World Mental Health Day

Today is #worldmentalhealthday and I wanted to take some time to share part of my own story and follow up with a few things in my last major post. 

I think it’s great to have a day like this and to see mental health taken seriously. More and more people are speaking out, and while there is still a stigma apparent in our world, I truly believe we are making progress. 

I have always felt the need to minimize my own struggles, while publicly I may seem so open about everything in my life, this is not my nature. Anyone who grew up with me can recall the immense and high walls I would put up around my emotions. I wouldn’t always open up to even my closest friends or family. My point being, I have not always been so ‘confident’ or publicly expressive with who I am or where I’ve come from. It’s taken a choice, the hard choice to go against the voices in my head that tell me to live in fear and silence.

I didn’t always know what the words anxiety, depression, suicide, schizophrenia, bipolar, isolation, meant or that they even were affecting me personally. I didn’t know these words, but I can remember from my earliest memories the signs of these so early on. 

*This post is not to demonize my mother by any means, but it’s to open up about my own story.* 

My father was fairly controlling and abusive, but not in the typical ways you might see abuse. He didn’t hit us or anything physical like that, but I remember the first time he crossed my boundaries through control. The first day of kindergarten I asked if I could go to a friend’s house to play. His response; “we don’t want to do that”. And this type of controlling and isolating attitude is what would keep me locked in my house until 11 years old. Never going on sleepovers, never answering the phone, never leaving the yard, never going to birthday parties, basically not having a normal childhood. I could only go to school, or anywhere that my parents were. THAT IS NOT OKAY AND SCREWS WITH YOUR DEVELOPMENT SO BAD. This was not normal, and instilled anxiety into me that the world and its people were ‘bad’. Everything was to be feared. 

This control was exuded way more severely on my mother. I found out after his death that he made her go off of her medication. In order for her to be with him she had to cut off all ties to her friends, he would be her life and her friends. He ruled her, and this did not help her bipolar. Obviously being unmedicated and being forced to stay in the house 24/7 (she wasn’t allowed to have a job or friends) had negative effects on the way she raised me. She would get angry (understandably so) and I would get yelled at a lot. I was probably a fairly normal child in the ways I acted out, but the aggression I experienced from both of them instilled a lot of anger in me. 

I became her counsellor. By six years old I knew the details of her mothers suicide and attempts. People always say “Lynelle you’re so strong, so wise” but you have no clue where that has come from. And I don’t really live in those comments or feel that I am. But, when you counsel a parent through their trauma, and you are a child, you don’t realize how much you cease to be a kid. 

I never knew what the word bipolar meant, but looking back I know the signs were always there. And it makes me angry the man my father was. I see my mom now on her proper meds and in a better environment without him and I see someone I never knew. The angry woman is gone and she has so much love she was never allowed to show. 

Moving ahead some years, she would have a major breakdown filled with delusions and would go into the psychiatric ward for 2 weeks. The week after she came home, my dad died. Can you imagine going through those two events in the span of a month? And at 16? Yeah those days felt like hell. She would return three more times in under three years and would eventually leave our home to go into the city so she could have a better environment. And we would finally get the bipolar diagnosis. 

Unfortunately I feel like I’m just scratching the surface with my story, and there is so much more to tell, but this post is getting long. 

On World Mental Health Day I think of the ways that mental health has affected me. The anxiety I go through and flares up as it wants when it wants. With my mom turning 51 on the weekend (the same age my dad was when he died) my anxiety decided to flare up again but I was too scared to say the reason and only told two people. A lot out of my own control has happened to me, and it is dealing with this trauma through counselling (probably for the rest of my life) that I know I can be proactive in taking care of myself. And there is so much that I haven’t shared in this post that has been traumatic (and I don’t share the word ‘trauma’ lightly). 

So why am I sharing this? To get attention or pity? To get a ton of likes and “way to go thanks for sharing this”? No. My whole life I’ve felt the need to minimize my struggles and my story. There are people who have had worse things happen to them I tell myself. But life is not a competition, and if you have been affected by mental health whether by your own struggles or a loved one, let me tell you “you are not alone”. We know that those who struggle with mental health are not the problem, but we know it is hard and affects us when we see someone we love struggle. And that’s why it’s important to share. 

I’m still dealing with the things that happened to me, and unlike the many people who have tried to deny my anxiety, this is a reality for me and I hope this post gives you one ounce of perspective as to why. I am a work in progress and know this place is not where I will stay, but I keep the past in view to remember where I have come from. I never want to forget, because as unfortunate as its been it has shaped me into who I am today. My trauma does not define or dictate my life, but it has shaped and affected it.