Loading ...I was born and raised in a small town in south eastern Ontario. For the first six years of my
life you would have described me as a typical kid in an ordinary family in a town much like
hundreds of others throughout Canada.
Around the time I started school our life changed. My Dad started to act funny. First he got
really moody,then strange and then wild. It was not funny;it was scary. Sometimes he would
be OK but suddenly without warning he would do wild things like shout and yell and throw
things at Mom and me over nothing at all. Then he got to pushing and shoving and
sometimes hitting. You never knew when he would explode or what would set him off. I
had no idea what was going on except Mom said she thought Dad was sick. I didn’t want
Dad to be sick. I just wanted him back the way he was. I worried about him and us all the
time.
Mom was worried too and ashamed to show her face as Dad’s weird behaviour became
obvious to people in the neighbourhood. She didn’t know what to do;she didn’t know
anybody to call on for help or even advice. Dad got worse and worse. Finally one day he got
so violent that Mom called the police. They came to the house and took him away. We hated
to think what the neighbours thought about that! Mom was really too embarrassed to talk to any of them for quite a while. She told me never to tell anybody that there was anything
wrong with Dad,like he was sick or anything — just that he had gone away.
After a couple of days the police told Mom that Dad really was sick — sick in the head.
They told her they had taken him to a hospital in the city,30 miles away,where there were
people to look after him and doctors who could help him. I always wondered if it was my fault. Did I do something wrong that set Dad off and made
him sick?
For the next few years Mom and I kept to ourselves most of the time. Dad was in and out of
hospital — more in than out — and couldn’t hold a job. When he was home,he would act
fairly normal for a while but then he would fly off again and Mom would have to get him
back to the hospital. Not really knowing what was wrong with him,trying to keep quiet
about it all,and not being able to help him get better really made Mom and me confused and
frustrated. We were always short of money too. During the times when he felt more like his
old self I’m sure Dad blamed himself for not bringing in an income to help support the
family;thinking about that probably made him sicker.
Mom was really tired — working full time,looking after me (and Dad when he was home)
and taking the bus up to the city as often as she could on weekends when he was in hospital.
I know that Mom really worried about me as a teenager,especially about the time I turned
15 when,without realizing it,I started to get really moody. Then,just like Dad,I started to
do weird things. Mom was at her wits end and both of us were really scared. I didn’t know
what was happening. It seemed like I was alone in the world;there was nobody to help me,
not even Mom. I didn’t know how to stop feeling and acting the way I was. It seemed like
some strange powerful force was inside my head making me behave badly and do wild,
violent things I really didn’t want to do.
Mom didn’t know what to do. I think she figured I was going through a phase and would
grow out of it. She might have thought about taking me to the hospital in the city,like Dad,
but she didn’t do it or even talk to me about it.
In the meantime my school work was going down the tubes. I just couldn’t pay attention to
what was going on,so lots of days I would just skip and stay home in my room with the
door shut,doing nothing. Then I dropped out of school altogether. I got a part-time job but
I couldn’t pay attention to the work I was supposed to do and after a few weeks they fired
me. I got another job but lost that one too. I got job after job but I always wound up getting
fired a little while later. After a few months of that I gave up trying to work. I just sat at
home all the time and watched TV. I hardly ever saw anybody except Mom when she got
home from work but we didn’t talk much. Neither of us knew what to say,what was the
matter with me or what to do.
Slowly life went on. After a long time my symptoms gradually diminished,I was able to
concentrate better and I went out and got a job that I was able to keep.
I figured Mom had enough to do looking after Dad so when I was in my twenties I got an
apartment and struck out on my own. That was great until about a year later when I began to
get symptoms again. Mom noticed them coming on before I did and began to worry. Soon
they were obvious even to my neighbours who also worried about me.
I didn’t leave my apartment for days on end. When I didn’t show up for work I got fired. I
soon ran out of money and couldn’t pay my bills. Mom tried to persuade me to go to the
doctor but I kept putting it off until one night when I was really loud and wild one of the
neighbours called the police. They came to the apartment and took me to the local acutecare
(Schedule 1) hospital where I was admitted and stayed there for a week or so. Then they
transferred me to the same psychiatric hospital in the city where Dad was still being treated
from time to time. With treatment there,my symptoms got better,but very slowly.
Eventually I was released and came back to my home town where I got another job,a new
apartment and re-learned how to cope on my own.
I was reasonably OK for about ten years. But then my symptoms returned — I had another
relapse! First I lost my job and then my apartment. I cut off contact with everybody and in
my wild state it was not long before the police caught me shoplifting and creating a
disturbance in a store. Happily the police recognized me as someone who was sick. Instead
of putting me in jail they took me to the Schedule 1 hospital for treatment.
Over the next couple of years I was in and out of hospital,just like Dad,staying for weeks or
months at a time. When I was in hospital and being treated,my symptoms gradually came
under control;when I felt better they let me go. I was usually able to find another place to
live but because I didn’t have much money it was usually pretty tacky and in a tough part of
town where not feeling safe made me anxious. Without anybody in the community to help
me on a regular basis it was hard to cope with the stresses of everyday living and my illness
returned — always too fast.
After returning to my home town a couple of times,when I got out of the psychiatric
hospital I decided to stay in the city near the hospital to have easier access to the follow-up
services they provide. Once in a while I went to the city’s drop in centre but it was hard to
get to know anybody;they were always coming and going and I didn’t make any friends.
When my symptoms got really bad I would go to the hospital’s emergency room where they
knew me. They would arrange for my re-admission to hospital and we would start all over
again.
After a few times in and out,however,I recovered again. My symptoms disappeared and
when I began to feel much better I decided to leave the city and get an apartment back in my
hometown to be closer to my family and where I knew more people.
It was great for a while. But before long the old problem started up again — another relapse.
Mom was the first to notice. She was a great help all along but she was showing her age by
then. She had a tough time looking after Dad and keeping her eye on me too. I couldn’t
seem to get on the same wavelength with any of my friends and without being able to get to
the drop in centre in the city I was really isolated. I stayed alone in the apartment most of the
time. The only person in town I could turn to was my family doctor but all he could do is
monitor my meds. He just didn’t have the time to give me more support than that. But one
day I was so bad when I showed up in his office that he called an ambulance and sent me to
the city and the psychiatric hospital. I was there for weeks until I finally got back on an even
keel. They let me come back home but with nobody in town to help me on a regular basis so
it wasn’t very long until I was back in the hospital again. This continued off and on for a
long time,as often as once a year but sometimes only once every couple or three years. It
was not much of a life. The few friends I had left drifted away,one by one,and when Dad
and then Mom died,I was really alone.
Shortly after Mom died I relapsed again and this time my symptoms were really bad;I was
really out of it! I didn’t feel well in other ways too so the doctors at the psychiatric hospital
had some other doctors examine me. They found out that I had developed other medical
problems in addition to my mental illness. They gave me more pills to take and,after many
weeks,I began to feel better. But this time they said I couldn’t go back home. They told me I
would have to live in a nursing home near the hospital where I could get my meals regularly
and where there were people all the time to look after me. It sounded good but it turned out
that everybody else there was a lot older and sicker than I was. A lot of them couldn’t even
get out of bed and those who could just sat in the hall most of the time by the desk. There
was nobody for me to talk to and nothing to do but watch T.V. or sit in the hall with the
rest. After a while I realized that I would never leave. I would stay in that place until the day
I died.
