Growing Up with a Bipolar, Schizophrenic Mother

When I was 14, I took a razorblade to my left arm and carved a "V." It stood for victim, because that's what I was. I was a victim of my mother's rage, of the sickness that still plagues her mind to this day.

To this day I can't tell you exactly why I did it. I was hurting and in pain, and maybe I wanted to focus on the blood running down of my arm instead of her hateful words for just a few moments. I might have done it to show her just how much she had wounded me, to mutilate my arm as she had done my soul. The most terrifying rationalization is that perhaps I felt like I deserved to be injured at that moment, convinced of my worthlessness by her scathing screams.

My mother will tell you that we had a very good relationship up until I was 11, but the truth is that the abuse started before I was even old enough to remember. I always thought my mother was normal, though I knew she had the potential to be very cruel. Throughout my childhood she often called me names, such as "tramp," when she was angry with me. I didn't know what that meant, and I didn't know it was unusual. As I grew older, her insults grew colder and meaner. "Bitch" and "whore" became my nicknames, and I began to realize that she was different.

She used to rage on and on about little things, even going so far as to accuse me of doing the same for simply asking a question. "Anybody go on and on about anything," I can hear her saying over and over again. When I was little I thought that it was true, that I was just too persistent, that I talked too much. Maybe I do. As I got older, I remember thinking "You are the only one carrying on!" The word for that, I later discovered, was hypocrisy, a trait which my mother takes to the extremes. She frequently accuses others of comitting her crimes.

When I was two years old, my grandmother came to visit. I was playing with pots and plans on the floor. I don't know the full details of the story, because I was told of this more than a decade later. My mother came in and removed a pot of boiling water from the stove. she poured it over my head. I believe I was told that she laughed. When my grandmother protested, my mother informed her that if she didn't like it, she could leave. She meant it. Relatives that came to visit never got to stay more than a few days before they were thrown out.

There was a good side to her, too. She was schizophrenic after all. My mother can be an absolute pleasure to be around. In her own way, she loves. She has a habit of victimizing herself and lashing out at those she loves the most. We were very close in those early years, before I was old enough to really remember or understand the negatives. I'm told that we were nearly inseperable when I was a little toddler. She used to dress me up in beautiful dresses, like a doll--a habit she never really outgrew. As her relationship with my father deteriorated, she turned to me for companionship. I was always the one to which she turned when comfort was available nowhere else.

I was almost three when my little brother was born. How I loved him! I wanted to be around him always, to help by holding him and feeding him. My mother says that this isn't true, but I remember. She claims that I would ball him up and throw him out of my room, as if I had the strength to do that as a toddler. My father tells me differently, that I carried him around by his neck like one of my baby dolls and wanted him near me all the time. My brother and I were always close, but his birth pushed me farther from my mother's heart.

I noticed the change rather immediately. I have one particular memory of her videotaping the two of us. My brother was in the pool, and mother was recording him. I wanted to play, too. I always wanted to play with my brother. Mother yelled at me to go back into the house by myself until she was finished. She wanted footage of him by himself. She didn't want me in the picture. I played by myself in the house until she was ready to include me. I grew accustomed to the exclusion, though even today it still wounds me.

As I grew up, I realized that I was far from my mother's favorite. My father gave me extra love and attention to make up for it. My mother says that I was always a daddy's girl, but the reason for my attachment to him was her displacement of me. She always accused him of neglecting my brother, but the truth is that he felt that my mother babied him enough for the both of them. Every sibling battle between the two of us resulted in my being punished. She always took his side, even when he was the one who had hurt me.

We had our special mother daughter moments, though they were fewer than the tender ones she shared with my sibling. I was plagued with recurrent stomach aches as a child, called stomach migraines, and frequently had to be taken home from school. She used to take me out for pizza on those days. I wasn't truly ill; I just had "episodes," which they inaccurately compared to seizures. I was diagnosed with a kidney malfunction and had an operation around 7. My mother organized a special coming home party when I was released.

My brother and I remained close and were very good friends most of the time, but he took advantage of mother's favoritism. He knew how to manipulate her. He learned to bite himself and blame me. If I touched him, and he felt like getting me in trouble, he would throw himself against the wall, grin at me, and scream for her. I would receive a spanking and be confined to my room.

Speaking of my room, was it ever really mine? My mother used to join me sometimes to sleep, especially if my father was out at sea. I was often kicked out of my bed and forced to lay on the floor for breathing too loud. The snores that grew louder as she grew larger kept me awake at night.

My mother battled with her weight back then, trying to keep the pounds off. It was a war she eventually lost. I didn't know it then, but the medications she was on made her gain more and more. Some of our relatives beleive the reason she targetted me was pure jealousy that I was still young, thin, and beautiful while she was withering, aging, and fattening. She has a wealth of health problems because of her weight problem, and she still blames it on the medication. The root of her weight problem, however, is her tendancy to eat sugar from the bag with a spoon.

We didn't mind that, as children. One of her favorite treats was to put sugar on bread for us. We called this "suger bread," and as little ones, we loved it. There were usually plenty of sweet treats to go around, when my mother had any say. We used to go out for ice cream, maybe once every month or two, as a family. Those were happy times, occasions when I actually felt on an equal level with my brother, when she was treating us both well.

She gave me piano lessons. I really liked that. Practicing was boring, though. Anything that is required of you isn't nearly as fun as playing. If I did well, I got stickers. If I made a mistake, she rolled up the book and smacked me with it several times. I don't remember anything about playing the piano anymore. I think I blocked it out.

I was in ballet, tap, gymnastics, modeling, and clogging lessons for 5 years. My mother took me to classes and dressed me up for every recital. Each year I would perform at the Coastal Carolina Fair, singing, dancing, enjoying the spotlight. I felt beautiful up on that stage, like I was somehow special. Afterwards we would go ride all of the rides. My mother and I loved to ride the double ferris wheel together. It was at the fair that my mother met a military man with a family who was working part time directing traffic. He was always nice to us, and I liked him. My memories of the fair will always include him directing us to a close parking spot and wishing me good luck.

My mother hated to cook. She used to take us out to kids' night at various restaurants. One night at Shoney's she met a trucker, and we talked to him a bit. He took us to his truck and showed us that he had a bed in it. When we got home that night, mom went out. It was 3 o'clock in the morning when my father roused my brother and me, and we piled into his truck with our blankets. We arrived at a bar, and my dad left us in the car to go inside. He came out a few minutes later, looking very upset.

I don't remember if he told us why at that moment, but I know now. My mother was drunk with a man's hand on her butt: the traffic director from the fair. She had apparently met the trucker at Shoney's, and then they had gone to the bar where she met up with Kip, with whom she'd been having an affair. I know way more of the details of their relationship than I care to. I later learned it was probably not her first affair, and it wasn't her last either.

My father packed up the next day and left. I knew they were getting a divorce. I was not as upset by it as everyone expected. I was tired of all of the fighting and screaming. I was ready for that to end. I didn't know what the future held for us. If I had then I think I would have begged him to stay or to take us with him. Back then, though, I was still very attached to my mother, despite her flaws.

My memories of her are not all bad, though sometimes the good is hard to find. I remember her taking care of me when I truly was sick, up all night with my migraines or with a virus. Once I got so very sick and dehydrated from vomitting that she had to carry me to the bathroom. My father refused to do so, feeling that I was "milking it" and could do it myself. Man, did he get an earful that day!

We moved into a small apartment, and mother began working full-time. She left us with babysitters at first, but then she just stopped hiring them. I had to babysit, help my brother with his homework, and make dinner. We were robbed several times while we lived there, even stolen from by the neighborhood kids. My brother's temper had grown violent, and my mother had to take me to the emergency room once because he'd threw one of those large, heavy mobile phones at me.

Once a little girl, a bit younger than me, after painting our black dog white, kept knocking on the door. I told her that if she didn't leave, I was going to spray her with perfume. I was ten. I wouldn't have done it. This girl had come into our home and stolen from us numerous times. She was completely undisciplined by her parents. Her mother came over when mine was home and lectured me for an hour about how I was full of hatred and needed God. My mother nodded her head and echoed every word, and I was ashamed.

The hand-me-downs and cheaply made clothing my mother bought invoked ridicule from my peers, so I was teased daily at school. Once my mother decided we had too many toys, and she went through our closets and threw half of our belongings out. Stuffed animals were scattered across our yard because the neighborhood kids tore the many trashbags open to browse. A newspaper wrote a story about us, calling her the trash lady. That didn't do much for my reputation. My self-worth was at stake because of the taunting long before I noticed my mother's abuse.

I do think she tried her best. It's not her fault that she was mentally ill. She didn't ask to be that way. She did what she had to do to raise her children as a single mother. The torment I faced at school really wasn't her fault. I probably should have stood up to them. It took me a long time before I was capable of defending myself. I had to learn how to stick up for myself to her before I could do so in front of my peers. It was around this time that I started.

My mother began dating a 55 year-old man, who had a mentally challenged son a few years younger than us. He tried to be nice to us, but he didn't always succeed. We were to always be nice to his kid and listen to everything the spoiled brat told us to do. If he tripped, it was our fault, because we were responsible for watching him. We did everything we could to chase him away. My mother finally ended the engagement when he threw a beer can at my brother. His having spanked him in the park weeks before, as if that were his right despite his not being even our step-father, wasn't enough. The beer can did it.

She had other beaus in that time, and my father had no girlfriends. She later accused him of having had many, when she was the one who was guilty of adultery. He took her back even so, because he was sick of how we were living. More importantly, he was appalled that she'd let another man put his hands on my brother. We moved to another state to a great big house, and things were fine for a while. I really thought everything was going to be different.

I had to continue to see a doctor for my stomach migraines, which were like regular headache migraines but accompanied by a stomach ache. At my check-ups, we didn't just talk about that. We also talked about my hatefulness and mean-spirited personality. The doctor consulted a psychaitrist friend who prescribed me prozac. I wasn't allowed to tell dad. The medication made me feel like a zombie, and it ruined my appetite. When I began to lose weight I stopped taking it.

When I was 12, she began hearing doorbells ringing every night. Then she would set off our security alarm so that the cops would come. She did this every few nights for weeks while my father was away at sea. She set up a video tape to catch the perpetrator. She recorded herself coming downstairs to rewind the camera, her reflection in the mirror. She claims it was a short, fat man with curly hair that must be obessed with her: a short, fat woman with curly hair. The cops laughed and made fun of her right in front of me when we viewed the video. She was comitted to a mental hospital, and my father was airlifted off of a submarine to come home.

That's when I learned what was wrong with my mother. She had psychotic bipolar disorder with paranoid schizophrenia. She now states that the psychosis part is gone, though I have to disagree. Anyone who knows my mother knows that she is in a permanent state of psychosis that will never subside. Sometimes she's manic, and sometimes she's sweet as sugar. But she is never normal.

As a tween my mother loved to buy me clothes. She would let me try everything on in the store and tell me I could have everything that looked nice. We would have so much fun trying on clothes and picking things out. When we got to the register she often changed her mind. She would put every single outfit back, save for maybe one, getting my hopes up and dashing them back to the floor. It was embarrassing and hurtful. She often kept nearly all of what she'd picked up for herself.

Around age 12, she accidentally stepped on my toe one afternoon. When I cried out, she stepped on it again. She was a very large woman of several hundred pounds, and it hurt very much. I called for my father until he came in and made her leave me alone. It was like she got some sick, twisted pleasure in hearing me cry and harming me.

We had an eight grade prom when I was 13. I went to the dance and had the time of my life. It ended around 11. No one came for me. My mother had arranged for the neighbor to pick me up. I called her, but she was half-asleep and groggy. She told me that she had taken her medicine, sedatives, and couldn't come. With that, she simply hung up. I was left all alone with no money and no way home. I stood there as every other kid was picked up and taken home. I was the last one standing outside the cafeteria. Thankfully a nice teacher offered to take me home.

It was that year that my mother threatened to throw a plate at my best friend, because we wouldn't allow her to consume a meal we'd spent hours preparing for ourselves. A year before that, my former best friend had asked me to come over to watch a meteor shower. I did't feel like coming over because I wasn't too happy wit her. My mother called her and told her numerous lies, accusing me of having said terrible things about her. It was years before our friendship resumed. Another friend of mine, whom I'd known for years across several states, stopped calling after my mother repeatedly announced her as "that black girl" when handing me the phone.

Fourteen was a big year for me. I entered high school and had my first beau. I had more friends than ever and was no longer as tormented by my peers as in the younger years. Unfortunately, it was at that time my relationship with my mother deteriorated almost completely. I have almost no fond memories of her during this time period, which was a major turning point.

My parents began fighting again, and the abuse escalated. Not only did I hear the words "bitch" and "whore" on a daily basis, she once asked my father as my boyfriend and I sat on the couch "What are you going to do when he f***s her?" repeatedly. My father replied that he would shoot him. She also enjoyed speaking badly of my boyfriend -- and me -- right in front of us both.

Once, I was sitting watching TV on the floor. My mother walked by and poured salt in my hair on her way into the kitchen. When she came back, she began to whack my head with her hand. "You've got salt in your hair," she told me. She smacked my head harder and harder, her face contorting into a sadistic smile. I didn't know what to do. I kicked her in her stomach as hard as I could and ran upstairs to my room, afraid to come back out.

I experienced real loss for the first time this year, too. A friend of mine passed away, and it shook our entire school. On the day of the funeral, my mother made me cry so hard that the seat cushion was soaking wet. I had very few tears left to shed at the service.

One autumn evening, I sat watching a TV show on the couch. Mother wanted me to change the channel, and I jokingly refused. When she became angry, I said "Okay, fine" and began channel surfing. The fire of her rage was already ignited, and it was too late. She began punching, hitting, slapping, grabbing at the remote. I kicked her and jumped up. I hesitated a few minutes away, not sure if I should run upstairs or out the door. She picked up a large family size container of hydrogen peroxide and threw it at me. I ran out the door and was brought home a while later by police offers, who told me what a mean, disrespectful little girl I was. They made a side comment to my mother that she shouldn't throw things at me anymore.

That was after I had started cutting myself. They asked me about it. I told them the cat scratched me, hiding my arm behind my back. I kept cutting myself, though I now sliced my leg instead which could be covered with jeans. I stopped wearing shorts and short skirts to hide the scars. I am still covered in the ugly markings today, and I hate them. They are aching reminders of my terrible past.

My mother pulled a knife on my father on my brother's birthday. She had hit me, and there was a new house rule that she wasn't allowed to do that. She threatened to stab him. Another time, she had taken his wallet. He tried to grab it from her, and she accused him of twisting her wrist. I witnessed the encounter; he did no such thing. She twisted her wrist herself and filed a report against him for abuse, despite the many knives she'd thrown at him and many threats of blowing his brains out that she'd made over the years right in front of us kids.

My friends became alarmed with my behavior and the depression. I asked my father if I could see a psychaitrist because I thought something was wrong with me. He laughed at me. When the guidance counselor called him with my friends' concerns, he took me to see a psychologist and psychaitrist. I was prescribed Paxil, which gave me leg cramps but at least brightened my spirits. I began to see things in a whole new light.

I didn't want to tell my mother, because I didn't want her to know. I knew what she would say. She eventually found out, though. She went to the clinic and demaned to know who was treating me. They told her that they were not allowed to disclose who they were treating, if they were treating me, and who was handling my care even if I was being seen there. She marched up and down the halls screaming and threatening them, looking for me, looking for my doctor. They had to threaten to call the police on her to get her to leave.

Later that night, on the evening that she decided to bring home a homeless man that she didn't know, she said the words I knew were coming. As she sat at the table with the man who was devouring a bowl of macaroni and cheese, she looked at me with a twisted satisfaction in her eyes, a sick smile on her face. "You are going to be just like me. Crazy just like me." The agony rose up in my soul, and I shouted "I will never be like you!" The homeless man told me that I should have more respect for my mother. I ran upstairs in my room and shut the door.

That was my sanctuary, where I often sat alone in the dark as I listened to the screams and clashing downstairs as my parents fought, as my mother threw things. When I ran out of friends to call, the only thing I could turn to was the razor blade. Soon my leg was covered in cherry gashes, and I could only hope no one noticed the blood in my jeans. The last thing I needed her to know was that she had affected me so much that I was mutilating my body. I would sit there with blood running down my skin, dripping onto the floor, feeling such release and at peace with the surrounding darkness. I wanted to let the night take me and wash over my soul, embrace me into another world.

One night she came home and announced that a man had taken advantage of her emotions, meaning that she'd had sex with him after an argument with my father. She said it right in front of all of us. A few weeks later when my grandfather got sick she went to visit him. When we arrived a while later, we found that there were two headprints, one in each pillow, on her bed. My uncle informed us that he suspected my mother was having an affair with my grandfather's boyfriend. The man even had the audacity to ask my father something along the lines of if he was done with her, as if seeking his blessing.

I knew then that I wasn't a whore. She just assumed I would be promiscuous because she couldn't remain faithful. She bet me $50 that I'd be pregnant by the time I was 15. I didn't lose my virginity until I was married at 18, because I was too terrified that she would be right about me. Everyone knows that I waited, but sometimes just to hurt me, she lies and says she knows I didn't wait. She says she knows that I was just as trampy as she had been. She lost her virginity at 15. She never paid me the money. She denied making the bet, but my father remembers.

She denies all of the abuse. She only remembers my kicking her in the belly and running off. She doesn't recall what led up to that point: the name-calling, the hitting. She denies it even to this day. My entire family remembers and are still telling me stories that I had long forgotten. Even my brother remembers, for he was the one who ran in on numerous occasions shouting for her to leave me alone.

My mother said something very cruel to me during the visit we made to my sick paternal grandfather, when she left my father. As I lay sobbing on my maternal grandmother's bed, she tried to explain the gravity of the situation to my father, the toll of the abuse everyone had witnessed for so long. They finally admitted the truth that my mother's love didn't split equally when my brother was born, like it should have. Apologies followed for not having told me sooner, for letting me believe for so long that I was the one with something wrong with my mind.

My life changed then, quite dramatically. My father, my brother, and I moved to Goose Creek and put my mother's things in storage. She moved in with her new man and announced her pregnancy a few months later. I was to become a big sister at 15 again to a little half-brother. My brother got to experience the demotion I received when he was born. Mother lived in our town for a while before moving away to where her father and other family members live.

I was finally free of the abuse, at least during the school year, but my self-confidence was greatly in need of repair. She had ruined my faith in myself and tarnished my heart with anger that I am only just now relinquishing. I began my sophomore year of high school in a new state as a greatly damaged person, faced with the task of becoming a successful, happy adult even with the burden of my past. This started the second half of my journey, during which I learned how to cope with my mother's abuse and restore my sense of self despite her.

Overall, when you compare it to what others have gone through, it wasn't that bad. My mother doesn't compare to Andrea Yates or the mother of David Pelzer, author of "A Child Called It." Nevertheless it was a difficult childhood. Being called a bitch and a whore by your mother cuts to the bone. Just seeing that twisted satisfaction in her eyes when I cried out was enough to pierce my heart. I think the most terrifying thing was the expression on her face when she was at her worst: her brown eyes cold, her face scrunched up in anger, the hard stare as her mouth twisted into a furious grimace. It was the look of rage, and just trying to picture it is enough to tie my stomach in knots and put fear into my soul.

My mother has never gotten any better. I faced physical and verbal abuse, even worse than that of my childhood, during every summer visit to her home. Our relationship is still rocky, and I am still tolerating abuse. I am a much stronger person now that I am older. I no longer feel the bitterness and confusion I once felt, though it still overtakes me on occasion. I am battling to stay out of the pit of depression and to keep my self-worth from crumbling again. I have learned how to cope, but having a mother with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia will never be easy.

I wish I could go back into my past, knowing what I do now and being who I am today. I would hold that poor, frightened, sorrowful, lonely little girl. I would tell her "It's not your fault. There's nothing wrong with you. She does love you, but not like most mommies. She's sick." If only I could.