Mood: so-so

My mother and I always seemed to be on the outs. We got along better once I was a mature adult but my view of her was still skewed. I didn’t realize until very recently just how much I had put her through.

At 10 we started family counseling as my mother had no idea what to do with me, after the drugs that had been given to me everything about me had changed. Gone was the sweet happy girl, now I was moody and flippant. I was sleep walking almost nightly. My mom told me a story recently of her waking to check on me and not being able to find me anywhere and her fearing the worst as the doors to the apartment were locked. Luckily I was hidden deep in a closet sleeping, but I tried to do many different things while sleep walking including trying to crawl into a freezer.

At 12 I was out partying every night, sometimes didn’t come home for days and was extremely promiscuous. She’d ground me, I’d disappear or run to my father, who honestly was pretty damn useless. I remember one night in particular I had gone to a party and smoked some weed, apparently some asshole thought it was great to put some angel dust in it so most of the night is a blur. The only things I remember was being naked, trying to kill myself and my dad ricocheting my head off the walls of the hallway as he took me home. Of course there was another memory that I had forgotten until recently. My mom had stayed up with me all night until the effects had warn off. I thought at the time she was doing it to punish me, but honestly I was like a rabid animal. She feared for me.

At 12, I tried to kill myself intentionally for the first time. I took an entire bottle of some medication for migraines. My father didn’t believe my sister when she ran to tell him, but my mom knew it was true and made him take me to the hospital. Thanks mom! *this isn’t sarcasm*

Today her and I are on very different footing, she comes to visit me in California from Canada. In fact she is going to be coming for 6 months every year, I am very excited as I won’t be so lonely (sorry if I repeat something I have typed before). She calls me weekly to make sure I am okay and is researching my bipolarity so that she can be as understanding about it as possible. She is a remarkable woman and I am very proud to call her my mom.

I wish I had of realized it sooner we could have had even more time together!! However there is always the here and now and she is only 64, so we have lots of time. My great-grandmother lived to 102. My mom has even more spunky.

How is your relationship with your mom?