I’ve told you a bit about my life, and your birth. As much as I thought you were ready to know. And as you know from the Rap songs we’ve listened to, stories can be a powerful way for people to heal, make sense of the past, and to have a voice in a world where they may have had little power.
I was very happy when you were born – all I ever wanted was a child who I could love and who loved me. But all the emotions (and hormones) meant I couldn’t sleep and after two weeks I got Post Partum Psychosis.
And they’re coming to take me away ha-haaa
They’re coming to take me away ho-ho hee-hee ha-haaa
To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time
I hope you don’t find my flippancy insensitive, as I know it’s your life too. And you’re probably too young to even know the inference. Let’s just call it a very early, bad taste, kind of Rap song (though Rap wasn’t even a thing back in the 60s).
But humour aside, it wasn’t funny at all. In fact, it was a tough thing to go through. I became scared and paranoid about being able to look after you and that you might come to harm.
Your Nana stepped in to help. The times you didn’t stay with me in hospital, she would bring you to me each day so I could continue to feed you and helped out through the year of depression that came after.
I spent three months in hospital and when I came out they explained that birth can trigger childhood trauma, and I thought well hello.
There had also been the trauma from the still birth, just 18 months before and the lack of empathy from some of the medical profession. Maybe they thought I didn’t care.
What they didn’t realise was that I was numb and already had a name picked out for him, Oliver. Funny how Oliver ended up being your first ever pre-school friend, though the term frenemies probably better describes your friendship.
Here, I think this is a better choice of lyrics:
Life’s a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how I keep from going under
A child is born with a clean state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but he’s frowning too
But God only knows what you’ll go through
But lots of mothers have difficult times after birth and many people have tough lives. And how lucky I was to have the support services wrapped around me, like I did. Not everyone has support and often those are the people that end up with life-long mental illness, addicted to drugs or living on the streets.
Now here’s a scary thought – what if it had happened a few decades earlier; a time when people would sometimes be hospitalised for good, if they had a breakdown or mental illness.
And never underestimate the importance of kindness in helping people to heal, especially people who have come from tough backgrounds. When I was in hospital, I became unwell with a fever. The woman who took me to the medical hospital to have tests was telling me about her life and her five children. I remember feeling soothed as I listened to her story. And that small act of kindness, of treating me as a person, was an important turning point in me coming down from the psychosis and becoming well again.
I feel lucky and grateful to be here and to have you as my son and sometimes when stuff happens you just have to say that’s life.
P.S. This the house I grew up in. It’s had a few alterations since I lived there. Up the back in the bushes is where we used to build forts. There was a boarding house on the left and our neighbour’s on the right had a goat. We used to play dress ups with our neighbour’s children. I have a picture of me dressed up as a young bride. Can you image me as a bride – probably not:-)
I remember spending hours with one of my brothers crouching in the front porch trying to catch birds (the window you see on the right used to be an open porch). We had built a wooden bird trap with a long piece of string attached. One of us would hold onto the piece of string while the other would rub a wet piece of cork against a glass to make bird noises and attract unsuspecting birds. You may be amazed to know we never caught one:-)
Go well
Go kindly
And don’t take any crap