Can resilience exist in a shattered life?
You know, I kept on talking about empowerment and stuff, but whom am I kidding really, when my own life is havoc?
I used to think that anything is possible in this life. And it does look like, on the surface.
I have a Bachelor in Interpreting and Translation from Belgium, that I completed dutifully and profoundly in French. I gave it all. My late mother hoped at that time that I would meet a nice Belgian guy, marry and stop the problem with visas (I was Russian back then) once and for all. But I didn’t. I got distinction instead for my diploma.
While I did date, and had a guy who was ready to do anything so that I stay, – I packed my belongings and moved to Amsterdam to do my second master degree for which I had won a bursary.
It was in Amsterdam that I got my first psychosis – a phenomenon that would pursue me for the rest of my life, but it didn’t stop me from pursuing a life with purpose. I felt real happiness only once, I even remember that I acknowledged it for myself. I was standing in my kitchen then in Sheffield, when my son was four years old and we were a proper happy family: me, my son, his father and our cat.
‘’I am so happy,’’ I told myself then, watching my son playing lego while I was making dinner, waiting for my son’s dad to come back from work.
It all went away, unfortunately, and it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t have any ‘psychosis’ at that time for good five years. It just shows the role of stability and security in our mental health. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital three months after me and my son’s father broke up.
But I had a PhD earned at a British university and somehow managed to continue raising my son, single-handedly, by working across three universities giving lessons on media studies. I was also writing a lot at that time in the field of mental health, thinking that I could empower others – those who like me had to live with a diagnosis of serious mental illness above their heads. In reality I was chasing for some work stability among total uncertainty of zero-hours contracts, ending up being sectioned twice under Mental Health Act, preventing me from my dream to secure a permanent contract where I already worked, breaking my heart and confidence. They didn’t even invite me for an interview, despite the fact that I was on their casual employment list for good three years by then.
I found a job in another country and we moved with my son and our cat. The husband of my mum moved with us, and my mother was supposed to follow, but it all collapsed, because they both passed away suddenly, leaving me and my son without any family or any support.
Who am I supposed to empower with my own story? I am still grieving for my mother like mad, I struggle to tolerate massive stress, I am on psychiatric meds, and still battling with occasional psychoses, and I am single. A single mother, with a teenager son and a moody cat, struggling to function. This is who I am. Not a super-hero, trying to prove something to someone without being asked to do so.
I just live on. For the sake of my son.
If this echoes you, share this journey.
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