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Written by Jane   

My sister and I just tried to grow up, manage my mother's condition/s, become well adjusted into society, finish our educations and appear to be...

Hi, my name is Jane.

My ability to cope with a mentally ill parent feels like it is finally come to an end. I have no more energy, not even to look after myself anymore. I am twenty seven years old. Supposedly, I should have the 'world at my feet' and be 'full of life' and 'full of energy' to live and experience the world and to be who ever it is that I am supposed to be. The problem is that I just can't seem to find the energy to keep on keeping on anymore...

Anyways, before I start...I want to say that it is truly amazing that this site and other services are now available for today's children of mentally ill parents as there was nothing available for my sister and I back when it all started for us in the late 70's and the early 80's. Not even my very smart, high society parents (one of whom is extremely mentally ill) ever stopped for one moment to consider us, the kids and the possible long term effects.

My sister and I just tried to grow up, manage my mother's condition/s, become well adjusted into society, finish our educations and appear to be normal kids from a normal family by keeping the 'family secret' secret at all times. We both tried so hard everyday to be and become everything we were expected to be and expected to become from within the instability of our home environment which was devastated by my mother every moment of every day in one way or another. The result of our experience is that I am sure my sister and I are both suffering from something truly horrible now and neither of us became in the end what we were expected to become and our family disowned us...

We both ran away from home at 15 and 17 years of age to find a normal life and neither of us completed our educations, we both can't seem to hold a job, and neither of us have developed a career even though we have both tried to, relationships on any level (work, friends, family and partners) are all extremely difficult and all of our relationships seem to end in disaster, we both move around a lot, the list goes on... So I guess we never found the peace we both left home to find and now I realise at twenty seven years of age that although I have tried really hard since my earliest memories to cope, find hope, suppress all the bad feelings, get on with my life and be the best I can be, and even though I really, really want to achieve my dreams and goals and I am sure my sister wants to too, I just feel like I can't cope anymore and I seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for energy and motivation as all I really want to do is wither away and hide in a dark corner for a while until I am rested enough to try it all again.

My mother's conditions are both major OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) coupled with major Manic Depression. All the usual symptoms... screaming for hours, crying for hours, inability to get out of bed & shower, inability to perform daily tasks without supervision/assistance, aggression and violence towards others - family members only in this case, suicide attempts, irrational, illogical and delusional behaviours, panic and anxiety attacks, specific obsessive and compulsive behaviour etc... all on a daily and minute to minute occurrence.

We were not ever allowed to discuss anything about my mother with anyone. The family name was obviously worth more than the health and quality of life of anyone of us.

My parents now refuse any accountability & blame us kids for ruining both their lives and our own lives... They say they do not want to know us... They say that we are a shame to the family name... They tell us that we are the one's with the problem as we are the one's who ran away and left our family...

We are both very lost, we are both very hurt, we are both very alone in our struggle and we are both without family support so it is nice to come across a site like this where we can see that we are not the only ones.

Jane.