Before you read this-- I need to warn you about a few things and clarify another couple:
-There is talk of mental illness and suicidal ideation
-I ABSOLUTELY believe people with mental illness can be fantastic parents.
-I support those with mental illness who choose to be parents. Some of the best parents I know suffer.
-People are born with physical and or predisposed to mental illnesses every day— it doesn’t mean it’s not a life worth living. Quite the opposite. Choosing to have children knowing they may have a mental illness does not make you a bad parent or irresponsible. This is why I try so hard to educate and fight stigma. For kids who are born predisposed to mental illness and have a chance to live well no matter what, because I truly believe it is possible.
-This is a very personal decision that I would never encourage someone else to make-- however, I believe it might be common and should be talked about.
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It was years ago when I realized. I hadn't been diagnosed with bipolar yet, but something in me realized that I couldn't do it. My suicidal ideation started at 10 and my brain has been a torture chamber for most of these following 23 years.The older I get, and the worse the illness seems to be, the more I know it’s not something I’m capable of. Had it been JUST the question of passing it on, I likely could have pushed through it. With proper education, supportive parents, and access to mental healthcare-- it’s absolutely possible to pass on a genetic for being predisposed to mental illness, but also be able to give a child a wonderful life.
It just so happens that giving a kid my brain is the very tip of the iceberg and not even close to the whole story.
It was easier to accept when there were years to change my mind, and no partner in the picture. Nobody asks a single person when they're going to start having kids. When you have years left to change your mind, it's not quite so real.
But every time I held a newborn baby in my arms in those early years of accepting it, I would fight back tears. It was when that decision hit me like a ton of bricks.
When I met Calvin, he was insistent he didn't want kids. I pretended the yearning in my heart wasn't there. It was yet another thing we agreed on.
The years slipped by-- I fell in love with him, and as we talked about kids again, it was clear we both had the same ache in our hearts. We've had the conversation over and over again. Sometimes his voice cracks on the way home from visiting a baby, and I wonder if he regrets marrying me.
It's such a painful and personal conversation. There was the night we discussed a vasectomy for him. He had been pretty into it. (As much as you can be) but when he came home from the doctor, we spent the night in tears. He broke down and admitted, that if my mental health drove me to end my life by suicide, he would be angry of there being no chance of being a father. We wept because that is our reality. We have to have those conversations about mental health and the reality of how I may die.
There's where you move down through the ice.
I truly believe nobody in this world understands how sick I get. Calvin gets glimpses. When I lock the doors. When I rock back and forth for hours on end, when I hear things, when I smell and feel things that nobody else seems to. Spending money, agitation, paranoia. When the noise in my mind gets so loud I want to screech constantly to make it stop.
And yet-- imagine we got that under control. Imagine I found a place of stability. In a dream world if I got to go to a facility that would help, and found stability in that with lithium and lamotrigine. But unfortunately there's still more to that iceberg,
Postpartum. I've read a lot about this and I feel so much for my hero friends and sisters who’ve given birth. What they go through for the first time as their bodies and mind adjust. One of my closest friends disclosed going on antidepressants for the first time. Others vaguely referred to how hard it was. Deep down I have a feeling that it would destroy me. Going off my meds, adjusting hormones, would all lead to me not being the kind of mother I want to be.
Let's go further down the iceberg.
I have this thing when I'm agitated and in a mixed episode or manic. I shake things. Calvin and I will be in a stare down in the kitchen as the noise in my head gets louder and louder. I'll hold my phone and shake it endlessly. Hold my cup and shake it endlessly. If I'm holding something and the noise won't die down, I need to shake. I will never forget as we were on the subway in Boston and the rattling wouldn't stop. He looked over at me with clear understanding about how close I was to snapping. He brought it up later gently.
You can't shake a baby when the noise becomes too much. At 2AM when a baby has been screaming for hours, you can't shake a baby for a moment's relief. You can't risk a life.
And then down just as a the iceberg touches the ocean floor-- there's just the matter of my rapid cycling year in and year out. Like all children, I understand just how much parenting affects a child. How it shapes the rest of their life. And I have tried to be consistent for people in my life over and over and failed.
Many people have bore the brunt of me disappearing. And the worst people I could do it to is children. My nieces and nephews knew me as the aunt who made scavenger hunts, took them to ice cream, and played games. But as I got older and sicker, I wouldn't know how to connect-- making it awkward. And worst of all was those who witnessed me crying with no-one able to give a clear reason why.
And when I thought I had it figured out and was able to be stable-- I failed the pre-teens. Not knowing how to explain my illness, I avoided them. Avoided explaining until I once again felt awkward asking to be a part of their life after months of not being present.
Imagine me as a mother. I can’t do that to another human.
I try to imagine us as parents without Calvin’s ADHD and my Bipolar + whatever else is added my medical file. He would be the most wonderful father. I can see him in my mind's eye holding out his arms as a baby takes their first steps towards him. I can hear him singing songs off tune trying to settle their cries. I can see him being fiercely protective to make sure school wouldn't be the same for them as it was for us.
And as much as I would be a damaging mother-- there are parts of me that were born for the role. Most of my exes ended up thinking I was piece of work, but always said I was born to be a mother.
I want to hold a baby in my arms. Want to bring them to the park, convince them to eat carrots, and show them the woods that would be any kid's Narnia.
It's not our reality though. Calvin and I knew going in that it would be this way. But sometimes it hurts so much it feels hard to take that next breath of air.
There's never a good time to talk about it. I don't want friends to think I'm not thrilled for them. Don't want them to mistake my grief as trying to take away from their moment.
But at some point it needs to be said because a part of me cracks a little bit more every time I'm teased about getting pregnant. Tossing and turning like the iceberg that lasted for weeks even though it was unstable on the rocks of Motion Bay.
Not long ago, as we cried yet again about it all-- I whispered "I have so much love to give and nowhere to put it." I'm scared of messing people up. Scared of disappearing with each episode and not being better.
But there's one area of my life I've proven to be consistent. My tiny panthers. The loss of Len still drives me to dark places, and nothing will ever, ever replace her-- but there's a lot of love with nowhere to go.
That's when we saw Mozart. The 13 year old tiny panther who had spent several months at the shelter.
We're exactly one week into getting him used to the shoe. He's not a newborn-- but he's a place to pour love.
And that's what we'll being doing for the next little while at the shoe to distract our hearts.
