illness lives in your house. Yes, I deserve to be treated with real respect. And that just doesn’t always happen. So why stay?
We love them. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, we love them. It’s our family and our home. For whatever reason, we can’t, or won’t, give up on them, on love, on our lives.
So we put one foot in front of the other. We try to remember that “it’s not about me.” That the truth will set us free. And, by the grace of god, we get up every morning.
And I look in the mirror, and I stay.
UPDATE: Fast forward just 1 winters’ day. February 12. 2015. “You all have a nice fucking life,” he says to my 13 year old daughter. The one he helped raise for 10 years. “You all fucking deserve each other. I’m out of here.” he says as he storms out the door.
And I was released.
(This post originally ran on Just a Little Left of Center.)
About the author: The quintessential earth mother, Aunt June lives her days eating branches and twigs and providing milk and love to her brood of kids, whom she frequently shoves out on their own to fend for themselves. She’s a true believer in tough love.
Loudly opinionated, she often passes along her thoughts on a wide a variety of topics that make her want to make some noise. Her human mother, whose name remains secret to protect the innocent, crafts these into amusing essays that she shares with the world on her blog, www.justalittleleftofcenter.com.