I've got to admit, I cried and cried and cried upon reading my mom's post. And then, when I read it again, I cried and cried and cried some more. It's really hard to hear how much my anxiety really affects the people close to me. Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware of the fact that it's not easy on them, but sometimes it's really easy to get caught up in myself and my own struggles that I become ignorant of the people that I love.
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| Anxiety Portrait 1 - Kathrin Honesta |
My mom is my hero. I know that most people say that about their moms, and they're totally right to - mothers, in all the forms that they come, are amazing. I genuinely mean that when I speak about my mother. The amount of strength and determination that she has is phenomenal, and she damn near never falters; yet she's always an honest, compassionate, loving, take-no-crap-but-still-be-gentle friend to anyone that needs her (including me). I watched her work so hard to raise my brother and me through our childhoods while my dad was learning how to cope with his anxiety, and couldn't always help as much as he wanted to. I felt her heart ache when I started to struggle at university, but she still stayed encouraging, supportive, and determined for me - which was something that I couldn't be for myself at the time. And, when I started to open up more about the details of my anxiety, I saw her jump up to take action - helping me to find a counsellor, a doctor that I don't hate, encouraging me to go and be social and do the things that I can't always do - even though I knew it was hard on her, too. I fought back - and I fought hard. I still do, it's so hard for me to admit that I need help, so I argue, because I like to think that I'm the only one that knows what is best for me. I know she cried a lot. I know I cried a lot, too.
Being a family member of one person struggling with mental illness is hard. Being a wife and being a mother to people with anxiety must be exhausting. I can't even imagine the weight that anxiety has on those who have a choice - the choice to fight against it for the ones that you love, or to walk away because it's not your illness, it's not your brain that makes the monsters. To choose to have the daily battles and the life-long fight against mental illness forced upon you just by virtue of loving people is, in my mind, an incredible tell of someone's character; it takes a warrior to deal with it, to fight someone else's fight; to pick up the sword when your partner can't carry it anymore. To be able to even temporarily fight your child's battles when they have no strength left is not an easy feat. It takes a superhero. My mom is Wonder Woman.
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| Artist Unknown |
The point of what I'm trying to get at is this: life doesn't stop when anxiety steps in. For me, for my dad, my mom, my partner, life keeps moving forward even though anxiety tries to force it to stand still, or even move backwards. There's not always the opportunity to just take the time you need to figure out how to cope, how to deal, what methods work, what meds work - life doesn't always (or ever) let you have unlimited time to heal. It keeps going, and that can be damn near impossible sometimes. For me, I can usually tell when the people I love are struggling, but it's not always within my ability to help - I'm so caught up trying to keep myself together that I genuinely feel like I have nothing to give to anyone else - so my struggles add to the struggles of others. My mom has never stopped trying. She fights for my dad, she fights for me - and she fights for herself. She struggles, yeah, but she never quits. She never stops being exactly what I need her to be (even if that means that we fight each other sometimes).
My mom is my hero. I hope that we can continue to grow and learn together so that we can learn how to better help each other. Anxiety isn't an easy thing to deal with, but it sure as hell helps when you know you have Wonder Woman at your back.
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| "For the highs and the lows, and the moments between, mountains and valleys, and rivers and streams, for where you are now and where you will go, for "I've always known" and "I told you so," for "nothing is happening," and "all has gone wrong," it is here in this journey you will learn to be strong you will get where you're going, landing where you belong." - Morgan Harper Nichols |
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