I am not my Illness

When I was a child, I knew I was "different" somehow, from the other children. I avoided noisy gatherings and much more enjoyed time alone, walking in the woods and surrounded by nature and its peacefulness. My father was a strict disciplinarian who never spared the rod or spoiled the children. I was the middle child of 3, with a brother and sister. We used to be afraid to go home from school or to play in or around the house because Dad beat us so much.

My parents fought a lot, verbally. Mom took care of us at home while Dad broke his back building truck tires at Firestone. I tried to be very good, and very quiet. I would even lie to avoid a beating, and get beaten even worse. Dad himself was beaten by his father, so I now can understand why he did what he did. It was all he knew at the time.

I guess the first time I realized I had a problem with depression when was when I was 15. It was a major holiday and although my parents were not drinkers, they would embibe on a major holiday, which gave us access to several bottles of alcohol. I watched as the adults drank, and when they weren't watching, I poured myself a tumbler full of Whiskey and capped it off with some Coca Cola. I took it to my room, and drank it down all at once. I was 135 pounds and had never touched alcohol before. It made the room spin around me and made me very sick, and very drunk. But no one noticed. I spent a lot of time doing art work, and even then, my Mom would yell at me to go out and play, complaining that it wasn't normal for a kid to sit in the house all day and draw. While Dad did praise me for the art work, Mom told me it was a waste of time.

We weren't allowed to go to school functions like foot ball games. After school activities were out, too. So, we had to be good, clean the house, do lots of work, do the home work, and get to bed on time. My Mom began drinking alcohol when she was 40 years old. This was very hard on me. My sister had married and moved out. My brother was only home to sleep, eat and bathe.

Mom would either be happy or very mean when she drank, and she only drank after getting done work in the evening. One time, she was mad that Dad was watching a football game, and she was drinking, and she just took the hammer and winged it toward the television, and it hit dead-center in the screen, causing the picture tube to implode! Dad was like, "Hey! what did you do that for?", while he grabbed the smouldering TV set outside and dropped it on the lawn. Then, she grabbed the hammer again, and winged it out a plate glass window at the front of the house, and broke down and cried.

It was then that I began to water down her Vodka bottles. Unfortunately, she noticed, and actually caught me in the act of pouring out the alcohol down the kitchen sink. She was so angry, and I just kept on pouring. Well, I left the house that night, at the age of 18, and began living like a Bohemian, going from one relative or friends' home to another, and working as a companion housekeeper and eventually as a nurses' aide.

It was very hard for me to watch my Mom as she got sick from drinking alcohol. Eventually, she suffered a major stroke at the age of 50. I began taking medications for clinical depression in the 1980's, after recovering from several surgeries to reconstruct my left knee after two serious injuries. I was laid up at one point for over a year between surgeries and then being diagnosed with an inactive thyroid gland, which caused me to gain an enormous amount of weight in a relatively short time. I was teased relentlessly and even though I loved school, I came to hate going to school and being taunted by the other children who saw me getting fat. I and both of my siblings were diagnosed with osteo and rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and post traumatic stress disorder. My brother was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis as a young teenager playing baseball. This affected me in a profound way.

My brother loved baseball more than anything, and was not allowed to play any more. Now, I am 44 years old. My sister suffers from bi-polar disorder and major depression, and my brother suffers from major depression, too. They are both living on social security disability. I could have gotten that income many years ago, after I broke my knee, but I wanted more out of life than trying to survive on a monthly stipend from the government.

So, I went to work, and kept on working. I worked for a community service provider as a residential advisor for over 8 years, after serving as an activities aid and peer support for an older adult day program. I heard about the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pa. at a time when I was fed up with my job at the C.R.R. and wanted something more challenging and where I would have more freedom to help people with advocacy.

I can remember being reprimanded by my supervisor at the C.R.R. for giving a homeless woman a blanket and a lunchbag of food. She was sleeping in the bottom of the front stairwell of the building and it was freezing outside. They took the blanket away from her and advised her to move on! I was just appalled. I applied for a job at the Pottstown Consumer Center and was so happy to be given the great opportunities that I have been blessed with as the Director of the Center.

I struggle every day with clinical depression, and even though I take my medications as prescribed, they don't always help. I have glaucoma, which is more of a minor inconvenience right now, even though it is worse now than it was 7 years ago. Even with these physical problems, I have come to the realization that if you really want to be a part of a positive change, you can do it! Sure, we all have our good and bad days. But if we keep our eyes on the prize, and we can help others who are less fortunate than we are or were in our pasts, it makes this life worth living, and I feel that when I help other people to learn how they can help themselves, this gives me a reason to get out of bed in the mornings.

No matter how bad things can seem to me on some days, with the pain and the vision problems and the migraines that plague me, I love this life, and I want to help as many people as I can, while I still can! Helping others helps me. We all have a story to tell...this one is a lot longer, but I just put in some details that I survived in my past. I think that when we can share these slices of life it may help someone else who is going through some hard times. I love the web site and thanks for reading part of my story!