Mother has depression, she has had it for years, she takes pills. She also takes spells in which she does things she can never take back and ‘forgets’ about them. I’m not sure if she does, one day I sat and told her some of the things. Things like chasing me up the stairs hitting me with a plastic rod for closing and opening blinds because it had unhooked itself. Things like, pinning my younger brother to a wall at 7.30am while he was in his school uniform because he said ‘I don’t really like weetabix’. I don’t allow weetabix in my house, that might be why, also I don’t like it. There are many more incidents I don’t care to talk about and she doesn’t care to remember. When I get the sads, which is what I call it, I have a small weed of a thought, ‘Am I like her?’, it slowly spirals through my brain, I can almost feel it gripping me. Contorting, deforming, crippling.
Am I like her?
She used to take herself to bed for days and cry. You could hear it in every room in the house. You have to get on, you have to ignore it. Because if you mention it, it’s real, and when it’s real, it gets worse. She’s on medication. I know I’ve said it, but she was on medication, these doctors told us it would get better. I’m still waiting.
I do cry, I cry uncontrollably for an hour and then I feel better. I need the release of crying. The primal wailing noise, or the silent sniffles, it never matters to me. I don’t care at the time.
A few weeks after I had Mojo, I sat and held her while I cried for three hours. I shocked myself, it came from no where and left just as quickly. But the sads I’ve had for a few years. It comes on, and it goes. In those times I can’t find the will to function correctly, I feel broken. I hit my auto pilot button, everyone gets fed & washed, dressed and undressed, teeth, hair, bills, obligatory phone calls. I can do this, I’ve had years to perfect it. I never ever mention my sads to my Mother, it would be like wearing the same outfit for the rest of our lives. There are a few things I want in life, to be like Mother isn’t on my list of things to do.
The person who suffers is never me, I don’t feel like I suffer. I pray to anyone who is listening that my children, my babies, the heart and soul of me won’t feel how I felt. Won’t see what I saw. Won’t know what I know.
Beau suffers. He is my champion, my saviour. I tell him I don’t love him, because I’m an empty person, I don’t love anyone during the sads. He smiles his usual smile, puts the kettle on. He sits with me silently. I want to be alone but I never want him to leave. Silence.
A few days later, I feel the weeds of the sads slowly diminish, pulling their tendrils of hopelessness and ruin back into the tiny corner of my mind where they live. They live there.
Keeping busy keeps the sads at bay but only for so long, there will be the night Beau is at work, brother is out and the babies are in bed. I can almost hear the weeds creaking to life.
I can almost hear it… This past week has been full of sads. It’s going now, I’ve even baked mini muffins with Eldest, to me it’s a secret celebration. This week I’m going to feel okay.
This week I’m going to feel okay.
This week.
