My mother was a true smoker of cigarettes. She smoked approximately 4 packs a day- no exaggeration. Ruby was also excellent at money management in order to afford this habit as well as having family members that would send her money from time to time.

Every day, she lay in bed and smoked. During my childhood, she would have these fits of laughing and crying between puffs of cigarettes. If I have not mentioned it in prior post I will reiterate here. Our white walls were brown with sticky tar. The tar was so thick you could draw in it. And no, I’m not writing this for effect or hyperbole, it was bad. And, even though she confined her activity to her bedroom, there was no way it would not affect the rest of the household.

As a child, I smelled of nicotine. It permeated everything I wore including the hair on my head. I am surprised that I did not contract asthma or any other lung related disease. She would not empty her ashtray until the last pack was smoked. I was breathless watching her do this.

I snuck a cigarette to try on my own. She knew it because she was a natural accountant at knowing how much she smoked. Needless to say, I truly hated it and quickly put out the cigarette and snuck it back into her carton as if she would not figure it out. Next to beer, it was the nastiest taste I had known. I wanted her to stop and decided that the best way to do this was to destroy her cigarettes.

Somehow, I snuck a pack of her cigarettes from bedside and took them out of the package and took them outside. I stared and stared until my resolve stood firm and I began to smash them. When I close my eyes, I still feel the tobacco under my fingers which only fed my despise of the dammed things. After I was done, I quietly stuffed them back in the package, and placed them in the carton.

Like most children, I had long forgotten about the wrong I committed less than an hour ago. But it caught up to me in the worst way.

My grandmother was someone who did not spare the rod so I was not unfamiliar them down-home-south-ass-whoopings. But, this was not one of them.

Ruby went off on me like two grown women fighting on a street corner over a man. She lit into my 9 year old self like she didn’t know me. I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t protect myself. My grandmother couldn’t protect me either and was helpless in trying to stop it. When she was done, she went back into her room as if the beat down was cathartic to her.

Years later whenever I brought up that incident, Ruby claimed that she never remembered it. I believe her. She was not the one who dispensed punishment in our house. She wasn’t a proponent of spanking as the first cure for bad behavior. But that day, my mother let me know exactly where she stood on her addiction to cigarettes.

“Should I have children?” a young woman asked me some twenty years ago. We were both in college and had grown familiar enough with one another that she knew about my mother. The young woman was recently discharged from the military due to her being diagnosed with schizophrenia. She belonged to a church community and had come at a crossroads in her life where her biological clock was ticking. She had also  been released from another hospitalization in the psych ward recently

I breathed in deeply and thought about my answer because I definitely had an opinion about this topic. As I sat across from her, I thought of my own childhood of emotional neglect and the fact that my mother did lose custody of me and my siblings to the county. I remembered her 4 pack-a-day smoking that left the walls covered in brown tar. I remember her fits of giggling and crying and being frightened and not knowing what to do. But here is the answer I gave.

My response? I can see that the drive toward motherhood is strong in you; however, your diagnosis makes it nearly impossible. The only reason why my siblings and I survived our childhood is because of the heavy intervention of family. They fought to keep us. My grandmother raised me, my siblings were adopted by other family members who lived in another state. My mother, eldest sibling and I lived with our grandmother. She was the cushion between my mother and us. We had extended family nearby. All of these factors produced survivors who did not get to experience the joy and love that occurs between most parents and their children.

Who will care for your children if you are hospitalized again? Family? Your church community? Friends? If you marry and later divorce, it won’t be too difficult declaring you an unfit parent especially since your resources are limited. Are you self-aware enough to realize that you must take medication for the rest of your life?? Finally, child-rearing can be very, very stressful even for parents who have good mental health. They burn out and need a break despite their love for their child(ren). Children, especially small ones, require extensive attention and are not aware of anyone else’s needs including their parents. 

A full night’s sleep is a necessity that won’t be a part of your life anymore. Can you place their emotional and (physical) needs above your own because ultimately that is what parents must do. Forget waxing poetic about parenthood; can you deal with the worst of it and raise reasonably mentally healthy children?

 Below is a link to an article with a parent who is making a decision about her children’s care partially as a result of her mental health diagnosis.

http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/1127383/sending-my-son-with-autism-care-facility

Was my childhood all negative? Almost nothing is one extreme or the other so I have to bring some of the positive aspects of my childhood into this ongoing conversation about having a parent with schizophrenia.

Ruby was never one to over praise children for their cuteness, especially her own. Instead, there was an emphasis placed on learning. As soon as I could speak, I learned to memorize: my full name, my mother’s name, my phone number, and my address.

Being a country gal, my mother was used to walking long stretches and we did not have access to a car nor did she choose to take the bus. We would walk block after block to the playground and to the library-my favorite place on earth! We checked out books which were later read to me. At some point, I was able to read to myself before beginning school. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to read and sound out words.

With these skills, I was able to spell out the words on my grandmother’s prescription bottles because her eyesight had worsened over the years.

Another way in which Ruby contributed to my life was her enduring patience. See, I was one of those children who asked many, many, “What if” questions.

“Mamma, What if I could hypnotize all grownups to give me candy…”

She would answer my question with great patience but then I’d go on to ask another following a line of logic (at least it was logic to me at that time!) until I had exhausted all the possibilities. Never did she yell or scream at me for my endless questions. I wish I had her patience! LOL!!!!

Finally, was her willingness to indulge me in a game of thumb and/or arm wrestling. We played these games well into my late teens. She remained stronger than me until her body weakened. These were the times when we would laugh and giggle and she would accuse me of allowing her to win.

These snapshots of our time together are assembled so that I can remember that in moments as rare as blue moons, I truly got to be her child.

Recent events have influenced me to revisit the issues of law enforcement, mental illness and being African American or other persons of color.

Those who work in the mental health profession from social workers to marriage and family counselors are by law obligated to inform law enforcement if a client presents symptoms of self-harm and/or the willingness to harm others. However, they cannot prevent the outcome of any critical situation. Law enforcement will follow-up with a visit to that client’s home or wherever they happen to be located to assess them to see if the client needs to be taken into custody.

When our loved ones are in obvious psychological distress, we are told to call law enforcement in order to prevent self-harm, harm to others, and sometimes we may be the ones in danger. In light of recent events, it could be “dead if we do and dammed if we don’t” call for help when we need it.

In 2011, Kelly Thomas a young white man diagnosed with schizophrenia was beaten to death by Fullerton police. An unknown call was made to law enforcement that parked cars in the area were being burglarized. I don’t know if Thomas was the perpetrator or not; nevertheless, he was beaten to death by Fullerton PD as he pleaded for his life.

If these actions are indicative of what law enforcement agencies will handle the mentally ill population, then this does not bode well for us at all.

That was my nickname for Ruby as well as calling her “Little Mommy.” She was 5’3 and on the chunky side; not so little; however, with growing older, she lost inches in height and weight. Nevertheless, “Itty-Bitty” was formidable.

We lived in South Central Los Angeles near the stroll in the 1970s. The stroll or Figueroa in our city is that place where one can find a hooker. Directly across the street from us was the church my family attended. Everyone that is, except “Itty-Bitty.” She was a born-again Christian through and through, but seldom left the house.

Every Sunday, my grandmother and I crossed the street to attend church. First, I went to Sunday school and later I would go home to retrieve my grandmother for church. She could walk just enough to cross our little street.

It began to slowly dawn on me that my mother rarely left the house. She did the family laundry in the machine and hung our clothes to dry on the side of the house. She read her bible every day and prayed but never ventured beyond the yard.

“Why” I would ask, “don’t Mamma go to church with us?” My grandmother responded, “She’s not feeling well…” and that’s where the questioning ended.

As I grew to become more aware, I realized that she never felt well enough to go to church or anywhere that was not absolutely paramount to our well-being but even that could be argued.

As soon as I was old enough to cross Figueroa by myself, I would take myself to the doctor’s office whenever I got sick. When I contracted chicken pox in the second grade, “Itty-Bitty” took me to the doctor as well as going to school when I received the health clearance to return. After second grade, I was on my own at the doctor’s unless it was an absolute emergency or procedure.

Our family doctor and his nurses knew my family well and knew that we lived across the street. I would go to the doctor, sign myself in, give them my medical card and wait until the nurse called me in. I would write down his diagnosis and instructions. The pharmacy was downstairs and the nurse would call in the prescription. And yes, I wasn’t even ten years old yet.

The next time she attended a doctor’s appointment with me was in my teens when my wisdom teeth were extracted. Because this procedure required anesthesia,  parental consent, and a ride home with my cousin, she had to be there.

I have been gone for over two years and as many of you know, it can be that way when you need to take care of your own mental health. Since the last blog which seems like so many years ago, I have been gathering the strength to return to the blogosphere to continue the conversation that I interrupted. I thought that I could simply move on as if my life had been temporarily placed on hold; I was wrong.

At first, I dreamed about my mother almost every night to a point where I honestly didn’t know if she were dead. Before I could begin my day, I had to spend a few minutes each morning convincing myself that Ruby was gone and that this, was my new reality. I couldn’t shake it because I wasn’t convinced. How could she be gone??? But I was there with her body until the mortician came and gathered her. The concreteness of this detail kept me cemented in reality. Our relationship was close but troubled. It was very painful at times with bits of sweetness sprinkled in just enough to where I learned to love my mother instead of fearing her.

I invite you to return and read if you wish. There is so much more to come.