I heard Katy Perry’s “Grace of God” for the first time yesterday. I guess I live under a rock or something, but there you have it. Deal.
By the grace of God (there was no other way)
I picked myself back up (I knew I had to stay)
I put one foot in front of the other and I Looked in the mirror and decided to stay
Wasn’t gonna let love take me out
That way. – <Katy Perry Official Site
First, it made me angry. Really, really angry. Then terribly sad. I cried. A lot. Finally, peace. Cause someone gets it. Someone who had the balls (anyone who can fly 200 feet above a football stadium, standing on a 12” platform, through fireworks, while singing, has a set!) to say it for all of us who can’t.
Those of us who live with the shame of staying when the world is now telling us that strong women go when the shit hits the fan. And the ceiling, and the walls.
It’s hard to leave when you’re the one who’s busy cleaning that mess up.
Some of us live with loved ones who have with real, live, diagnosed, often chronic mental illness. A LOT of us live in homes like this.
I do.
And it sucks. It absolutely sucks for the person who had to live with that condition. But it really sucks even more for those of us in relationship with a loved one who is suffering from mental illness.
Believe me, we suffer, too. Especially if we want to believe we are strong, capable women. When we are strong women.
We’re pretty damn sure we can fix it. Or should fix it.
Some of us live our lives intimately involved with someone who has a real mental illness, just like cancer, or diabetes. We know that. their illness could actually kill them. It often puts them in the hospital for intense treatment. And getting the right kind of help is frustrating as hell.
And we know they need us. They may even need us to survive their illness. Or at least we believe that.
We all pretty much hate the illness. But we work really, really hard NOT to blame the person who has the disease. To NOT become terribly, horribly, violently angry with them for what the illness costs all of us. A challenge some days.
We don’t blame them for being sick. Or we try no to, anyway. We can’t blame them. They’re sick, damn it.
Instead, we expend a tremendous amount of our physical energy and vast amounts of time working to keep them safe. We use a lot of our emotional support to help them feel normal. Even when they’re well, we spend way too much time worrying about when the shit will fly again. It’s just like any other disease, I guess. Except all bets are off in a world that has plenty of stigma about mental illness to go around. And where you really, truly believe it’s your responsibility to keep them healthy. To keep them breathing. To fix it.
And you love them. They are your husband, your wife, your parent, your child. Of course you love them. And don’t forget, they’re sick, right?
And yet, there’s not a lot of balance when you’re in relationship with someone suffering from a mental health crisis. The disease steals their who-ness. It lies about love. It demands their attention.
At best, they’re not thinking about your needs. They’re probably not even capable of it at that moment, even if they could focus on anyone other than themselves. They may not even be able to meet their own needs. So, they’re just not there. It creates a very special brand of loneliness. And you can’t talk about it. Not with them.
At worst, they are not particularly nice to be around. Depending on the illness, their behavior could be considered abusive, if not physically, then almost certainly emotionally. The damage to your relationship is huge, not to mention the potential destruction to far too many other areas of your life.
Then, add in that this is a disease where the sufferer has to want to get better. Has to want to be compliant with their treatment plan. You can’t do it for them, no matter how much you want to.
It’s one big f-ing mess. And it is absolutely, totally exhausting.
But you love them. And they’re SICK, damn it. And, for the most part, the bad times pass. There are effective treatments, and when they are working, all is well. And sometimes, when the crisis passes, the bad times never come back.
Then there’s that stigma. You don’t want to talk about what’s going on because, well, it’s just not fair to your loved one to share their issues with the world. You can’t out them for their problems – it could hurt them more. But you’re hurting too. Live with it long enough, and you get sick, too. There’s a lot of research on that one, by the way. But you can’t talk about it. Its their private business. So it becomes your private pain.
Or maybe you’re ashamed. Embarassed for yourself. Afraid you’ll be judged and hurt, too. Not only do you have to live with the stigma of mental illness in your home, now there’s a new stigma attached to staying in relationship with folks who aren’t always nice to you. Who aren’t respectful to you. We heard it at the Grammys, in a 3 minute speech from a woman who “got out.” That strong women deserve better. Deserve to be loved in the best way possible.
And those of us who stay in relationships that don’t look so pretty to folks on the outside, with people who aren’t always so nice to us, in situations that make us feel bad sometimes– we have to fight that shame, too. Because everyone judges us when the shit hits the fan. When the partner we love, when the child we raise, implodes, or explodes or they see us, or, god forbid, someone else, gets hurt.
I am a strong woman. I have a therapist. I question my choices every single day. Yes, I deserve to be happy, and frankly, not every day is a happy one, especially when mental illness lives in your house. Yes, I deserve to be treated with real respect. And that just doesn’t always happen. So why stay?
We love them. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, we love them. It’s our family and our home. For whatever reason, we can’t, or won’t, give up on them, on love, on our lives.
So we put one foot in front of the other. We try to remember that “it’s not about me.” That the truth will set us free. And, by the grace of god, we get up every morning.
And I look in the mirror, and I stay.
UPDATE: Fast forward just 1 winters’ day. February 12. 2015. “You all have a nice fucking life,” he says to my 13 year old daughter. The one he helped raise for 10 years. “You all fucking deserve each other. I’m out of here.” he says as he storms out the door.
And I was released.
(This post originally ran on Just a Little Left of Center.)
About the author: The quintessential earth mother, Aunt June lives her days eating branches and twigs and providing milk and love to her brood of kids, whom she frequently shoves out on their own to fend for themselves. She’s a true believer in tough love.
Loudly opinionated, she often passes along her thoughts on a wide a variety of topics that make her want to make some noise. Her human mother, whose name remains secret to protect the innocent, crafts these into amusing essays that she shares with the world on her blog, www.justalittleleftofcenter.com.
14 Comments
Wow. That was powerful and beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Jenny. We stay in relationships for many reasons, even when we know they are no longer good for us. We KNOW we “deserve better,” so staying seems like yet another failure. I hoped to shed some perspective on what it can be like for some people living on the inside of similar situations.
1. I am mentally ill. So is my partner. We live with each other, and with each other’s illness. Is it hard sometimes? Yes. Do we throw ourselves pity parties about it? No. It seems to me that very often neurotypical people really just love to do that, talking about how “it’s so hard” to cope with having someone in their life who suffers from a mental illness. This piece was full of the pity party, and that honestly made me angry.
2. Mentally ill people are not abusive. If a person is abusive, that is not generally a symptom of mental illness (excepting antisocial personality, which is MUCH less prevalent than, say, chronic depression, which is the most prevalent mental illness in the US and possibly worldwide). Mentally ill people are much more often abused and traumatized by neurotypicals than the other way around.
3. Being mentally ill doesn’t equal being an asshole. If a person doesn’t treat another person with respect, that’s not a symptom of mental illness. That’s a symptom of just being a shitty person. Mental illness sometimes demands solitude; it sometimes demands introspection; it sometimes demands so much of us that we go days, weeks, or even months without having sex with our spouse, spending lots of meaningful time with them, or even caring for our children. That’s not abuse. That’s sickness.
4. If a person feels shame for staying with their mentally ill spouse or partner, frankly, they need to leave that relationship. Their mentally ill spouse deserves better than to have their illness treated as an object of shame or indignity, especially on the part of their partner.
5. Far too often mentally ill people are victims of misunderstanding, especially on the part of their families. I would be willing to bet that this woman’s spouse got sick and tired of being a topic of conversation, being an object of shame, and being with a person who just didn’t get it. Chances are this article was perhaps the last straw for him. She wasn’t released. She was left because she either could not or would not understand.
This, to me, did not read as the experience of a “strong woman.” This to me read as the experience of a person who was too weak to face mental illness, who lacked the strength to perceive it as a difference and not as an embarrassment or weight to carry, who could not see beyond her own nose to reach out and try to help a person who – like all we mentally ill folk – must be strong every day to carry the burden of our diseases.
Hope this presents a viable variant perspective on mental illness, from a person who has had relationships with people like this – that treated my illness as an inconvenience, an embarrassment, or something they didn’t have or want to deal with appropriately.
Mel,
I am so glad that the two of you are capable of holding each other up and are able to not deal with the harshness that a mentally ill spouse and/ or child can bring.
I have the pleasure of having both a spouse and child. Let me tell you, I have a daily reminder that this isn’t the person talking but the disease. It may be a thing you both never have to deal with and I’m so happy for you. But that is not the reality for all of us.
Being on a couple forums full of family who “stay” has shown me that this woman, and I, are not Atypical, but actually the norm when medicine is not working, is out of balance, or not being taken.
Again, I’m happy for you both. But know, you can not know what we all live with and how mental illness looks in all our homes. This is a honest look at how it is/was in her home and it’s unfair to assume your experience is the only true one.
I for one applaud her for her willingness to stay. I too choose to stay. And while it is the hardest thing I’ll do, I’ll never choose another path. So please also see that there is love in this piece you missed. You heard “it’s so hard” when you should have heard “I love so deeply it can hurt”.
Blessings to both of you. Blessings to the author. I hope we all can just support each other.
ChristiSue,
Thank you for this response. Could you please direct me to the forums that you frequent? I have been searching for a place of support and I wonder if you wouldn’t have a good recommendation.
AuntJane,
Thank you for this. It’s exactly what I didn’t know I needed to read.
I’m brought to tears knowing that someone out there is living the same way as I am.
Thank you.
I think your definition of mentally ill must be somewhat narrow, because they most certainly can be abusive in many instances, particularly when substance abuse is a factor in the illness (eg. Alcoholism, which is a recognized mental illness). There are more forms of mental illness out there than depression. Also, I don’t believe you’re justified in invalidating the pain, guilt and suffering of another person because you perceive them to be “neurotypical.”
To invalidate their pain actually *does* make it seem like you are throwing a pity party, and only people with mental illnesses that you recognize as such are on your invite list to be treated with respect and sympathy.
We get that mental illness is often misunderstood–a lot of it is a communication issue. We don’t *get* the way their thought processes work, and a lot of times, the ill person can’t enlighten us either. But that’s the problem: the only frame of reference she has to work with is her own and projecting how she might think and feel if the roles were reversed (this is part of the basis of civilization). She’s working her way through it. Problem is in the mentally ill, it’s upside down. That’s why she may not “get it.” Thought processes can be fundamentally different.
The only way to fix this is to improve the communication between the mentally ill and the “neurotypicals,” so that both parties get what they need. It’s part of a two way street, even when you’re mentally ill. Is it hard? Fuck yeah. But just because you’re not ill doesn’t mean you’ve got the easy street, trying to bridge the gap.
Hi Mel,
Thank you for your commentary. I wasn’t ignoring it; I wanted to wait a day to respond. To re-read the piece. I stand behind each and every word. Nor do I feel the need to explain or defend my life or the piece; others that have commented here were able to see to the heart of the story, so I believe I was able to clearly articulate what I saw and felt in my own situation. It was, after all, my life. It is also, sadly, similar to the lives of many others that I know who live in homes where mental illness is a part of the family. Part of my intention was to show them that they are not alone. And to try to explain why I stayed, to myself, and to the people who love me.
Your life is clearly different than mine, and I am so very glad that your relationship is working so well for both of you. That is a testament to both of you and your hard work to maintain your mental health. I would, however, encourage you take a moment and share this with your partner, if you haven’t all ready. Consider using it as a dialog to enhance your communications with each other. It is possible that some of what I said rings truer than you think.
My partner and I are both neurodivergent: we both live with what would be described as severe mental illness. Sometimes I am the person who struggles, and sometimes he is. Sometimes it’s both of us at the same time. On the basis of those experiences, I have to say that I did not find her account of what it’s like to live with a partner with mental illness to be belittling or disparaging. On the contrary, I found it accurate and honest and relatable. I also found the many assumptions made about this poster’s experience to be quite presumptuous (“I would be willing to bet that this woman’s spouse got sick and tired of … being an object of shame. … Chances are this article was perhaps the last straw for him.”) The difficult truth about living with someone with serious mental illness is that if your loved one acts destructively when they’re not well, at some point it becomes necessary to figure out where your limits are. No shame in that.
So, despite attempts to hold yourself up as authority on living with mental illness…YMMV, as they say.
I don’t have a lot to add but I related to this post so I’m glad it’s here. And I also appreciated the above two comments because one thing I’ve noticed is how being intimate with another person who’s suffering can really screw with your perceptions of reality.
This piece struck a chord with me. It helped me look at a loved one’s relationship differently, more broadly and more compassionately. I hope more readers can see this for what it is. You are telling your own story from a very personal point of view. You are not required to speak on behalf of every relationship affected by mental illness or represent every meaning of the term. Reading stories like this gives us the opportunity to find parallels with our own lives and decide how, if at all, it applies. I did not find you whiney. In fact, I think it was very well written and I thank you for being willing to be open and vulnerable enough to share YOUR truth.
Thanks McCall. I actually can’t speak to others’ experience – i only know my own. And some of it, some of the hardest, most pain filled bits? They’re here. For the entire world to see. I’m not looking for pity, I was only hoping for 1 reader to understand that perhaps our idea that we can simply empower the women we love out of destructive relationships may not be the most effective choice.
I have a mental illness, and a spouse (and together we have three children). Thank you for writing this piece, as I think it is important that we open up channels to discuss mental illness and its impact on families. Your honesty should also be commended as a show of bravery. I was saddened by the way you ended the piece and sorry that you felt release in your husband’s actions and words. I am also saddened by the idea that relationships where one person has mental illness might be called “destructive.” I am sorry if yours was, but I don’t want anyone else to come away from this thinking that all are. Some of us fight very hard to do right every day to minimize the impact of our illness on those we love. As dark as it can get, I won’t leave and I wouldn’t leave in that way, and my “need” for my husband has more to do with my immense love for him than it does with using him to cope. I commend you on sharing your truth. But I wanted to point out that some of the nuances here might be your unique experience and not what all relationships with mental illness look like. I am sure you know that, and many readers do too, but some others might not and I thought it worth saying.
Not every mental health issue causes dangerous or destructive behaviors. But some do. You need only to watch the news to see how often some poorly managed mental illnesses can devolve into severe violence. In my case, I was putting up with and trying hard to manage and mitigate increasingly destructive behaviors and threats of violence towards me – and explaining them away as just a symptom of the disease. Not safe, as OUR therapist made very clear to me.
Release? I thought I had to stay. That it was what a loving partner did. That the good times were worth the bad. I was too tired and too worn down to leave (& waiting for the good days again), so thank god he did it.
I had no idea how much simpler, safer, easier and happier my life would be right now. (Despite how tough it is, especially financially. ) So yes – release.
I am the one who has the mental illness. I am doing well and every day I am getting better, though there are ups anddowns. My husband has stayed with me throught it all and I asked him please read this and he did. I saw a tear in his eye and he said thank you for sharing this. Thank you for writing this. It helped me to see what it is like to be on the other side.