I was four when I learned first learned about mental disorders. That was when my mother's brother moved in to the basement apartment in our home in the city.
My sister and I didn't like our uncle. He was selfish, he had a mean streak, and our mother had told my sister, who later told me, about the damage he'd done to our other aunt's and uncle's homes. In a grip of paranoia, scared that his family was against him, he'd barricaded himself in his brother's house, refusing to let anyone in. Only the arrival of the police made him open the door. Being family, my older uncle decided not to press charges but insisted that his brother leave. My aunt took him in following that. One day, she came home and caught my uncle burning letters, photos, videos and jewelry in her kitchen sink. Scared, she demanded he moved out.
According to my mother, he then lived on the streets for a couple of months. Occasionally, he'd stop by the house and ask for money and then leave. Once winter came though, my mother couldn't bear the thought of him on the street and begged my father to allow her brother to move in. Against the warnings of her brother and sister.
Things were quiet for a while. My uncle kept to himself, he was scared of my father and following one fight between them, didn't want to make him angry. My mother was happy to know her brother was safe and became less worried about him having another paranoid episode as the months went on.
Then, one day, I heard screaming downstairs. My mother came upstairs and told me to go up to the attic (the door to which was in my bedroom). All I could see from the window was my father holding my uncle down on the front lawn while the man hollered and cursed. A police car pulled up and the officers approached my father, took hold of my thrashing uncle and put him in the back of their vehicle.
My sister, who'd been at her friend's house, and I were told that my father had smelled smoke in the basement. My uncle had set the a pile of laundry on the couch on fire. After my father had put out the flames, my uncle attacked him. I don't know how my father was able to drag him up the stairs and around the to the front of our house. That was also the day I learned how incredibly powerful my father was. For the longest time, I thought he was the strongest man on Earth.
But, the mind is stronger. Depression can defeat even the mightiest of men.
Fast forward to when I was thirty two. I had a home of my own, children of my own, and one day, I receive a call from my father.
He'd been holed up in his house alone for two years. After my mother (having had a mental breakdown of her own) had left him, he sunk into a pit of depression. All calls were ignored. Visits to his house were either met with indifference or anger. He refused any offer of help outside of rides. Refused to talk with a doctor. Refused to acknowledge that there were people who loved him and wanted to help him.
The property he had taken such pride in through my childhood and teen years fell into disrepair. Weeds and sumac trees overtook the yard. The water pipes burst in the walls and he didn't try to fix them. Mold grew along the walls and he didn't care. The garbage and human filth piled up. None of it mattered. He only wanted to be left alone. No one was allowed into the house. Only the need for food, alcohol and cigarettes had him leave the house. It was only to take him to the store that I was allowed to see him, to talk to him.
The day of the phone call, he begged me to bring him food. He told me his legs hurt and he'd not been able to go to the store. Desperation was the only reason he reached out to me. For years, I'd begged him to live with us and finally, that day, he said that he wanted to. You can't know how relieved I was.
Then I saw him. After breaking through the kitchen door, I saw the inside of the house for the first time in years. I smelled the reek of feces, urine, mold, trash and kerosene heater fumes that he'd been living in. That he'd kept hidden away. Waded through a pile of trash to get to the living room. To get to the recliner that his swollen body had been stuck in for days.
There was never any need to pack his things. Never a chance to rearrange my back room for him to live in. He had finally accepted my help, but it was too late.
Less than a week later, he died in the hospital. A year after that, we had his wretched house burned down. All that remains is rubble and ashes. All that remains of him are memories, regrets and ashes.
The terrible strength of mental illness should NEVER be underestimated. Every single person going through it is different and the ways to help them have to unique to them. It starts with caring. Listening and actually hearing what a person has to say. Do not recommend that someone as "just stop feeling sorry for themselves and to get over it" or telling them to "think positive". If those things worked, would anyone be suffering?
Be there for the ones who need you. Give them your time, your patience and your love. Seek guidance, there are resources available. People who desperately want to help. Just understand that there isn't a magical cure. No pill to quickly make everything better. No self-help book that contains a special secret. There is no shame. No need to hide. No need for anyone to go through it alone.
It feels like being alone. Like nobody really understands how I feel and even if when say they do, I'm pretty sure they're just saying so to make me (and mostly themselves) feel better. Because that's in there too. That thought that nobody really cares and everyone is just looking out for themselves.
Knowing something, that there's help, that you're not alone, that others are dealing with something similar, is different than feeling it, different than believing it.
Mental illness has taken the lives of a few of my family members. It's in my blood. It's in my thoughts. I'm scared. I'm scared that I've passed it on to my children. I'm scared that nothing I'll be able to do will help anyone I love. I'm scared that I failed my father. I'm scared that one day, I'll not be who I am, who I want to be, and that nobody will be able to help me.
But, I'm not scared to talk about it. I'm not scared of judgment. I'm not scared enough to EVER stop caring or trying to help those who need it.
For as long as I am myself.
art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics
