The Other Side

Slowly, the stigma related to mental health is dissipating, but there is another side of it that is also seldom talked about…

My friend is a vibrant, fun-loving, passionate woman.  But as she grew older, she started to suffer from anxiety, depression, and panic attacks resulting from trauma experienced long ago.  I knew her struggles became overwhelming when she was admitted into the psychiatric ward.

One of her options while in the hospital was shock therapy.  It might help quickly reduce the extreme anxiety and panic attacks that plagued her.  But when the question was asked whether it would also take away the emotional “highs” of feeling joy, the psychiatrist could not answer.  She and her family decided to take a course of treatment which included various medications.

Months later, she was out of the hospital and she came to my home to visit.  As I sat there looking into her eyes as she spoke, her once vibrant, passionate, spirit would show itself and then would quickly hide again.  As she talked about everything that was happening to her, she spoke of something she had been experiencing called “emotional blunting” – a side effect of certain medications that can cause apathy, low motivation, indifference, and detachment.  

“Melony, every day I do what I know to do for my family, but I don’t feel any emotional connection with anything or anyone.  I feel like an empty shell.  I don’t know where the woman was who was in this body…and I don’t know if she’s ever coming back…right now I’m afraid to live, and I’m afraid to die.”

There was something about the emptiness in her eyes that haunted me.  Suddenly it came to me.  I was looking into the eyes of my mother…

Everything flooded back.  My mom had died a few years ago.  We had never been close.  I loved her and I honored her because she was my mom, but I had never loved her deeply.

Mom had always had emotional problems and when I was 14, she had been placed in the psychiatric ward after having what was deemed a “nervous breakdown”.  I had become a rebellious teenager and it did not help when the psychiatrist asked my dad and I to come in for an appointment.  The psychiatrist pointed his finger at me and told me that it was my fault that my mother was in the psychiatric ward. 

As I sat there the day after my friend’s visit, my adult heart realized my mom and I had never connected on an emotional level.  Is it possible that one of the reasons I became rebellious was that I was looking for connection and I would do anything to get it?  For years I had watched her take the little green pills and the little pink pills.  I saw the pills having a closer connection to her than I did.  Looking back, I knew I had judged her.  Fresh tears rose from the stale, dusty place in my heart that held all those childhood memories and feelings.  As I hung my head, the tears continued to squeeze out of places I thought I had cleaned out long ago.  “Oh God, forgive me for judging my mom…”  It was not that my mom didn’t want to connect with me – it was that she couldn’t connect with me…she was incapable. 

Our society still doesn’t talk openly about our brains not working properly and fifty years ago we talked about it even less.  As a child, no one explained to me that my mom’s brain was the same as any other organ in her body and if it wasn’t functioning properly, she would be taking medication.

A few days after my friend’s visit, the Director of Counselling at The Caring Place, Dr. Sam Berg, was sharing with me about some research that he had read about regarding shock therapy.   When talking about a past traumatic event vs. receiving shock therapy, the MRI produced the same results.  As he shared, I started to tear up.  My mom had suffered eight miscarriages and had a stillborn child.  And she never received counselling for it.

Would it have made a difference in my mom’s life if she would have received counselling from an organization like The Caring Place?  Yes, it probably would have.  Would it have made a difference in mine?  Yes, it probably would have.  Would it have made a difference if we would have received counselling as a family?  You decide.