All about me

 

 

I’m Lucy; a mum of three and wife of one. I’m the daughter of a bipolar mum.

I work, supporting other parents and families whilst attempting not to miss out on my own. Life is OK most of the time.

Things I wonder:

• I know that having mental illness in our family has affected me. For better or worse? I think probably both. Has it altered my choices in life? Does it influence the way I parent, the way I live within my own family? These are things I am not yet sure of.
• My work has me experience mental illness, parent crisis, family breakdown, domestic violence regularly. Have my families experiences made me good at my job or was my interest in people always going to send me here?
• I’m a working mum and I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing as ‘having it all’.

A little history:

My mum’s diagnosis of Bipolar has faded in my memory, so that, though I can recall the beginnings of her depressions, I don’t know when this was more accurately labelled Bipolar. I can recognise though, that my Mum was always a little different; always a little eccentric? This had its positives; spontaneity, creativity, exciting past times. And it bought some challenges; a strong willed temperament prone to anger, higher than the normal levels of embarrassment.

I feel that being a teenager living with this nearly 20 years ago held its challenges. I could not write a blog back then, and I was writing! Reams of tragic poetry and short stories but I didn’t have the internet at my fingertips. I research the support out there now at the click of a button, and I think its a wonderful thing. I look back at my young self and I remember knowing very early on “No-one really understands this”.

What am I doing?

Do I know why I’m attempting to blog about all this? Do I know what I hope to achieve? Nope.

Let’s see what happens……………..