hope

Hope. It is the cornerstone of recovery. Without hope we view our lives from very limited perspectives. We tell ourselves that we can’t live a life of our choosing because we are sick. Without hope we define ourselves in terms of our diagnosis, our symptoms, and our dark days. We say things like I’m a schizophrenic instead of I live with schizophrenia. Without hope we succumb to the debilitating effects of our illness; we linger in sadness, hopelessness and regret.

Hope can be illusive at the start of our recovery. Like a firefly in the night we catch glimpses of hope out of the corners of our eyes. For me hope began with the birth of my son. In my darkest days I slept twelve or more hours a day. Only getting up to care for my young son. It was his laughter that gave me hope and it was his basic need for a mother that kept me going day after day.

In my darkest days of battling symptoms that I didn’t even know were symptoms, I worked hard to create a normal life for my son Joseph. I made sure his clothes were clean, made sure he got to school on time, helped him as much as I could with his homework and kept him busy with after school activities. My greatest regret is where I failed him. All parents fall short in some way and I was no different. Due to my illness I wasn’t always emotionally present for him.

Sometimes I was so caught up with taking care of the necessities that I missed things. He has a sleep disorder that began to manifest when he was around twelve. I missed the onset of it and chalked his complaints up to puberty. I was so preoccupied with making sure there was food in the house and that he had the latest popular video game. I was preoccupied with keeping my head on straight so that I could keep the rent paid and the lights on. Often times I just didn’t see what was happening to him and how he was affected by my illness and my sometimes self-destructive coping mechanisms.

But I always had hope because I had him. My hope sprang from my love for him and my desire to do something right. That something right was being a good mom. I couldn’t get lost in my delusions, go into the hospital, spend all our money in a fit of mania or engage in risky behavior because there was Joseph to think of. There was his present and future to consider before anything else. 

My son still embodies hope for me even as he moves into adulthood and needs me less or maybe in different ways. I work hard at my recovery for myself first but also for Joseph. I live my life now as a model of what is possible. Everyone has challenges; some of mine involve my mental illness. So I persevere for myself, but also for Joseph. I persevere to remind him that he can live the life he envisions for himself despite his own challenges.