In 2007, I started journaling about our son’s illness.
His symptoms were escalating and I
wanted to remember the details of what happened, how I felt
about them, and how they
affected our family. My original intent was to write a book
about what it was like to raise
a boy with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a host
of other alphabet soup
diagnoses.
In thinking about sharing some of the details of my
“notebook,” it would be easy to paint a horrific picture of
my son based upon events surrounding his trials with severe
anxiety. I wanted to temper it by sharing the joy that
he brings us, in spite of his emotional trauma.
One of my favorite movies is “The Notebook,” a story
about two young lovers who part
ways due to societal status, despite being madly in love.
They later reunite and marry.
As the woman ages, she develops Alzheimer’s and her family
admits her to a nursing
home. Her husband visits her unfailingly, reading her
stories from his notebook about
their young lives together in hopes that the memories will
“bring her back.”
Often, his wife believes her husband to be a stranger.
Even though she is sometimes
violent towards him, he returns repeatedly in hopes of
grabbing onto a few moments of
their past lives together. The moments of togetherness,
love, and joy vastly overshadow
the times where her memory fails.
Mental illness has gradations just like physical illness.
Some days the affected person
feels a bit under the weather; some days he is in bed and
can’t function; and thankfully
fewer days, he may need to be hospitalized. And some days,
he is “back.”
I find myself also trying to find and appreciate those
small moments of joy when our
son’s brain and body aren’t defying him. I hold a memory
deep in my heart of a blue eyed, blonde-haired little
cherub, pressing his tiny little hands upon my cheeks, as he
charmed me by saying, “You pretty Mom!”
Our son has lived in a residential treatment center for
almost four years. I miss sounds of our son; beautiful piano
music filling our home, the sound of rhythmic tapping to
Irish
dance music, and the sound of a basketball bouncing in the
driveway. Our world is filled
with distant visits, clinical staffings, and sometimes
upsetting phone calls; but every once in awhile, he’ll still
throw me a sheepish grin and say, “You pretty Mom!” Just
because he knows I love it!
“I am no one special. Just a common man with common
thoughts. There are no
monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be
forgotten. But in one respect I
have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who ever lived. I've
loved another with all my
heart and soul and for me that has always been enough.” From
the movie, “The
Notebook.”
