Drama!!.......

I learned much about life living with Maxine.  Her mental illness created a life filled with much ‘drama’ for my family.  Because her illness was severe, the consequences played out in the lives of my family on a daily basis.  You can’t live in the suburb of a large city and deal with a mother with the symptoms that mine had without becoming familiar with drama.  What did I learn from this?  That sometimes there is drama in life.  People want to avoid it, but it is truly there.  As a country, we have experienced this quite a bit.  From the drama of war, to the drama of crime, to the drama of a faltering economy, to the drama of politics.  People get tired of drama.  They want to avoid it.  Because I lived in drama as a child, and worked in drama as an adult…I don’t avoid it in the same way.  Sometimes that is healthy.  Sometimes it is not.

I’m going to explain why I think it is healthy.  I have this recognition that avoiding what ‘is’ doesn’t make the drama go away.  Trying to ignore my Mom wouldn’t have meant that her illness didn’t have impact.  It would just make it harder for us to reach out for support.  Remember my previous discussions about how pretending that she wasn’t sick didn’t work?  It’s like seeing an elephant in the room and pretending it doesn’t exist.  I think that my family DID try to ignore it.  And so did the community around us.  At least that’s how I saw it because nothing was ever said.  And as a child living with the woman, I knew that it was there even if it wasn’t discussed. While we talked about how difficult Mom was, we didn’t deal with the root cause of it.  My Aunt would sometimes tell me that if I just spoke to her nicely, the whole thing would be fine. Or said that Mom had a difficult history and that was the problem. I simply might not be remembering any realistic conversations about mental illness, but I don’t recall having any.  I do acknowledge that my memory might be flawed.  Now, when I have addressed those issues with my Aunt as an adult, she has been more direct.  She is willing to talk about Mom having an illness.  So, I believe at this point that the lack of discussion had a lot to do with her view that a child wouldn’t understand.   It also could have had something to do with the lack of knowledge that my Aunt and other family members might have had about mental illness at that time.  We’ve learned quite a bit in the fifty years since Maxine was so severely ill.    

As an adult, the recognition that we don’t always want to “call a spade a spade” has led me to be blunt about what I see on a variety of topics.  When I see abuse, I want it to be identified and acknowledged.  The existence of violence in this world requires coverage by media and recognition by all of us.  At least in my opinion.  So, I don’t shy away from presenting my point of view.  As a youngster it was crazy-making for me to see what was going on and to not have it acknowledged.  So, I do call “a spade a spade”.  As much as I possibly can.  And I present my point of view very directly and firmly.  The hard part for me is recognizing when an issue doesn’t require me to be so blunt.  Or even when being blunt doesn’t suit the audience or the person I am communicating with. I so want to identify the elephant I see in the room that sometimes I am too direct.  Sometimes people have a hard time hearing me because of that.  That’s the part that makes it not so healthy.

However, I also recognize that my experience led me to be a strong woman who is capable of saying what she sees.  Many people who see me on a daily basis will dispute that.  But when I am not struggling with depression or anxiety, I am that woman.  This leads me to gratitude.  Because this is what Maxine taught me:  Don’t be afraid of the drama.  Challenge it.  Learn to understand it.  TELL THE TRUTH as you see it. Be true to your truth.  While all may not change because of your commitment to the truth, you will have more peace than you would if you lived in denial.  Thank you, Maxine.