Asylum - an institution for the maintenance and care of the
mentally ill.
In 1924, in Alberta, the name “asylum” was washed into
history, and mentally ill patients (previously lunatics) were placed in
psychiatric hospitals.
Regardless of the name, stigma flows
with ghostly presence through all conversations about a person’s mental health.
Most would prefer to keep it quiet. Indeed, in reading about the lengthy
history of “madness”—I have found that mental health illness and disorder are seen
primarily as a domestic problem, with women taking on the vast majority of the
management as an extension of their maternal role. And they are meant to keep
it neatly tucked into their aprons, next to the recipe for the perfectly
prepared supper.
I have to write about the heartache
of being that mother—the one who bakes so that her children will know that they
are loved beyond words, the one with the sassy hair style, fit figure, and
functionally fashionable clothes, and the one who helps to solve the emotional
and physical problems that her children face, so that they will have a better
quality of life, or at least . . . suffer less. I am her. The mother who has a
child with moderate to severe mental health struggles.
The Alberta Mental Health Act
states, “In order to protect and treat those individuals with serious mental
disorders and to protect the public, legislation has been put in place.” What
parent wants to even learn about the Alberta Mental Health Act, let alone put
into motion the tenants of the Act in order to adequately care for their child?
When a person with a mental disorder “stops taking prescribed medication,
appears unable to care for him/herself, is having a recurrence of severe
symptoms yet refuses to see a physician,”[1] a
family member, peace officer, health care worker, etc. can present the
situation and circumstances to a Provincial Court judge, who will rule on
whether the individual can be apprehended for examination by a physician.
How can one individual decide
what is “best” for another individual? Can we truly look at behavior and
circumstances, and figure out how to “help” someone else, who may not want to
or be able to make good and healthy choices for themselves? Is is immensely
complicated. What if it is a parent, and a child, what then?
I commenced
parenting each of my children with an unrealistic idea of perfection. I felt
naturally inclined toward it, and therefore I presumed it would be easy. That
ridiculous idea, etched into the condensation on the mirror after a shower, has
disappeared. However, if I exhale slowly overtop of it, it fleetingly emerges
to haunt me. My journey from perceived perfection to flaw-filled parent has not
been an easy one. I can’t detail all of the work I have done, nor all the
stages I have gone through.
The last year has been very
difficult, while simultaneously being a period of personal strength. I have
begun to create boundaries, and have stopped trying so hard. Faven’s wounds
became deeper than what I could apply first aid to. I observed and learned more
about her, while reminding myself that I am not responsible for her happiness,
in any given moment. She has been flailing for awhile. She did not have a good
set up for “success”, as she had many periods of loss and trauma before she
turned ten, before she joined our family through adoption. No one should have
to suffer so much; but we cannot change the past. We have tried love and
support, and in moments it has worked, but by length, it has not.
So, I am not “trying” as hard. It
is a choice—maybe it is what people call “tough love”, I don’t know, but it
sure is tough. It is a choice that the critic who sits on my shoulder every day
questions me about. She might ask, Is
that really your best? or she might tell me that, Giving up is not an option when you are a mother. I know that I am
not giving up, just putting hope aside for a period. I am trying to find a way
to survive, and give myself and other family members what they need.
I don’t like to see Faven suffer.
I don’t want her to be contained in a psychiatric ward where she feels so
alone. I can hardly bear to hear her child-like voice on the phone asking me
when I can come and visit, or her voice with the scathing hatred that blames me
for her situation. It feels like a weight has been dropped suddenly into the
bottom of my heart; my heart is stretched toward rupture, and I can’t breathe.
We talk
about synergy as a positive phenomenon; it is the interaction of elements that
when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the
individual elements. I don’t know if one is allowed to relate to a negative
synergy. This is what Faven is experiencing right now, the sum of her
experiences has created an overwhelming effect that she is unable to manage. We
cannot manage or support it in a healthy way either.
I think many of us have read
books or seen movies about the over-crowding, inappropriate admittance, abuse,
and experimentation that occurred in asylums the world over in the late 1800’s.
Original thought within these institutions was around a type of social, and
moral reform. “It is worth considering that in all periods, people who we have
thought to be mad and mentally unwell have been people who we think fall
outside of the norms of acceptable behavior in a given place and time”[2]. This
is not to say that mental illness is a social construct, but that societies are
behind when it comes to providing adequate care at the community level for
those individuals and families who need it.
“One in three people will have a mental health problem in
their lifetime. This significant health and quality of life issue crosses all
demographic, cultural and socio-economic barriers.”
