My Mum

My mother was diagnosed with bi polar split personality schizophrenia when I was 15 years old and 15 years too late by the time we knew she had already left a streak of devastation in her path and left my father with three kids - we knew she had this from when I was born as she was in and out of hospital all the time and her personalty to match. When she was in a good mood she was the best person to have around but when she was in one of her moods she was awful you never knew where you stood from one day to the next and living with this was horrendous at times like broken egg shells. If only she had the right medication from the start would things have been so different?

I remember the summer holidays being particular harsh as they were so long. I remember waking up early before dad had gone to work and asking him what mood is she in? If he said she was in a good mood that meant she would get out of bed before eleven and we would stick around and play until her mood changed. If he said she was not in a good mood we would go out for the day as she would probably stay in bed until midday and be so bad to be around it was easier to go out to a friends house and oh my I was lucky to have a friend to escape to.

My sister took the brunt of it I suppose she was our mother really looking after us we both made sure our little brother was well looked after we hid a lot from him. We used to make the breakfast, the packed lunches the tea, clean the house do the ironing I remember being quite good at it from the age of 10 I think we had perfected pizza and noodles! So the house was always tidy our bedrooms spotless but it was never good enough. I shared a bedroom with my sister who wasn't tidy as me and we were playing in the room sorting stuff out and mum stormed in upstairs and demanded us to clear up so I started tidying up and she came back and trough a fit she shouted at us to get out and she pulled our clothing rail down, through our drawers out and upturned our beds and then shouted at us to now tidy it up - it took us ages to do it. The time when mum was cooking and oh god we were in trouble then as she couldn't really cook that well - so she would be by the pressure cooker cooking belly pork or liver or oxes heart something really appetising for us! My sister and I were on the stairs and she was going to lift me down but we fell down the stairs and I remember mum cooking in this pot like a witch over her cauldron and storming to the bottom of the stairs to have a go and I just remember sobbing over the meal she had burnt because we fell. Christmas was bad I hated them, birthdays were just as bad - but different kinds of bad. Christmas was always a waiting disaster waiting for things to get bad I hated them. I still got excited waiting for the special day but it was the meal I dreaded there was always an argument waiting to happen I remember being sent to bed on many a Christmas day without any Christmas lunch - all because I didn't eat the Brussels sprouts! I hate Brussels!! Birthdays were different because they were always over the top mum used to throw us parties to put on a show this happened for only about two years but they were so big loads of people and usually before anybody arrived there was an argument so we were upset to start with and then when everybody left another argument I dreaded them more than anything.

Lots more happened but it comes in waves I only seem to remember things at certain times, I just wish I didn't remember everything. It still niggles me I can feel it every so often rearing its ugly head and it makes me feel so down that it takes me a while to resurface again. The odd smell or saying or a picture can take me right back to a certain age and at an age I felt so bad, so lonely I still feel like that drowning in the memories gone by and it does take me a while to push through back to the surface and take a gulp of air of reality of now.

My mother hid behind things looking back it was her make up and hair when she put her face on we knew she was going to be OK for the day before she left my dad and us we used to do everything for her - her make up was kept in the kitchen in a white make up bag with her mirror by the kettle, the coffee was kept in the cupboard below the kettle and it needed eight scoops to go in the percolator - her cigarettes was kept in the third draw down on the breakfast bar. She never knew where these were as we used to get them for her, we even used to but the cigarettes from the shop too. She used to sit in the same chair by the phone in her white nightie and slippers smoking a cigarette with a coffee by her side. I loved my mum because she was my mum and I do miss her deeply but she was hard to live with but in a strange sense harder to live without.

She was controlling and hard to deal with - she was always arguing with us and my dad. My dad could do no right - we never did anything as a family never went for a meal together I can't remember a time when we did. We managed holidays but they weren't fun and relaxing we were living on a knife's edge waiting for the blade to turn. Even day trips out were difficult we would get to a place walk around mum would go in a fit and then demand to go home we never had a chance to do anything without it ending in an argument. Early holidays consisted of mum deciding to go home and up and leaving without telling us and we would get a phone call from the police to say she was in hospital as they found her wandering along the motorway. Or the time when she decided that she wanted to kill herself the amount of times she kept telling us this from an early age we almost feared walking in and finding her when we came home from school, that's when we went. We used to stay home and look after her most days. I was forgetting the times of mum in the hospital days and weeks away we would visit her but it was horrible difficult she would look so ill doped up on drugs not herself it was difficult to see her like that. I remember going to see her once and having a sherbet fountain I had chucked it in my mouth so quick it had caught on my slaver gland and foamed everywhere I looked like I had rabies!! I have to find some humour in there otherwise it just stirs up too many horrid memories.

I thought that when my mum died things would change and they have I do feel that that chapter has closed and a new one is being lived. The path changed direction and I am pleased it has I don't feel controlled anymore I feel that I am in control of the direction of my path. But it is still difficult to know which way to turn with out the guidance - but I have never had the guidance I was told at an early age that I was the wrong sex, I was the one who made mum remember bad things to make her feel the way she did, I was the one who was going nowhere, the one who was going to pregnant with two kids at the age of 16, the one who was a waste of space! But I wasn't I proved them wrong.