Love, The Real Thing And Lance Armstrong

Without Prejudice

I went to see my daughter today, in Hospital. I know it's a psychiatric hospital but do they have to make it so hard to find and hard to get into. Signage was terrible, second gate my Son In Law had said, no sign and I ended up in the General car park, which for some insufferable reason they charge you for. That is one practice I really find loathesome. Charging already distressed families, patients expensive fees for parking at a Hospital. It should be free.

I realised my mistake immediately and realised I would have to pay to try and get out. Instead I went to the far end of the car park saw the sign for psychiatric five metres away and drove over the kerb hoping some burly guard wasn't watching me. I figured I would just say I was a mental outpatient as I was visiting that area. They probably have me on camera but I don't give a bollocks.my Aunty Pat always told me the Yorkshire saying,

"When in doubt, act daft! "

So there were three unsigned entries, all locked, I wandered around like a lost child with my carrier bag of grapes, magazines and a book. I know my child and severe depression or not I knew she would be bored. The grapes I had a feeling she might eat, (Dont ask me how I know this, Mothers instinct I guess ) She has hardly eaten anything for months and at 5'4" and plummeting from almost a hundred kilos down to 62 was very frightening for her.

A lady in the car park noticed me wandering around, anxious, as ever and she kindly let me in with her pass. She was a psychaitric nurse from Yorkshire as I guessed at her accent and I told her my Mum was born in Wakefield and I had a stepmum that had also been a psychiatric nurse. We chatted happily as she took me straight in, no signage as I said and I wondered why. The place once inside was lovely, quiet and hushed and great decor and hand drawn pictures hung up. All in very restful colours so as not to disturb the disturbed mind.

I heard a voice as I was directed to my daughters room and of course it was the one word I love,

"Mum"

I turned around and my daughter was right behind me , dressed in casual clothes and looking just the tiniest bit better than when I last saw her. She has done nothing for the last few months except sit on the couch and not been able to move, convincing herself and others that she was going to die. Once again I was shocked at my skinny daughter, a stranger I once barely recognised when she came to pick me up from the Airport after I had spent three months in Queensland.

She has always been chubby, even as a baby. She was fully breast fed and had to be put on a diet at ten weeks old as she was a hungry baby, 9lb 3oz born. Her body grew as a child to a chubby solid happy frame and as she went through her four pregnancies she would lose weight, conversely, as she had Polycystic ovaries. But for years she had been a voluptuous wife and Mother and then she accelarated to way too big and her hubby and I worried about her health. Only a young woman and no longer able to wear the pretty clothes she so loved.

She always looked well and immaculate but there was a sadness to her then and we didn't have any idea what was wrong. But here she was skinny and not happy and she said at times she wanted her old big body back. I had asked my counsellor about it and he said he had never heard of anyone missing their old big body but she probably missed her happiness from that time. She was always the happiest of my 4 girls. A fantastic baby that ate and slept, a beautiful toddler who woke up with joy to each day. She was overactive with a sunny personality that stood her in good stead as she grew up.

She loved everyone and everything. She ran, not walked through her days. A blue eyed charmer who never saw the word Can't or Won't. They were never part of her vocabulary and she would push and tug and charm to get what she wanted and never failed. She was never still, a moving mass of energy and love. She threw her arms out and welcomed in the world. 

Then as a teen things started to change. She was no longer as happy, troubled and at 12 we found out a caretaker at the School had molested her. A dirty old man who also drove the Sunday School Bus. I contacted the school and he apparently was known for "touching up" little girls. She later had to sit through police interviews and exams and we were told our convicting him would be hard, hard on her. So we had to stop any legal matter. She took her first overdose about a year later when she fell out with a friend. 

The teen years were scary for her and she developed real phobias about food and flying. She would sniff all her food and when I took the girls to Bali in 89 she refused to get on the plane and grew hysterical and she refused to eat any of the food overseas, saying it all "smelt". Her younger Sister died when she was but 14 and her whole world and ours fell apart. My ex husband and I split up after 5 months and it was a nasty bitter vicious divorce and the kids were all affected. She went on to marijuana. left school and started work. She doctor shopped and ate pills by the handful to "forget" she said. 

She was beaten up, had a motor bike accident and was a mess at 17. She got off everything and went what they call "nuffy" for about a year. She thought articles in the paper were about her, letters on the ground were about her. My ex hubbys new girlfriend had tried to coax the girls away from me by providing them with marijuana, money and speed. She flipped on speed and became genuinely ill after that. Then she met her hubby and he said he would not go out with her if she was "On anything". She had her first child and they bought a house together. And they married a couple of years later.

She was clean and sober and would not so much as even take a panadol by then. She loathed drugs, hated the smell, even a whiff of marijuana and said that her Brother In Laws house "smelt" of speed, a chemical smell. she said.. She had 3 girls then a boy and was happy with her lot. Her and her husband liked to drink and party and welcome anyone to their home. Both were trusting, genuine, happy and contented people. Her husband a strong Pakia, or white Maori, with a European Mother and full blood Maori father.

He was the eldest of a huge exteneded family and the "Boy", the go to in times of strife. He understood what my daughter went through after losing her Sister as he lost his only brothers ten years apart, Twins, who were as dark skinned as he was fair skinned.  They were always in trouble with the law and it had been his duty all his life to help bring them up. They rebelled and one committed suicide over a girl and another ten years later died from an O.D. My son in law had to make the decision to turn off the life support on his Brother. It was shocking.

They have been through all the rough times together and stayed strong. Stauch, the maoris call it, as in you must stand firmly on the ground and just roll with the punches and there are always punches. He is an incredible hard worker my Son In Law and his double story house and life is a credit to him. He preferred my daughter at home and I respect that. She was a happy home maker, a fantastic cook and a great loving Mum. 

Then over 12 months she was bashed by ten women at a pub and from that she went downhill rapidly. She had no way of coping with the trauma and she was let down time and time again by the law, the "friends", the hotel where the incident took plave and it all lay darkly dormant in her mind. Her oldest daughter was diagnosed with a lifetime illness, Crohns Disease and she focused on that for a while until she was in recovery. Some people are given more than their share of knocks and each one eats away at your self esteem and confidence. Each little hurt mounts up until it just becomes a big sea of pain.

She coped for the most part on her own, her hubby's love was always there but he was often tired from work and the kids had their own lives. Yvette and I noticed she was losing a lot of weight but we thought she was eating healthy and she was exercising had boundless energy. She seemed released from her big body and we were thrilled for her at first. But then she started to withdraw. No longer finding pleasure in things she had always found pleasurable. Food being the biggest, cooking went by the way side and she sat morose and alone on her couch unable to walk in the end.

Hubby was going through his own hell with the loss of his Mothers long time partner to cancer and then the sudden and shocking death of a beloved nephew at 36 right before Christmas. I knew he was distracted and in his own world of hurt and responsibility. He was always the type that would help others before himself. Yvette and I grew quickly concerned. My youngest daughter was not responding and we visited with caution as the hubby was forever angry and we had to back away.

But we teamed up and remained vigilant and she eventually had a breakdown and was talking of suicide with a matter of factness that alarmed both of us. I had a Mother who had ckinical depression and post traumatic shock after the war, she was also schizophrenic and suicided at 53. 

I had kept a worried eye on my daughter but I had to have the agreement of her husband as at first he thought he alone could help her and he did a great job but I was terrified she was going to do something and just had to let it ride until he was ready and saw it too. Yvette went to our family Doctor and blurted out the whole story. He asked to see her and husband immediately and yesterday she was put in psychaitric for three ongoing weeks of care and treatment. 

I was 16 when my Dad called me from Queensland to fly up from Melbourne to "look after" my Mother. She had an overactive  thyroid problem which had triggered the old schizophrenia and depression and was severely mentally ill, Dad wanted to get her out of the hospital she was in and nurse her at home. He had been dealing with her issues all his life. I thought hospital was the best place for her but I readily agreed to go and look after her.

It was the seventies and things all that time ago are not like they are today. Dad and I walked in through barred doors and there were barred windows in the hospital rooms. This wizened up old skinny woman came up towards me with no teeth in and horrified I realized it was my Mother. She looked like a frail little old bird with no feathers, grinning like a loon at and I flinched when she went to hug me. This was not my Mother. Not my aristocratic, charming, funny, brilliant Mother. 

I hadn't seen her in months and she was a shadow of her former self, flesh hanging from her arms and body, dressed only in a nightie and with no dignity. She said other people stole her stuff and I am sure they did. Out in the halls people wandered with abandon, screaming or babbling and I have never been in a worse place in my life, The hospital of the Mad. It was One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest before that movie came out. And that place was a walk in the park compared to this one in Brisbane.

We took her home and then she went really nuts. There were no antidepressants like there are now. They fed them sedatives and that made the mania worse. She never slept or rested and although I was locked in the house with her she would escape in just a nightie. She would then just disappear. We found her up at Mount Tamborine once, miles and miles away. She was still only dressed in a nightie and it was freezing on the mountain that day. The Police found her and brought her home, babbling and crooning. She had taken her own life by the time I was 21 and although I didn't see it at the time I realised later after many years she was better off.

So I was going in to this Hospital with trepidation but my fears went unrealised. It was pleasant, no bars on doors and windows. No grinning drooling loons that screamed and shouted or babbled.Just silence and friendliness. My daughter of course said,

"I hate it here"

But her room was just like any other hospital room and I handed over the grapes which she immediately started eating. I had to keep the plastic bags and take them home with me the staff informed me. A nurse popped her head in the door and she had a "moaner" with her. My daughter said not to worry she was retarded and couldn't help it. My daughter had a flower tucked behind one ear and I thought, Hallo ! but it was a gift from a Cook Islander lady. 

I met her when we went out into the courtyard in the sun. My daughters hubby was in the canteen talking to another kiwi and we greeted each other all our past troubles and difficulties forgotten in a far bigger life event.. My daughter made me a delicious cappucino from  the machine and we all trooped outside. A malaysian man smiled at us and offered up his seat. He thought I was beautiful, he said. I thanked him for both seat and compliment and he left. Returning later all dressed up in tee shirt and casual pants.

We talked as a Family of three and I was so glad to see the tiniest spark of aliveness in my Daughters eyes. The dead stare had gone and I knew, just knew she was going to be alright. They have put her on Avanza for now and she starts treatment next Wednesday for ECT. My  son in law knew everything about it, all the side effects and the positives and I was impressed and said so
. 

"You've been doing your homework". I said and he stood grinning at the side of the bed when we returned to the room. He and my daughter faced each other and kissed on the lips and I was swept away by the simplicity of the kiss and the love you could see in both of them. Such a tender kiss that said everything and I knew they had "IT", they have always had "IT", what I call the "Glue", the glue that binds them together for better or worse, in riches and poverty, in health and illness. I wanted to cry for a minute and looked away.

I left them like that arms around each other as they walked me out to the desk. The Cook Islander lady said,

"I love your dress, its so pretty"

I had on a bightly coloured long dress with a shirred top and bare shoulders.

"Vinnies", I said "$4.00" and smiled at her.

The burly man at the desk smiled at my Son In Law and said,

"You sure you want to let her out?"
 indicating me, and with a wave I was gone, back to the normal world of drug cheats like Lance Armstrong and 9 year old girls raped in India and bushfires and "normalacy" and I wonder that we are not all in there in the quiet hush. Escaping from what is often a cruel and ugly world. But the kiss gave me hope, the eating of the grapes gave me hope, and I know that even though she is terribly ill, my daughter will get the help she needs and will recover and will come back better than ever and in the end that is all that we can hope for. Love and understanding and a great partner and a good family that will always be there no matter what.

Love you my darling,

Mum xoxox