Blog #12 Impact of Mental Illness

My mother suffered from Depression most of my life. She did admit to it enough to get prescriptions from doctor's for anti-depressants, however that was as far as she was willing to go. She was from a family of 11 children, 5 of whom were mentally retarded. This colored her perception on mental illness. She was afraid that if she admitted to any form of mental illness, everyone would assume she was mentally retarded like her brother and sisters. She also grew up in a time where they locked you up for mental illness, even her mentally retarded brother and sisters were placed in "State Schools".

What my mother really needed was a professional to help her work through her Depression and other coping difficulties. The medications helped off and on, but without knowing exactly what was behind the Depression, it was hard for the doctor's to prescribe the proper drugs in proper amounts. Her Depression led to a prescription drug addiction for the last 50 years of her life, and those drugs often counteracted the anti-depressants.

My mother's drug addiction and Depression effected our entire family. For me, I became the enabler who would do anything in my power to protect my mother from friends and families disapproval. I took on the responsibility for her happiness, and since there is no way to really be successful in making others happy, my self esteem was as low as it could get. I was 45 years old before I finally realized that my mom was sick, but she had chosen to stay that way. She was not my responsibility and she wasn't sick because I failed her in some way. Since coming to this realization, my self esteem has grown exponentially over the past 7 years, but only because I made the conscious decision to have a high self esteem and a high confidence level.