Mental Illness in Families – Walking in my shoes
It is ironic that all my life, I have come in contact with several people who have been through the devastation – an aunt, a very young cousin that died just a few years ago, my best friend, my housemate at university – yes I have had my fair share of close association with people challenged with mental illness!
I have observed the impact that mental illness has had on families.
When Mental Illness takes abode in your home
Interestingly, I always played the compassionate part. But then I was not in everyone else’s shoes. Whereas, everyone understandably was exhausted with the unpredictable upheaval of this cruel disease, in my heart I always empathised that mental illness was not something that anyone purposely chose to have or wanted in their life permanently. Why would anyone make such a choice anyhow?
How I smile now…little did I know that one day, mental illness would itself take abode in my own home. It would be my close companion…it would affect the one nearest and dearest to me out of all the others.
Mental Illness does not have to be a lifetime sentence, neither the one to call the shots in a love story
I met my husband in his fourteenth year journey of what would turn out to be eighteen years of his journey with mental illness. Many would say I went into my marriage with my eyes fully open and my brain very conscious. That is true. That is not to say when I was faced eyeball to eyeball with the disease shortly after our engagement that I did not think of bottling out.
Yes, I even thought of how I could change my identity and run off to some remote part of the world, never to be heard or seen again. My mother, my closest confidante at the time, cautioned me not to end the engagement. How brave of a mother to give up her daughter to the gallows.
But my mother being a lady of very strong convictions and of incredible faith believed that mental illness did not have to be a lifetime sentence, neither the one to call the shots in a love story. I cautiously took her advice…but I guess inside me, I had a conviction in my own heart not to part company with my then fiancé even though my brain was screaming out to do so.
Life with mental illness can be as humiliating and ruthless as the brutal World Cup Brazil vs Germany match that witnessed the painful loss of ‘football manufacturers’ in their own territory! Together my husband and I started taking purposeful baby steps of faith in conquering this disease. Had I known the diagnosis was schizophrenia, I wonder how much it would have affected the daring steps we took.
But ignorance in our case was bliss. We chose to stay clear of finding out what the diagnosis was, or other details, and instead walk trustingly and wholeheartedly by putting our trust in the God we believed was the answer to an end of our suffering.
Life as a caregiver to one challenged with Mental Illness endures a rollercoaster of emotions
As a caregiver, life is never easy. I have gone through rollercoaster of emotions myself, almost to the point where there were instances I thought I was losing my sanity too. Not surprisingly, the stats say that those who care for the mentally ill are themselves at risk of depression and other mental disorders.
To be continued…
Get the book, Defying the Odds, by Zoe A. Onah as she chronicles the fight of faith with mental illness of her husband Chuck, and that of her role as a caregiver. Available on Amazon. Google Zoe A. Onah now!
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