When I was growing up, my mother watched me constantly for signs of mental illness. Her mother had been a paranoid schizophrenic. In addition, Grandma had failing eyesight, which only added to her claims that people were acting against her. It was not an easy life for my mother, who took over much of the care of a sister a few years younger and a brother who was only a baby.
When her mother was hospitalised for psychotic episodes, it was my mother, then only a teenager, who fronted up and faced down the doctors, insisting they were giving her mother medication that was causing further hallucinations. It was true – my grandmother was allergic to a particular drug that worsened her symptoms.
There wasn’t a lot known about schizophrenia in those days. I’m not sure how much more is understood even today, though the treatments seem less severe. One thing already known in the 1940s and 1950s was that schizophrenia had a genetic component. Often it ‘skipped’ a generation, its symptoms manifesting in the children of people with a parent who had suffered from the condition – and they did suffer. Electric shock therapy, involuntary admission to a mental asylum which was often a long way from their families who then could not visit, brain surgery, medication with severe side effects and the stigma of being mentally unwell. Even the term I used to express mental health concerns is kinder than the names used in those days.
Because of that knowledge of genetic transmission, Mum watched us carefully for any signs of a developing disorder. I have always been that person who does things a little bit differently. Not necessarily wrong, just not the way people expect. I don’t have a problem with that. My mother did! Anything that wasn’t normal was highly suspicious. So it must have been confronting to her to have a daughter who delighted in challenging the way things work.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t obedient, or kind, or helpful or friendly. In fact, Mum often tells me I was an excellent mediator, trying very hard to see both sides and find a middle ground where people could operate together. That takes insight, good listening skills, a degree of discernment, the ability to communicate with people on different levels and at different ages, and the capacity to see a workable solution.
At the same time, I was an iconoclast. My high school English teacher tagged me with that title due to my tendency to question why things had to be done a certain way. If it wasn’t wrong to do it another way, why not do things the way that worked best for you? I am still absolutely that person. It often surprises people that someone like me is a military veteran. I enjoyed my seven years of military service, following all the rules and loving the routine and structure, until I started to realise that I had the same intelligence and managerial understanding as many of the officers, yet I wasn’t listened to due to my much lower rank. That stung.
While in the military, I sent letters and cards home to my family. One year, on a creative whim, I painted my mother a birthday card in a naïve style reminiscent of a kindergarten child. It was a simple flower on a stalk, done with watercolours and a large brush to look like the strokes of a child. It was a moment of whimsy and nostalgia (and probably a lack of any actual artistic ability with watercolours, which I would say is true of myself even today). Above the flower, at the top of the card, I wrote ‘Happy birthday Mummy’. I was in my early twenties and thought nothing of it when I posted the card to my mother.
A few weeks later, while talking to my sister, she mentioned the card. I laughed and said I was just having a bit of fun. Then I found out that Mum hadn’t received it with the same humour in which it was sent. She had rung my sister, concerned for my mental health and wondering if I had regressed in some way. Oh dear!
I know that story is potentially funny for people who didn’t grow up in my household. When I tell it, I laugh too. But it illustrates the seriousness with which Mum observed our actions and interactions in case anything we did signified the early labour signs of a mental health disorder. The first signs of schizophrenia tend to manifest in early adulthood – right when I was sending Mum that card.
The side effect of growing up being watched and with your idiosyncrasies dissected and assessed for signs of a disorder is that sometimes I question my own motives and actions. I do things and wonder if I’m normal. People don’t talk enough about their thoughts or even their fears, and so I judge myself harshly because I don’t know if other people think or react in similar ways to me.
There are many areas where I don’t care if I’m not normal. To be honest, I enjoy doing life differently to the majority. I’ll also admit to doing some things intentionally to make people think about why things have to always be done the same way. But sometimes things stop me in my tracks, and I wonder to myself and to my psychologist who it is that has the problem – me or the people I’m interacting with. Are my expectations of them reasonable, or am I the one with the problem?
I know that there is a wide spectrum of normal behaviour. I also know that there really isn’t any exact definition of a normal person. We all have our quirks and our differences, and that’s what makes us interesting. I did meet someone once who considered himself completely normal and used his claim of normalcy to judge others. I can promise you that some of the things he did were absolutely not normal, but neither were they the signs of mental illness.
What I am not doing in this post is saying that people with mental health concerns aren’t normal. What I am doing is saying that sometimes it’s hard for me to know if I’m normal or not, other than the things I do with full understanding that I am acting in a way that most people wouldn’t. Sometimes I torture myself with my thoughts because I wonder if those thoughts come from a mental health condition or if they are the same sort of thoughts many people have but won’t admit to thinking.
Growing up in the shadow of schizophrenia, I learned it often isn’t safe to speak your thoughts or show your creativity in case it gets misinterpreted. As a person with a vivid imagination and hands that always want to be doing something, that shadow makes it hard to interact with others because it greys out my conversations and hampers my freedom to say or do what I want. Am I creative, or am I plain old weird? Am I both? Am I normal? Does that matter?
I do have voices in my head. I have great conversations with them. Sometimes those conversations dribble out when I’m shopping – and sometimes, people answer my random mutterings, which is always entertaining. Most often, those voices find their way to my fingertips and onto the page. Here I can wonder, and question, and consider. Here I can create characters and settings that hold people’s interest. Here I can tell stories that fit genres that are shadows of normal life, like steampunk and magical realism, where fiction brushes its lips against fact before heading off to a party. Here I can play with words to my heart’s content, and I get to decide what is normal and acceptable and what isn’t. Here I have not only freedom but also permission to be my full weird because here I am a writer, and the rules of normal don’t apply.
A Glorious Mess 