It’s evening. Everyone’s at home expecting to have some peace and quite. As they say “There’s no place like home”. But whoever said that wasn’t referring to this house-believe me! Mama is in one of her ‘moods’ again probably because she hasn’t yet taken her meds. So we’re in for another war-zone. She suffers from some mental disorder i prefer not to go into details about. You might say “mood swings? Don’t we all suffer from those especially girls? What’s the big deal?”.

Let’s see: Someone slams the gate (it doesn’t close if you don’t). No big deal right? But here’s how mom sees it “so-and-so slammed the gate on purpose just because she knew I’m here-they want to irritate me!”. Normal? You see, with her sickness, the world revolves around her-everything anyone does is to ‘get at her’. So if you happen to be the unfortunate one at home when she’s in one of her ‘moods’, then you get travel into her brain because she’ll explain to you exactly what she’s thinking. Naturally, you try to convince her that no one is against her but take it from me-it’s to no avail! It’s beyond logic. Her disease is ‘hard-wired’ in her ‘circuits’.

Once she has taken her maintenance drugs, she’s back to her normal, real self. As a very sincere person, once she remembers all the mean things she said to any one of us, she tries her best to explain how much she didn’t mean a word she said. Of course she didn’t! But a simple “sorry” doesn’t erase anything, like all you needed to do was delete a few files in your memory! I could go on and on with instances were I asked myself “Ma, is that you?” but what good would that do but bring back memories I’ve tried so hard to repress? You must be thinking:” this girl has issues with her mom!”. Well, you’re partly right i guess. But let’s get one thing straight-I love my mom. It’s just hard to separate the ‘real’ her from the one that’s mean and selfish. You reach the point when you can’t determine which ‘one’ she is at that time and don’t know how to react-to contribute whatever happened to pure sickness without any intention or to human emotion evoked somehow by something you did. Frustrating right? Then you just depend on how much you know her-did anyone do something she found offensive? Does she keep on saying things against any particular person? and most importantly did she take her drugs?

Yes, I know her well enough. We all do. Now I guess your thinking “oh,poor girl to have to grow up in such surroundings”. Poor girl? How about poor mom -not being able to control her emotions? Saying cruel, hurtful things she doesn’t mean to the most important people in her life? Losing the respect of her children because of her actions? Not knowing why she did or said something? Feeling worthless, unloved? And worst of all-Not understanding that it’s not really ‘her’ but only the side-effects of her disease. Unlike how you would have rashes and fevers after being diagnosed with dengue. You wouldn’t need to ask why you have rash or fever would you? It’s because you’re sick! You’re able to perceive that because your mental faculties haven’t been affected. Now imagine if that fever or rashes was mental-hindering your natural ability to control emotion and analyze situations. That’s exactly what happens to people suffering from some mental illness like my mom.

She’s not bad. On the contrary, she has a very pleasant personality once you get to know the ‘real’ her. Unfortunately, the world can’t appreciate her value and she can’t share her self with the world. Gladly though, this is soon to change. God promises a time when everyone will return to perfection-physical and mental-just as He originally planned. Then I wouldn’t have to ask “Ma, is that you?”

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