Dealing with Mental Illness

Growing up in Northern NY was amazing. The lakes, mountains, and my horses all added up to a wonderful environment for any child to grow up in. However, what goes on behind closed doors can shatter the allusion of perfection.  I am the eighth of nine children. I was brought up in a charismatic strict Catholic home. My mother went to daily mass and any other religious festivities she needed to attend. My father was a sensitive, calm man who owned his own business and worked hard. He spent quality time with us and taught us many life skills and common sense.

While growing up I always knew something was odd about my mother, she had no sense of humor and for having nine children she was not very maternal. She was sheltering and rigid. We were not allowed to date or go to social function. I was in every sport and she never attended a single game. She was a stay-at-home mother who was never home.  As I grew up, I found her to be paranoid, depressed and moody.

Now that my mother is an elderly woman with dementia, she has been diagnosed with mental illness but, doctors are unable to be diagnose specifically due to dementia.

Being raised by a mother with mental illness has caused great turmoil in my life.  I never thought I could confide in her, tell her jokes, or share stories with her. She always turned ever conversation about religion.  I have always had problems making friends. I do not socialize much. It has definitely affected my

biopsychosocial development (Berger 2009).

I was anxious to leave home. Moreover, when I became pregnant as a senior in high school, I moved in with my sister. My parents came to visit during the holidays and my mom told me she would have me back at the house, if it weren’t for my dad. That was the first time I understand the mental illness, which plagued my mother. My mother thought that my dad was the father of my baby.  I told her she was sick and I would never go home.  Of course I did go back home, because that was mom.

I resented my mom a great deal for a long time. I always wanted a mom who I could talk my problems to or relate to. A few years ago my mom had a mental break down and was hospitalized. It was not until my mom was 80 years old that she began taking medication for her mental illness. My sibling told me that she was a very different person, that I would be amazed at the difference. My emotions were in turmoil. I was angrier with her than happy for her. My sibling reminded me that the issues with mom were due to her illness. Nevertheless, I felt she wasted her whole life because she could have gotten help  years ago.

In 2004, I moved to England. I loved living there and made great friends. My neighbor and good friend would introduce me to all sorts of cultural experiences. We talked about politics, health, and religion. We had a family in our program who, were going through some really difficult times. The mother was going through a great deal of stress. I had to find her services so, I asked my friend about getting her into seeing a councilor.  She told me it was simple, she would go see her primary doctor and then be referred to a councilor. Within two weeks, she had a councilor and a prescription for anti-depressants.  There were also commercials on TV about getting help for mental illness. This evening as I write this, I saw a commercial from CBS Cares, it portrayed Mark Harman talking about Bi-polar disorder. I think something we, as Americans think we are the best country with the most progressive treatments and techniques, however living in England taught me differently. People talk negatively about National Health Services, but I found it to be proactive, prompt, and professional. All my health care needs were met. They actually have a section specifically for parental mental illness. Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network, is a resource and support program to support families experiencing mental health issues.

The Ills of Maternal Mental Illness

This week I discussed the synchrony of parent and infant emotions. Research shows us that a mother’s mental health can affect the development of an infant. This topic has a personal importance to me because my mother had mental illness while I was growing up. She never received medical intervention. It definitely affected my attachment to her.  The infant exposed to high stress or maternal depression can cause significant delays in social-emotional development of the child. Children can experience distress, rage, doubts, fear for themselves, fear for parents, puzzlement about the circumstances, not understanding the nature of the parent’s illness, guilt and blame, blaming themselves or being blamed, and even experiencing resentment. When researching how other countries tackle the issue of maternal depression, I found that England takes a pro-active approach to prevention of depression.  Mothers have a great deal of resources provided to them at every stage of pregnancy and continue throughout the first year of the child’s life.  They feel children raised in a home with mentally ill parent are “at risk” (Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network, 2010). They feel it can lead to a “lose of childhood” (Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network, 2010). They feel there is a clear connection between a parent’s health and some disorders, which may be evident in young children. After reading several articles, it seems like England takes a very similar approach to maternal mental illness as the United States does. I believe there is a clear attempt to educate families about the dangers of mental illness and depression throughout pregnancy and throughout the first years after birth. However, the risk of parents feeling a negative stigma with admitting they are feeling depressed is very high. Mothers who develop post-partum depression feel like failures themselves, because they are not “perfect” mothers. When I lived in England, I remember my friend, who recently had a baby, tell me she had to attend a meeting once a week to ensure she was not developing depression. It was required through the National Health Services (NHS) benefit program. She said they felt prevention and early detection was the key. I will continue to research this topic, as I feel it is important for infants to start out life with the best possible environment and interactions.  I want to ensure I am doing my part to help in any way I can. 

Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network. (2010). Keeping the Whole Picture in Mind:

Working with Families affected by Parental Mental Ill Health. page 5. South London, England. Retrieved from http://www.pmhcwn.org.uk/files/ThinkFamily.pdf

Child Birth: What an Experience

This week we are to post two concepts 1.  Personal birthing experience and 2. Discuss a region of the world or a country, other than the U.S., and find out how births happen there.
I was excited about this assignment because 15 years ago, on 15 August 1996, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning with the first signs of contractions. I woke my husband and told him I think I was in labor. Within an hour, my contractions went from nine to four minutes apart. This was my third child, so I was not nervous. My husband went downstairs to our doorman’s (kapıcı) apartment. He told him I was in labor and needed a taxi. He communicated this information in some sort of hand and body gestures.
While he was downstairs having a “conversation”, I was upstairs taking a shower. When I was finished I called my doctor and let him know I was in labor. He told me he would meet me at the hospital in a half hour.
I gathered the bag I packed for the baby and myself. I had been told not to pack a lot for the baby because the nursery attendants would put all the clothes on the baby all at the same time. I walked downstairs to the lobby where the kapici and his wife were waiting to greet me. They gave me some bread and fruit to take with me, because I would need energy,

 is what Gul Teza told me.

 I went outside and had to walk two blocks to the taxi stand, because it was too early for them to come to the door. I had some significant contractions on my walk, which caused me to have to stop and lean on the buildings. When we reached the taxi stand, several men were playing backgammon and drinking coffee. All the men stood up, when we approached. My kapici had forewarned them, that I would be coming. One man took my bag and another took my arm and helped me into the car. The ride was quick, only five minutes. We arrived in front of the hospital and my doctor opened the door to my taxi. He walked me to registration and translated for me. I could understand most of the conversation and could speak in choppy sentences, but this was no time to mess around.

I was wheeled upstairs by a wheelchair, which looked like something out of the 1950’s.  My room was about 20 foot by 20 foot. There was a “bed” in the middle of the room. It was a stainless steel table with a one-inch mattress, for cushion. The head end was toward the door with my feet toward the back of the room. My belongs were taken to a room and I had to get naked. I lay on the “bed” and was hooked up to an IV. The IV in my arm was connected to two glass bottles hanging from a hook dangling from the ceiling. The doctor came in to check my progression and see how I was doing. He decided he wanted me to walk the halls. My husband went down to where my belongs were and got my bathrobe and slippers. My doctor helped me off the bed and I stood there naked waiting for my husband to come back with my bathrobe. My doctor walked the halls with me and when he was needed for another patient, he would leave and come back just a few minutes later. After about a half hour of pacing the halls, he got me back up on the bed and checked my progression again. He decided I needed some assistance and wanted me to have an epidural. They did the epidural and was given drugs to help me progress. My doctor broke my water in the hopes as speeding things along.

After a few hours on my “bed”, I was rechecked. Contractions were coming close together now. Unfortunately, my baby was not descending. I was dilated enough but my baby was not far enough down. The doctor talked quickly to the nurse, so fast I could not understand. Nevertheless, I could hear the urgency in his voice. He said something else and this time he shouted it and clapped his hands together. The next thing I know, one of the nurses is on the “bed” with me. She was pushing on my belly just bellow my breast and ribs. While she was pushing the doctor was using a suction cup placed on my babies head to pull him down.

All of the sudden the doctor stood up and yelled, “DUR, DUR!” (Stop, Stop!) Out of the birth canal was a tiny little hand sticking out. It seemed as though my little man had his hand and arm above his head. The doctor decided he would try to push him back in and try to turn him around the right way manually. If it did not work, I would have to have a C-Section.

Not even a minute went by and he told the nurse to continue. She got back up on the table with me and began to push. The doctor used a suction cup and forceps. Another nurse directed me to push. A few minutes later my son was born.

A nurse dressed in a nursing uniform which was totally different than the other two, came rushing in the room. I am not sure who called her, or how she knew that Jesse was born, but her job was to take the baby over to a sink and wash him off under the running water. She weighted him and measured him. According to the nurse, I had a 10.14 pound, 20 inch long baby. I had to assume the calculation/conversion from kilogram to pound was accurate.

They cleaned me up, asked to get off the table and into a wheel chair.  They brought me to my hospital room. The room was set up like a suite. I was assisted into my bed and a minute later, they handed me my son, to nurse. After I feed my baby, I was asked to get back into my wheel chair. They wheeled me out into the hall and was put on a gurney and brought upstairs to the operating room. As the attendant wheeled me down the hall, I could look into operating rooms where procedures were being preformed.  My gurney was parked next to another “bed”. The doctor came in and the attendant, doctor and nurse slid me from my gurney over to the “bed”. My arm was strapped down to this platform, which extended off the edge of the bed. The doctor gave me a little more medicine in my epidural. A canopy blocked the view of my lower body. He then did a keyhole surgery to tie my tubes. I was awake for the entire procedure.

After the procedure, I was brought back down to my room. The nurses had Jesse dressed and swaddled. My husband was holding him. I was transferred into my bed. I went to sleep for a while. When I awoke my dinner was being served by the same young man who I had seen sweeping the floor earlier. The meal was small, five cherries, some olives, feta cheese, cucumber slices, two slices of tomato and a chunk on bread. It was however, filling. The next day was spent nursing and sleeping. The nurses would not let me change a diaper. They came in often to check on me and hand me Jesse to bond with, if my husband was not holding him.

The morning I was to leave the hospital my doctor came into check on me. He sat on the couch and hung out for almost an hour. He invited us to his weekend beach house. While he was with us, the pediatrician came into the room. He sat on the coach also, we were all talking, and before they left, we had scheduled a weekend retreat at both doctors’ weekend homes.

Jesse and I were cleared to go home. Five minutes later a wheelchair was brought in to bring us to an awaiting taxi. When we arrived home Gul Teza, walked up to the apartment with us, made us some tea, and took care of me for the first week.  My neighbors within our building brought food and left fruit and vegetables outside our door.

Although the hospital environment was dated, the care I received was superior to my previous birthing experiences.  The doctors I had were educated in the US as many doctors in Turkey are. The experience of giving birth in Turkey was an amazing experience. This assignment was great because I could discrible by my own expereince a birthing expereince in another country.