Diagnosis

She waited, knowing that her daughter was in the specialist room speaking to doctors who did not know her, doctors who had their own agendas, doctors who knew not of what she knew. She railed, she protested, she hurt inside, desperate to go in. If it was me I would have wondered, “Do I just open the door, do I grab my daughter and take her out of there or do I stay pacing the room, crying, praying, hoping against hope that this nightmare I was just starting to be in would finish and I would wake and find out that it was just a bad dream after all”

She waited, she honoured her daughter’s request; she did not go in, although it looked to me like every cell in her body wanted to do that very thing. Maybe she was thinking “I’m her mother! I should be in there, I should be understanding, hearing what is being said.”  She was shut out, being told that her daughter was not well, that she was trying to hurt herself. No! that is not the girl she knew, or thought she knew. Her daughter was old enough for her to not have any part of this. It was her right to say whether she wanted her mother in there or not. How can her mother help her though if she did not understand? How can she help her if she did not know what was going on? Your mother is supposed to be the one who loves you through and through, the one who is on your side, who will never leave you.

As I watched the mother going through this as I walked past her in the hall, I suddenly felt like there was something wrong with the whole system. Families need to understand their members situation, so that they could give support. Especially young kids like her daughter, she looked about 19. Old enough to be an adult, but not old enough to be grown up. This mother looked as though she would give support.

 My family had not cared. After mum passed away, I felt like I wasn’t part of a family anymore. I was the one who had made all the mistakes, the one who had run off with a man whilst in the “ideal” relationship. The black sheep. Yes, that was me. Suddenly my children and I were not to be trusted, Mum had given me so much, my brothers colluded and sought to ostracize me even further, now that she was gone.

From my vantage point, around the corner, I watched. She was crying, barely controlling her strong emotions, you could see she just wanted to break down the doors. “Don’t do it!” my mind begged her, do not ever show weakness, that is how they get you. That is how they make your daughter know that you are not to be trusted. I wondered if this girl would be admitted, it would seem so. Her mother looked at me with fear.  I could see underlying compassion, but also fear. I turned away; I was not going to show her any weakness of mine. I was tough, on the outside anyway.

I had a spare bed in my room, will this girl be my roommate? Maybe. I felt sorry for her mum ‘but darlin’, I thought, ‘I beg of you, do not show weakness’. There was something about this mum. She looked like she was talking to someone, praying perhaps? Yes, you are going to need that, I thought. Being in a psych hospital was not something you would wish upon anyone.

I thought that if that were me, I would break down the door, bugger them! Hadn’t they admitted me though for such acts of passion? I have felt so many times that this life is just not fair. My brothers had had me arrested for taking stuff out of mum’s house -well, maybe more for my reaction after I had spoken to them. I thought, as her daughter, I would have had the right. Then they thought I had asked my dad for money. Our dad had offered it to me. “Oh but that will be taken from your inheritance”, they had said. Wow! Are you kidding me? I flew off the handle, got arrested, and the judge put me in this place. “Overtaken by grief” they had said. “She needs treatment” they had said.

I watched again, obviously without the mother noticing I was watching. They opened the door and invited her inside. After a while she came out with her daughter, her daughter looking incredibly sad, but guarded. He mother looked defeated, upset, then went to get her daughter’s luggage. She WAS being admitted. I skedaddled to my room, to pretend I was there the whole time. Her mother would not have noticed anyway, she looked like she was in shock.

 Yes, in they came. The girl have me a slight smile, the mother looked at me in terror, but tried to smile.  The girl wanted her mother to leave, I could tell that her mother would rather die than leave her here, but she summoned up the courage and said she would be back the following day. I busied myself with a magazine. Her mum left, crying. Again, I thought- don’t show weakness! Man, why am I judging her? I show weakness all the time. Pride is so much better, then you are not weak, you are in control.   

As the hours went on, I thought I would tell this girl my name. I asked her a bit about herself, she seemed totally normal to me, but I could tell she was depressed. We went to a group the next day, to get us to “talk out our feelings” Urghh! The girl just listened. I was asked to tell my story. I was so angry at my brothers! How dare they think they were better than me, that I did things to them like take things without telling them, not confide in them, try to trick our Dad with dementia out of money? They were across the finances, they had to keep track of it all and taking money from him was going to mean that I got more. Is that what they were worried about? Because I was sick when I was a child that I got everything handed to me on a silver platter? I am just so over this, so tired, so hurt, so heartbroken. Nobody but me understands how that feels.             

The next day the girl came over to my bed. She said “I am sorry for the way your brothers treated you. I did a drawing for you.”  I looked, it was a picture of a Blue Wren, my mother’s favorite, how could she have known? I said thank you, it meant so much to me. As the days went on, the girl listened to everyone of us patients’ stories. Every story prompted a drawing from her, something that meant so much to us. She had a gift. Compassion and empathy oozed from her. And her drawings? Oh, my goodness, it was like she could reach into our very souls.    

The day came when it was time for her to go home. She was feeling a little bit more stable. Being her first admission, she was not expected to share her story with the rest of us, I only had because I had wanted to. We did not want her to go, she was beautiful, like a precious gem. The doctors called her into the specialist room, and I saw her mother waiting nearby. I thought that I would speak to her. “Your daughter gave me a beautiful drawing” I said, “in fact, she drew beautiful pictures for all of us. She is an incredibly special human being, and we will all miss her very much.” Her mother looked so surprised, and then so grateful. “I am so glad you told me that, it gives me hope. Thank you” she said.

Imagine that! I? Me? I gave someone hope?!   How could that be? I began to wonder then- maybe I had some hope for the future too, even though everything looked so black. Isn’t it funny how the smallest comments and the smallest actions can turn someone’s perspective around?   First the girl, then her mother. This mother was not weak, she was human. She had a burden to bear that was her daughter’s illness, yet she still had hope to give. Her daughter had her illness too, yet she gave hope in her drawings.   You know, despite my hurt and my pain, I had hope to give too. Hope that we all have experiences to share, and hope that we are all human but have wonderful gifts to bless people with. It was a sad day when she left, but it was also a day that set up the rest of my life’s happiness, I am forever grateful that I met them both.