Father Time

Father Time

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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Mom has worked herself to exhaustion. She has only enough strength to keep doing the jobs to make the money to keep us afloat. Though the motel has power, water, and a phone, it's expensive. She would like us to consider staying with my grandparents in British Columbia. I jump at the chance; it's been years since I've returned, and my memories are those of a six-year-old. They are romanticized and pure. It's settled. My brother and I are driven there by my dad.

I don't know what mom does during this time, but she ends up in the mental hospital again. I am thirteen and talking to her psychiatrist on the phone. Mom tells me she's been put in with the lunatics on Ward D. The criminally insane, those who cry out all night and attack others at will. My mother is anything but a criminal or genuinely insane. She's in the manic phase of bipolar and is severely traumatized by the things she sees there. She's been overdosed by staff. They've administered 10mg of her antipsychotics because it took six orderlies to stop her from running down the hallway at the psych ward.

It was the first time I called and screamed at a psychiatrist for their treatment of her and ordered them to remove her from that particular ward. I laugh at the recollection now. Who was I to think I carried some authority at that age? I tell them her regular meds are extremely low doses of Cogentin, Haldol and Rivotril. They're experimenting with Lithium on her, and she doesn't take it well.

When she calls, she tells me her eyes will not stop looking at the ceiling. When this happened the first time, I had wondered if it was a symptom of mania. However, after seeking medical care, we were told this was a sign of too much medication.

I knew this because the same thing happened when she was first on the Cogentin. I tell this to the psychiatrist and ask why they don't know this. They're adults. They're the doctors. Why don't they know? I'm thirteen, and I know. They have her charts. They can see she's a small woman at five foot one and one hundred and thirty pounds. I repeat this and say it took SIX orderlies to take this tiny woman down? The entire story sounds like bovine excrement.

I look back at this as an adult and think my mother should have sued them. Her treatment catalyzes a firmer decision to become a doctor in my adult life. I would never treat my patients with such disdain.

Mom calls me and tells me again she's still there. They have her in a padded room with minimal clothing. My mother is a beautiful woman. I don't say that because I am her daughter. I say it because it's the truth. I wonder now if they hurt her while she was incapacitated. I call the psychiatrist again and tell them Mom is coherent. She knows where she is, and she doesn't sound like someone who has just been tranquillized like a two-thousand-pound elephant.

They say it will be a few more days. I say it will be today, or I will call my uncle, a biochemistry professor, and he will begin legal proceedings because he knows she has been given an overdose and they're lucky she hasn't died. She was moved on the same day. I don't know where those words came from, but I am thankful they were there. Maybe they were overheard in my dad's conversation with my mom's family. I don't know, but I have always fiercely protected her and would continue to advocate for her as I aged.

I realize this isn't going to be solved in a few days. My vacation with my brother has ended. I called Dad and begged him to bring me back, which he arranges.

He took me to the psychiatric hospital.

I remember the first time he and I pulled up to the grounds of Alberta Hospital. From the outside, the grounds are spacious and well-trimmed. It looks like a place of convalescence and respite, at least until you get around to the back, where the more colourful residents are scattered all over the steps in their gowns. Some look sane, but one can never know.

I meet the psychiatrists and the board in person. They praise me by saying how mature I am for my age. Manipulation is what it was, trying to create a rapport to soften me to their stance. I was too daft to realize what was happening. I see this as an adult and know it for what it is. I didn't care then. All I cared about was visiting my mom. I wasn't fazed by other inpatients like the three-hundred-pound, six-foot-tall woman strolling the hallways buck naked. To me, it was just a Tuesday.

Mom is ashamed for me to see her in this state. I don't care that she lives in such a facility. I want her safe. I also want you to know your words and actions can break another person's spirit and heart. Choose them carefully. They tend to stay with us much longer than the physical wounds you heal from. She has nothing to be ashamed of. She didn't cause this. It was one of those things in life that were out of her control.

I would sit with another panel of doctors. This time a support group for family members of those with mental disorders. They asked me how I dealt with mom's mania symptoms. I told them when she started talking about how she thought she owned some car or house. I would agree. I would say that it just looked like our car or the house. Then I would redirect. It would be the first time I became the mother of my mother. They released her to my care, and I ensured she took her medications.

I would have held her down and made her eat them to keep her from going back there. She was a person I loved, and she was ill. Society may stigmatize those with mental illnesses, but they are our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters. They're our loved ones, and we must advocate for who they are because we are the ones who genuinely know them. We must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.