Holding Back The Darkness

WARNING: dark and triggery.

I've never raised a child. I was foster mommy for two years to a teenager, and I've played the roles of surrogate mom, big sister, counsellor and teacher to three dozen other teens over the years, but I've never been responsible for raising a child fully; for instilling values in someone.

I've read a lot about parenting. All the books in the world can't make up for lack of hands-on experience. That said, time and books and interactions with other humans have taught me some of the key things that kids need. Not all, but some. They need love, support, room to explore and learn for themselves and still know someone will catch them when they fall. They need discipline that's firm but not cruel, and that knows when to bend. They need space to grow up gradually and take on more responsibilities and privileges as they grow, rather than being wrapped in cotton wool for eighteen years and then overnight handed freedom that they won't have learned to use wisely. They need to know that mistakes are okay as long as you learn from them, that they don't have to know everything and get everything right, that one of the main things that makes any relationship strong is the ability to forgive and be forgiven.

They also need to get gentle reality checks. Kids are dreamers. They're excitable. They need to know that dreams are good but better if they have solid foundations; that hope is always a good thing if you also have resilience when things go wrong. That life is a mix of good and bad. That sometimes they won't get that job offer no matter how hard they try; that sometimes they'll get their heart broken; that not everything is fair. That they're wonderful and loved and special to their parents, but they're not the centre of the universe.

I never got the memo for that last bit.

I was born for one purpose and have lived for thirty years with that single goal in mind: keeping my mother alive and sane. From the first time that my stepfather and brother patted me on the head and told me to be a big girl and look after mom - I think I was two at the time - my mother's wellbeing has been my main, if not sole, concern.

I clearly remember the first time my mother tried to kill herself. At least, the first time since I was born. Oddly, I don't know how old I was. I can use a few markers to estimate - we're at Daddy Mike's house on Beaumont Avenue, and I'm old enough to read, and Tony still has the light blue car with the tail fins, so I'm somewhere between 2 and 5 - but I can't pinpoint it further than that. Mama's been acting strangely for a few days, and this morning she dropped me at Daddy Mike's house and then disappeared. She's somewhere in the house, I know, because she guards me militantly and wouldn't leave without saying goodbye - she doesn't even let me stay with babysitters, and never goes out alone. Daddy's wringing his hands and looking worried, and I know he doesn't know how to deal with me - he's not used to looking after me, so I'm trying to be unobtrusive and not make trouble for anyone. He's given me orange-and-pineapple squash and some of those hard biscuits with the scalloped edges and the raisins (the type that come in a tea time selection pack and are always left after I eat the jam ones and the chocolate ones) - two things I hate, but I don't complain. I want mama. But daddy says she wants to be alone and that I should let her be, and I have to stay in the front room with my squash and biscuits and book.

It's a book of children's poetry, half as tall as I am, and it's a struggle to keep it on my lap, but I sit on the pale blue couch with the white diamond pattern, with my doll and brown bear by my side and the book on my lap, and I get caught up in nursery rhymes about the sun and moon, and mice, and the jabberwocky, and a spinning dreidel - what's a dreidel? Maybe daddy knows, but daddy's gone off somewhere too - and flowers and cats and ribbons:

Run a little this way,
Run a little that,
Fine new flowers
For a fine straw hat.
A fine straw hat
For a lady fair -
Run around and turn about
And jump in the air!

Run a little this way,
Run a little that,
White silk ribbon
For a black silk cat.
A black silk cat
For the Lord Mayor's wife,
Run around and dance about
And jump for your life!

Mama said I could have my own cat, but I think she's forgotten. I want a black silk cat with a white silk ribbon, and a straw hat with flowers on. Maybe if I find mama she'll take me to buy a cat? I put the book down and search for mama. I don't find her in the house, or daddy, but I can hear someone outside so I walk into the back garden and follow the noise.

Mama's not in the garden. She's in the shed halfway down the garden. The door's shut, but I can hear sounds coming from it, like somebody's hurt, so I open the door. Mama's hiding, sitting on the floor behind an old mattress with her knees pulled up to her chest. She's crying - that's nothing new, because she's always crying - but this is different, she's crying and choking and it sounds like she's trying to scream but her throat won't make the screaming sounds. She's chewing on her hand and wrist, shoving them into her mouth and down her throat, and she's been sick several times, all down the front and the arm of the black rollneck sweater that I like so much, but it's not enough, she keeps making herself sicker and sicker, clawing at her face and mouth and throat, and she's babbling about how maybe if she takes things to make her sick like Micky did then she'll die like Micky did - Micky was my brother, he got sick in his sleep and died a few years ago - and how she wants to die. I'm there, right in front of her, begging her to stop, but she doesn't even see me.

I scream. It seems like I'm screaming forever, but eventually Daddy comes. He shoves me aside and screams at mama to tell him what she's done. What did you take, Carol? Drugs? Rat poison?

I don't know what happens then. Everything goes blank for a while. Mama goes away, I don't know for how long, and then when she comes back she's still sad but she pretends to be happy. Until anything goes wrong. She gets sad easily when things go wrong. If I scrape my knee or hit my head, she falls apart and cries and wails about what a bad mother she is. If I'm ever rude or ungrateful, she gets angry and then gets sick and cries.

So I guess I just have to make sure nothing ever goes wrong, right?

And this is what I did for years. Tried to be perfect, to make sure everything in life was as close to perfect as was possible. I went to school and laughed and made sure everyone knew everything was fine. I got good grades and scored the highest marks on tests. I was friendly and sweet and well-liked, but not *too* friendly, which was a difficult balancing act - I needed to be popular enough that my mom would be proud and happy, but not so popular that it would make demands on my time that would cut into my time with her. If I kept life running along smoothly, if I made sure I was never sad and never angry and never rude or insensitive or cruel, then mama would stay happy, or happy enough, and if she stayed happy then she would stay alive.

Some kids go off the rails when they have this kind of upbringing. Some, like me, gain an overactive sense of responsibility and a tremendous capacity for guilt. Because sometimes I wasn't happy. Sometimes I was sad or angry or rude or insensitive, and I made my mother cry, or scream, or get sick. And every time this happened, I mentally and emotionally - and at times, physically - flagellated myself. I still do, any time I step out of line even a little. Not just with my mother - with anyone. The smallest offence that I commit feels like a mortal sin to me.

My mother, ironically enough, took courses in psychology and grief therapies over the years, and eventually became a counsellor. I say ironically because, while she became excellent at helping others to cope with their tragedies, she is almost entirely lost when it comes to understanding her daughter. Some post-traumatic amnesia came into play with her, and she has little to no memory of the years of meltdowns and suicide threats. Sometimes she will talk about what an idyllic childhood I had - and to be fair, when it wasn't hideous it was wonderful, there was nothing inbetween - and as she cannot remember, she cannot understand where my crushing burden of guilt and responsibility comes from. Nobody in the family talks about that dark time, nobody even acknowledges that anything happened. To acknowledge it would be to admit that leaving a grief-stricken, suicidal woman who'd previously struggled with bipolar disorder and probable borderline personality disorder in the care of a child under five was not an okay thing to do. And nobody wants to admit that.

Ironic it is, that a family who are so good at talking the talk about the need for openness and good communication, are so very good at sweeping things under the carpet, both amongst ourselves and when dealing with the world in general. We give the impression of being a close family. We give the impression of being strong, happy, mentally healthy, sociable.

After she recovered from that first breakdown, my mom had others occasionally, when anything went badly - but never in public. Behind closed doors she was often sick or depressed or occasionally raging (although not all, or even the majority of the time - I don't mean to give the impression that the meltdowns were a daily, or even a weekly, thing; indeed much of the time everything was happy-happy, the way manic-depressives often are), but in public she was the charming ingenue that everybody loved. This has continued to this day - although she is something of a recluse now, and it's a struggle to get her out of bed some days, when she DOES go out she shines golden light upon everyone she meets. Everybody loves my mother. Literally, everybody. I can't think of a single person who doesn't get on well with her. There have been a few people in the past who weren't captivated by her, but all, bar none, have come round in time. Even the ex-wives of her past boyfriends, even the widow of the neighbour she had a fling with - they chat to her in a friendly manner and tell me constantly what a nice person she is. My friends today all love her. My friends from school all used to wish she was their mom.

It is odd that a woman so universally liked doesn't have any real friends. But over the last decade, and probably a few more years besides, she hasn't been willing to put in the effort to make and keep people close to her. For years I reminded, nagged, cajoled and occasionally bribed her to return phone calls or make coffee dates or write letters to any of the people who were constantly trying to keep in touch with her. Now I've stopped trying, and they've stopped calling and writing, although if we run into them at any time, they still want to chat with her. I don't know if she's lonely. Sometimes she'll say something about how she doesn't have any friends, but any time I make suggestions about how she can meet people, she finds a reason to reject them.

Nothing ever mattered much to mom other than her husband and children. Her husband was gone long ago - my mom and my Daddy Mike (who is not my biological father) were separated long before I was born, although they are only in the process of divorcing now - and when we lost my brother, a part of her died too. Tony, my surviving brother, was already in university at the time Micky died, and he has never moved back home with my mom. He was established in the life of a normal young man, and has progressed through life in a similar way to most of his peers. Oh, he has had his ups and downs, but his life has been reasonably normal. He had already had eighteen years of normality before our family broke. He knew how to carry on the pattern once the dust settled.

By contrast, I have been the touchstone that links my mother to the world. I have been the caretaker, the security blanket to which she clings so tightly.

I didn't go out much with the neighbourhood kids when I was younger. I was always the one who wasn't allowed to leave the garden. I barely dated in high school. The few casual boyfriends that I had, I hid from everyone lest word get back to my mother that I was doing something risky like dating. I am now thirty years old and I have never had a proper boyfriend, never lived with a man except the one who rented a room from my mother, never taken a vacation with a man or alone. Never had someone that I was committed to above all else. How could I, when I was already committed?

I have had a succession of part-time, low-paying jobs, most of them temporary, because for years I have listened to her worries of how my health is too poor to handle a normal job, how I am too fragile to work full-time at something that would be demanding and pay well. I currently work from home, 24 hours a week, for which I bring home about £2500 a year. Yes, I am disabled and physically fragile. But I do not believe that this should have prevented me from trying to do a normal job. Plenty of people who are sick and disabled work outside the home. Plenty of sick and disabled people go to university and try for a degree, even if it takes them twice as long to complete as the average student, but although I was accepted to five medical schools - including Brunel, which runs a program that gets more than a thousand undergrad applications every year and accepts eighty of them - I let myself be convinced that I couldn't handle going to school full-time.

I have never ridden a motorbike. Never parachuted. Never scuba dived in the ocean (though I trained in a pool) or gone white-water rafting. My mother begs me to "PLEASE be careful, and don't overdo" when I go to the gym to spend half an hour on the treadmill and crosstrainer.

I will be running and walking a 5K in June, the first physical challenge I have ever set myself. It's important to me. Nobody will be there to watch me. Mom thinks it would be too nerve-wracking for her to be there. She doesn't say whether she's worried about my nerves or her own.

I lived away from my mother once, for a year, to attend a sixth form college when I was 17. She seemed reasonably healthy then. She was living in Spain, enjoying better physical health than normal (in addition to her emotional issues, she has bad osteoarthritis, and has had a hip replacement and many surgeries on her spine), and had friends, including a steady man friend. We coped with the separation quite well, until my health started to deteriorate and she came home to take care of me. Since I moved back into her home at the end of that year, I have spent less than forty nights away from her, most of them spent house-sitting for my father and stepmother, or visiting them. In the last fourteen years the sum total of my vacations have been a day and two nights in Germany in 2004 (with my mother), four days visiting a boyfriend in Liverpool in 2008 (the one and only time I ever put my foot down and said that I was going to visit this man whether she liked it or not), and one night alone in the Hatfield Travelodge - five miles away - for my birthday last year.

The funny thing about all this is that people look in from the outside and think that I'm getting a pretty cushy deal. Living at home with your mother looking after you, cooking your dinner and doing your laundry! Rent-free! What an ungrateful daughter you must be, to think that you could ever complain! You should be thanking her every day, and paying your share of the rent and bills! What people don't see is that I spend hours every day helping her bathe and dress, reminding her to eat or to put on more clothes if she's cold, moving furniture and boxes because she can't decide where she wants them, sorting out her medication, emptying her bedpans, washing her hair, buying groceries, trying to rid the house of some of the hoards that she's managed to acquire, seeing to accounts, making sure mail is read and answered, trying to make sure she gets out of bed and dressed every day, trying to keep things clean and tidy - almost all of it against her will. The hours that I'm not actively working, I'm on call. I'm on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, aside from the few hours a week that I spend in class or grocery shopping or at the gym. I rarely go out for anything other than those three things. I sleep lightly and hypervigilantly, on constant alert for sickness or asthma attacks. I try not to lose my patience. If I did, it wouldn't be the end of the world - while her physical health has declined greatly in the last few years, and she's become more reclusive, she's also been blessed with much more stable moods, and if I ever say something insensitive or impatient or snappy, at worst it causes an argument and some hurt feelings, and often it just gets laughed off. I still beat myself up over those moments. It's become a habit by now.

I do my own laundry, btw, as well as hers most of the time, and cook for myself if I'm ever hungry, which I'm not often.

And I am very vulnerable to criticism when it comes to my relationship with my mother, and my treatment of her. In my head I know that I am not rotten or neglectful or cruel. But my heart and gut never manage to get the message. You would think that with as much criticism as I've taken over it, as many people who've accused me over the years of being a terrible daughter, that I'd be used to it. I'm not. Every time someone accuses me of mistreating her, of not honouring her the way kids should honour their parents, of being cold or mean, it sinks into me, a stone in the depths of my belly that I can't ever reach to remove. Any time someone accuses me of being a bad daughter it just echoes everything that I've ever told myself, everything about myself that I hate, that I've hated ever since I gained the ability to think. Everything that I've felt deep down since I was born and my brother died, since my birth became the catalyst for a chain of events that broke us. That voice inside tells me that I broke my family, and anything that I have to do to patch it up - even though those patches are never anything but temporary bandaids - any sacrifices that I have to make, are nothing less than I deserve. No matter how much the things people say hurt, they're only echoes of what I've always believed about myself. No judgements that you can make about me will be harsher than my own.

I love my mother, and I know she loves me more than anything. She carried me for nine months, gave birth to me, nursed me as a child and then again as a sick adult, lived a life of poverty because of her beloved parasite daughter. I owe her. So I did what had to be done, and if I had to, I'd do it again. As a teenager - and sometimes an adult - I did it grudgingly, and I regret that more than I can say, and will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it.