Tag: Mental Illness
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When a homeless person goes missing
Two years ago, my mother, who was and is homeless, went to the hospital with physical symptoms and was admitted. After some visits and discussions, she agreed to go to a skilled nursing facility for some intensive physical therapy. I scrambled for that month to keep her happy enough to keep her there and to…
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My unpopular opinion: It’s okay to say “mentally ill.”
When I was in college, I had a roommate who found a great many things weird. She used “weird” to describe things more than any other word. In an effort to get her to help her open her mind, I would respond that it isn’t weird, just different. After a while of this, she started…
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My missing mother: I don’t know a whole lot
I opened an envelope and it all changed. Her bank statement has two deposits, her social security and her pension, and no withdrawals. No withdrawals can mean anything, but nothing good. My first, best, likely option is she is in the hospital or she was in the hospital and then transferred to some longer-term care.…
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I thought I saw her on the train platform last night
I was coming back from a circus show in North Beach. I had gotten there by train, the same train I took to visit my mother when she was in San Francisco living on the street. (She’s doing the same now in San Jose.) Going out I remembered the weight of sorrow in my face,…
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My mentally ill, homeless mother and COVID-19
Turning the new year and coming on the two year anniversary of the COVID lockdown, I am thinking about my mother and her challenges over the past couple years. When we went into lockdown, she was staying at a hotel. She thought that she was having money added to her bank account to enable her…
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Where do I start when I talk about my mentally-ill mother?
I could start with the first time she was hospitalized, in what was supposed to be my last year of college. In the hospital, she greeted me in her nightgown with one of my stuffed animals, a mouse, in her hand. In her room were the rest of stuffed animals of my childhood. Or maybe…
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I’m tired of this
I don’t want to talk with her. If I talk with, I’m reminded of how bad the situation is. I’m reminded of her delusions. I’m reminded of her struggles, her vulnerability. I’m reminded that I can’t help her because she won’t let me. I don’t want to try to find her, because I’m reminded how…
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Compassion and expression
Something is changing the way I express my compassion, how I feel compassion. Something is different and it may look like I’m lacking compassion. One thing I have noticed in caring for my mother is a basic change in my temperament. I have had to learn to tolerate a new level of grief, pain, and…
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Staying in her life
I meet her now for lunch. We share food and conversation. I can check in on how she’s doing. She can see that nothing bad is happening to me. Her mind is lively. She’s still interested in art, architecture, politics. She showed me a couple political books she’s read lately. She’s in there, interested in…
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She’s going to disappear for a while
She asks me if I even spoke in Meddler. I tell her no, I don’t even know what Meddler is, except for what she has told me. She says it’s a communication system. She says that someone in Meddler spoke to her who she hadn’t heard before. She had a young voice, which is unusual…
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Closing the year
Here we are, approaching the end of the year. It’s been nearly three years since my mother has reappeared. I’m no longer in full flaming freak-out. I’m no longer in the deepest despair of her situation. There is a low murmuring grief that we are here, another year of my mother on the street. Another…
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Time capsule
I was clearing out my old files and found my mom’s medical records from the last time she was hospitalized, the first time she disappeared, that I wrote about before. Then I found my notes from that time. Notes on the state of her apartment, the missing persons report, her extravagant shopping bring me back…