So what was it like growing up with a parent who was different? Well,
I'm guessing that is how my opinionated, internal voice became so
loud ( it's the part of my brain with no filter). I did not have an easy
childhood, period. If you think a cat has nine lives, then I must be
one. In the early stages of my life I had a few incidents that could
have taken me off this earth; but as I’ve heard constantly, I had
angels watching over me. Just two days before my seventh birthday, I
was hit by a car and suffered massive injuries. The truth is, I was
pretty banged up; and given that I was mostly skin and bones at that
age – or in more polite terms, petite – it’s a wonder that I survived
the accident at all.
It took six months for me to just learn how to walk again and
unbeknownst to me, the long term prognosis was that I would not be
able to have children. What I remember about that incident, though,
is that my mother was crying, not just because she realized that she
almost lost her only child, but also for the hard recovery ahead of me.
During these moments in the hospital, I felt like every other child out
there. And then, just like that, I was back to being in the “cuckoo’s
nest” again.
Two years later, my life was spared yet again. In the islands there
aren’t as many outside entertainment options for children as in the
states, so one of the things we love to do is go swimming on the
beach. During the summer of my 9th birthday, I was swimming at
17
Author: Yassin S. Hall | Co-Author: Loán C. Sewer
Sapphire Beach on St. Thomas with my aunt (my dad’s sister), her
husband, and their two daughters. At some point I was playing out in
the water by myself – keep in mind that I had no clue how to swim.
There were sand dunes under the water so I thought the land was
pretty level where I was. As I jumped and played in the water, it
dawned on me that I was sinking so I began to yell and scream at the
top of my lungs. However, there was no one around to help me. All I
kept thinking was why am I surrounded by al this water, and where the heck is
everybody? In al honesty, it felt like my lungs, my nose and my eyeballs were
rapidly fil ing up with water and my brain was slowly processing the fact that I
was drowning – no kidding. In what seemed like an instant I could swear
that I was seeing that white light that you hear about when you are
about to die, except that in my vision, there was a hand reaching for
me then pulling back. Apparently I had passed out, so when I started
to come to, I began throwing up and coughing uncontrollably.
I recall the nice paramedics telling me how lucky I was to be alive.
What I later learned gave me chills though – I had stopped breathing
for fifteen minutes but they would not give up on me. I guess one of
my nine lives kicked in because it just was not my time to go. One
glaring thing that was evident to me, however, was that my mother
was not around during any of this. I thought it was strange, but I
would later learn that no one could find her. She’d pulled one of her
disappearing acts and by the time she turned up my grandparents
didn’t want to upset her.
Yes, my mom was very loving in her own way; but there was a time
18
JOURNEY UNTOLD: TWISTED LOVE –
MY MOTHER’S STRUGGLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS
she tried to get me to smoke a joint and I burned my bottom lip
because I was not sure what to do with it. My grandmother, her
mother, was terribly upset because she felt that she was teaching me
un-Godly habits like lying and keeping secrets at an early age. I
remember being on my knees with her praying for forgiveness for I
had sinned and wanted to repent so I wouldn’t get in trouble with
God. Later on that evening, my mother and grandma got into an
argument over the example she was setting for me; luckily, my
mother was coherent enough to realize that she was wrong and
eventually apologized to both of us for what she had done. Mixed in
with these occurrences were normal activities like play time with my
second cousins who were my age. Since I was an only child, their
mom, whom I call my Aunty Ruby, would invite Mommy and me to
come over so I could bond with other children and have some fun.
That’s because my own first cousins were living on the U.S.
mainland, so I didn’t have a constant stream of playmates to interact
with.
As simple as this gesture was, my mother had some sense of paranoia
taking place in her mind, so although we were around family, she
would remain outside of the house during my entire visit and not
cross the threshold. Yet, she would never leave me there alone; nor
would she even eat what was offered or use the rest room. She just
didn’t seem to trust anyone with her child, but strangely enough she would al ow
me that little moment of normalcy, so what was real y going on in her mind? By
the time I got to high school, she started spending more time outside
of the house. She would go for hours, from sun up to sun down,
19
Author: Yassin S. Hall | Co-Author: Loán C. Sewer
sitting down on the waterfront on our beautiful island of St. Thomas,
conversing with the water. This would go on for days and days.
As I mentioned, my community was pretty close knit; so people were
always in our business. During my elementary school years, I took
the bus from school to my grandmother’s house, which happened to
be down the street from the neighborhood elementary school. Most
days in my sixth grade year, my last year in elementary school, my
grandmother would meet me at the bus stop or I would walk with
other children down the hil ; but there were some days when my
friend Janis or my cousins would come out to the bus stop and stick
up for me with all those mean children taunting me about my mom. I
became such an introvert because I didn’t want to have to deal with
the humiliation I felt on the inside.
You see, all this time, I felt maybe it was just all in my mind; that my
mom was just different and as I progressed into my teenage years, the
toll of my mother’s illness began to really affect me. I started to
encounter my own tendencies with depression, and felt that no one
listened to me. From the summer before starting middle school, I
spent most of my time with Mama, and the weekends, with my Uncle
Sam. My mother was no longer working, and would spend a lot of
her time by herself. She rarely took me anywhere with her, so I began
to feel that I was the cause of whatever it was she was going through.
Although my mother, my grandparents and I lived under one roof, it
no longer felt like we were a family. She was no longer loving, no
longer saying kind words, no longer singing. She just drifted…away
20
JOURNEY UNTOLD: TWISTED LOVE –
MY MOTHER’S STRUGGLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS
into her own dark place where I could no longer reach or relate to
her. It was during that time that I told Mama that I didn’t want to
return to school, but she put her foot down because she felt school
was the best outlet for me to channel what was happening at home.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved learning, but I did not like the torment that I received
on a regular basis from those mean kids. They had no regard for my
feelings and probably never even considered how their words and
actions made me feel on the inside. So, I developed this emotional
barricade to give the appearance that I wasn’t affected.
During the summer before I turned thirteen, my grandmother and
my mom were having a heated conversation because my mother
wanted to go somewhere and Mama thought it was not a good idea. I
was somewhere in the living room while this was occurring and all of
a sudden my mom glanced at me with a strange look before heading
out of the door, which made the hair on the back of my neck stand
up. It was really eerie and I was very afraid of what was going
through her mind. I think my grandparents also sensed that Mommy
had gone into a pretty scary place mentally because they were acting
very over protective and my grandmother was pacing and praying
throughout the house. My grandmother and grandfather kept me
away from the windows for the rest of the afternoon but I could tell
that they were afraid about something totally unknown to me. It was
like the calm before the storm.
21
Author: Yassin S. Hall | Co-Author: Loán C. Sewer
22
JOURNEY UNTOLD: TWISTED LOVE –
MY MOTHER’S STRUGGLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS