Its 2:19am, which means it’s about 11:19am in Oregon, and I
can’t sleep at all. Something feels wrong. I can’t explain it very well, but
it’s a feeling that I just can’t shake and it’s never been wrong as long as I
have been alive. Since as long as I remember I have always had extremely strong
feelings of intuition. I have always known when something isn’t right with my
family, especially my mother. Call it what you will, I know some think its
crazy and over exaggerated but its true. It’s funny to think that I am almost
31 years old and this has always been my life. I don’t sleep too well. I never
know if I am going to wake up to some horrible news, a nurse calling me or
another problem along the horizon. I think I have spent the majority of my life
submerged by anxiety and guilt that I can’t seem to run away from. I haven’t
lived with my mother since I was 14 years old. You might think by now I would
have been able to move on and ignore these feelings like others in my family
but I can’t. My mother is an amazing, wonderful person who is dramatic and
caring to a fault. I have always described her as Katherine Hepburn with a
little too much vodka. It seems funny but if you knew her, its not. To grow up
in this life is so confusing. It’s like a dream or story that you want to jump
out of or re-write, but you can’t pull your self off the page. I’ve been told I
don’t know what its like to watch alcoholism and mental illness first hand, but
those people don’t know my life. I am not angry with her anymore I am scared.
Everyday I watch residents in my program suffer alone with their illness scared
and overwhelmed. I have watched them live and die with no family or friends by
their side purely because others “can’t handle” them. I call bullshit. How can
you turn your back on someone with an illness? Do you turn your back on someone
with cancer or diabetes?
Co-Occurring disorders are no different. She doesn’t
deserve to suffer alone no matter what has happened in the past. Sometimes I
wonder why I am the only one who sees this? So, here I am again up late,
waiting by the phone with no answer. I spoke to the nurse…its not good, it
usually isn’t. I won’t be able to sleep knowing this, how can I? It was her
birthday on Friday, July 8th, I was probably the only one who spoke
to her. I wonder how it would feel to be alone at 73? My mother talks to me
about the wonderful people she meets and looses and she is so very attached to
them all. You see, my mother is someone who loves everyone. She may be slightly
off at times, but she is one of the most caring individuals I have ever known.
She always wants to help others, even when she can’t help herself. I wonder
where I get that. In a few weeks I’ll be 31 and I will still be on a railroad
of fear. It doesn’t matter how old we get, how far we go, or how much we try to
ignore it, these things don’t just disappear. I have always been one to “talk
to much” as my family would say, on the subject. But, what I don’t understand
is why we should keep silent? I am living in this world that I no longer and
maybe never have understood. We ignore those who suffer with something we don’t
understand. Instead of using our voices we use guns and we fight hate with more
hate. Is it really any wonder that I haven’t been able to sleep these past few
weeks, months, years….
When I was in my twenties, I started to think about the song
I would sing for my mom when she died. You think that’s morbid, don’t you? I
think its real. It’s my life. Every time I hear the song now, I cry, waiting for
the phone call that I know will come. My emotions switch between anger, fear
and sadness like clockwork throughout the day, every day. At 4:30pm, I get off
work and than I begin phone calls with the nursing home, social workers and
others in Oregon to help my mom. Sometimes I get phone calls while I am at work
and sometimes in the middle of the night and then sometimes I get nothing. I
think the days of nothing like tonight are the worst. I have seen my mother
refuse treatment, I have seen her revived by EMT’s, passed out on the floor and
the silence is the most deafening. It doesn’t matter how far apart we are, or
how long she wasn’t there, or how independent I may be, I can’t live without my
mom. So I sit and wait and I call until she answers or the nurse tells me she’s
okay. It doesn’t matter if we don’t understand, or it we’re angry, tired or unable
to fix the problem, all that matters is that we’re there. That’s all anyone
wants is not to be alone. Now you know the guilt I feel because I’ve left her
all alone.
