A month and a half ago, I had a call from a group of moms who all have adult children who live with mental illnesses. I met with them at City Hall rather than at my regular coffee shop location because they wanted privacy and confidence. They had come to ask for my help to bring an Accredited Clubhouse to Victoria like the Pathways Clubhouse in Richmond that they’d visited recently.
Despite everything I have on my plate right now, I said yes. I said yes because I was moved by their stories and by their passion. But I was most moved when one of them said, “We’re not only doing this for our children. We’re also doing this for people living on the street, people who are poor, people who face all sorts of barriers, people who don’t have moms like us.” “Moms Like Us!” I said, “that’s a great name for your group.” And so it is.
Mother’s Day Post from Moms Like Us
What does it mean to be a mother? It is Mother’s Day this weekend and at the same time many of our local birds are nesting. There is a mother robin with her nest in a trellis outside our window. She sits for hours in the rain, wind, cold and heat to keep her eggs warm. I help her by chasing away the crows and squirrels that threaten her babies. As I watch throughout the day I am struck by the incredible responsibility that comes with motherhood. Mothers are hard wired to love, nurture, soothe, protect and defend their babies. A young mother, like the robin, has no idea what her special challenges will be.
Mothers of children with mental health issues can be faced with some unique challenges.
It is heart wrenching to watching a child sit alone in their room depressed while their siblings and other children join community sports teams or take music lessons. It feels helpless to find out your adolescent is so consumed with anxiety that going to school becomes impossible without a drink or a toke while other teenagers are taking part in all the school and social activities they can. It is hard to accept the reality that your young adult cannot cope with finding a job, applying for post secondary or making travel plans while their peers are building careers and long term relationships.
These challenges alone can be daunting but even more demanding is the difficult task navigating the mental health system to find the support for our children with brain illnesses. Sadly, even in this, the twenty-first century with all the access to information you could want, the stigma of mental illness is alive and well.
We know the sorrow of watching our child be judged by those who don’t understand or by professionals without compassion. We have dealt with the disappointment of researching services, that when our name is finally first on the wait list, they fail to deliver. We have wept upon hearing the horrifying details of an incident our child was involved in and knowing our child has been traumatized once again. We have contained our anger when yet another person suggests as mothers we are too involved with our adult children.
And through all this we ride the roller coaster of hope and despair… and never let go. We hang on at every turn because if we let go who will step up for our children? Mothers’ love is unconditional.
So as mothers we reach out to others who know what it is like to have a child with a mental health issue. Mothers who have compassion for each other as well as the passion to fight for the respect, dignity and skills their children need to be contributing members of their community.
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, but especially to moms like us.
To connect with Moms Like Us and for more information on our May 21st Clubhouse event, please email momslikeus2014@gmail.com.
