My Big Voice

I'm not afraid anymore.  Did you know that?

After your worst fear in your life has been realized, some things just don't seem to matter as much anymore.   One of them is what people think of you.

One thing I've gained out of surviving the horrific loss of a child who meant absolutely everything in this world to me is my voice.  I can be heard now.  I can share art- scribbles though they may be- ,this blog, and my experiences to put a face on mental illness, and to let others know they are not alone.  I can speak up as a survivor of domestic violence.  What's Bob going to do about it?  Walk across town and call me names in the street?  Stop paying my cellphone bill?  No, at most he will tell me I fried Cory's brain with shock therapy and experimental meds and she was never the same after.

Really?  You get to criticize the way I got your daughter the very best care available?  The way I kept  her ALIVE?  The nights I spent awake with her when the voices were tormenting her, the way I locked up the sharps every single night to protect her from what the voices told her to do, the endless doctor appointments and lab visits...all as a single parent. Where were you?  Where WERE YOU? No, you don't get a say.  Or actually, say it all you want.  No one who matters cares.
 I can say with pride that she never put her hands on other person in anger after she was medicated.  I can say with pride she never took street drugs or drank alcohol to self-medicate. I only wish someone had been smart enough and brave enough to do the same for you and change the course of your life for the better. I bet once and awhile, your mom does, too.

 The ECT brought her relief.  The voices returned, but the delusions stayed away...and my friend that was a battle worth celebrating.  She wasn't AFRAID anymore.  Do you even understand how huge that was?  If you've never spent months watching a loved one struggle in psychosis, you probably can't.  She could walk around her house and the neighborhood without thinking she was being followed and that people wanted to kill her. The phone was just a phone again. The computer wasn't bugged.  Her arm had a Mersa scar, not a tracking device.  The only camera she was worried about was the one on her I-phone. Fried her brain? No, those treatments settled her brain. The fact that Bob thinks ECT fries people's brains just speaks to his ignorance on the topic.  I have 5 books on the topic, Bob, if you'd like to borrow them.  

I wish he had seen her in the last few months before the accident- saw her healthy and vibrant, silly and hopeful. I wish he'd seen her long-term memory was not "fried" and their her cognition was intact.   Maybe then he would not make such unkind remarks.  Maybe.

What I can say is this:  she was not a drop-out, she was not an addict, she was not an abuser.  She was kind; she was smart; she was a fighter.  She was an artist, and she spoke out to others about mental illness-before her death and after.  I could not be more proud of the life she lived and the strength she displayed daily.

I'm not afraid to say that I had EVERYTHING to do with that.  And I'm not afraid to say Bob didn't.