medication

Reflecting on the Past Week

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I was asked recently how could I sympathize with someone like Ebony Wilkerson ? She didn’t have to take her children with her into the ocean and could  have just taken her own life. I shrugged in response because in the face of the overwhelming universal truth that most of us believe, “Mothers are supposed to protect their children-not hurt them” we truly become the persecutors of anyone who doesn’t uphold motherhood ideally.

In truth I definitely feel two ways about it because of my own experiences with my mother while at the same time acknowledging that an injustice has been done to the children and that Ebony needs compassion.

I may have written this previously but I will rewrite it. One of the final straws that led to Ruby (our mother) being diagnosed was that my younger brothers and I were woefully neglected-unfed and dirty. We were one infant and toddlers with no control over our circumstances. Not even my eldest brother who was approximately 11 at the time knew what to do. Her actions were not done as a punishment to us or to herself. When your loved one loses their mind, they truly do not know that they have lost it. That is what makes convincing them to go to get help difficult and to remain on their medications a constant battle.

Now that Ebony is in custody, she may be offered the help she needs. She also has a choice not to accept help for her psychiatric issues and in most cases she has that option. I believe that individuals who commit a crime of this nature should serve time because it may be the only way for them to acknowledge that they need help and that without it, worse could happen again. Incarceration of the mentally ill who have committed a violent crime should include mandatory medication and ongoing counseling otherwise, it does no one justice to sentence the insane because it is hard to be accountable for your actions if you’re not all there.

The children will have the most difficult road to recovery and will have their own issues to deal with. Hopefully, they are also receiving counseling. I hope that the family does not denigrate Ebony in front of her children because living with hatred of one’s mother is harder on the children than it is on the person being hated. One day, I hope that they are able to understand-they may never forgive or reconcile with her but forgiveness does not necessarily mean reunification. It is coming to a place in one’s life where you accept the past with its ugliness and flaws and choose how to continue on.

 

Drugs and Medication

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Psychotropic medications have their positive and negative aspects; nevertheless, I believe that each generation of psychotropic meds improves.

In the seventies, Ruby took Melarill and to this day, I am not sure how much it helped her. She still remained in bed all day laughing, crying and chain smoking. Maybe it left her without energy as she did not roam the streets like the other mentally ill folks in the neighborhood. She was our embarrassment kept behind closed doors. Over time, the medications she was prescribed changed but each one of course has its side effects that can affect the individual physically and/or mentally.

Prescribing psychotropics can be a tricky business as it affects individuals differently especially if you are prescribed more than one medication. Sometimes the mix is beneficial-i.e. decreases their symptoms and allows the consumer (patient) to function “better” even to the point of being able to fully participate in life. Other times, the consumer can have a bad reaction to the medication and/or the combination of medications prescribed. Sometimes, the consumer can end up in emergency and even to a psychiatric ward if the reaction is bad enough. This is why many consumers do not like to take their medications.

The other half of that is that sometimes the medications work so well that the consumer misleads themselves into believing that they do not need to take the medication anymore and stop. This of course can result in the consumer being hospitalized and is one of the main reasons behind repeated admittance into the psych ward. Then, there are those who self-medicate via alcohol abuse and illegal street drugs to alleviate their symptoms.

With Ruby, she was very, very thorough in taking her medications from the seventies until about the mid- 1990s. In fact, she kept a daily calendar book and would record the medications and times that she took them which is how it was easier to figure out when she stopped taking her meds. Later, I found out why.

My eldest brother had gotten addicted to crack cocaine. It was one of the worst blights to hit the African American community since the times of lynching and Jim Crow laws. It decimated families in a way that nothing had ever done before. Ruby had decided that her daily meds were an addiction akin to taking crack and stopped. That was the first time that she had been hospitalized during my adult years. The psychiatrist finally convinced my mother that her medications are an essential part of her well-being and like the diabetic who needs insulin, she needed her psychotropic meds. By this time, she was on Thorazine which left its own physiological side effects but that is another post.