As if the personal trauma wasn’t enough, I was still being ridiculed on
a regular basis by the children at school. I don’t know about where you are
from, but here in the islands, children were pretty tough on you if they didn’t like
you. On the outside, they saw this pretty, quiet girl with long hair, but
they had no idea what was eating me up on the inside. In my mind I
saw a quiet girl whose grandmother made her wear long, “granny” or
“grandma”-looking skirts to school when everyone else looked
fashionable – or so I thought; the one with the crazy mother who
didn’t want to acknowledge her, but who followed her as she walked
home from school, the one whose father was missing in action, with
no interaction (and there wouldn’t be much of that until I was well
into adulthood). I often wondered what I had done to deserve this
much dysfunction in my life but the answers never came, so I kept it
all inside at the time. On top of that, I always acknowledged my
mother, no matter what mental state she was in at the time, so the
kids at school knew that my family life was not like everyone else’s.
In today’s terms it felt like I was living out a reality show where all
eyes are on you.
At her wits end, especially after Grandfather Eric’s death, my
grandmother tried everything she could to bond with me during that
time. As I mentioned, Granny believed in tough love, and she made it
clear that she would not be cuddling me as I went through my dark
period. At first she tried to encourage me to learn to cook…no
response; then she suggested gardening…again, no response. Finally,
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JOURNEY UNTOLD: TWISTED LOVE –
MY MOTHER’S STRUGGLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS
one day when she was sewing, a light came on in my eyes and Mama
realized that she had found something that could hold my interest
and bring me out of my emotional coma. She herself was a great
seamstress, and she would make the skirts for my school uniform.
Yes, in the Virgin Islands and throughout many Caribbean islands, school
students wear uniforms with pleated skirts to school as a way to instil discipline
in the students. But I digress… the challenge was that while my
grandmother sewed so well, her idea of a school skirt was one that
came all the way down to my shins. Needless to say that in the late
80s this was absolutely not the fashion trend that a child wanted to
have, much less at the high school level. I mean, I was already being
teased for so much else, why add my wardrobe to the mix, right?
Essentially, once my brain wrapped itself around the art of sewing, it
was a new day for me. I recall my grandmother making me a skirt for
our choir concert and I badgered her to make it much shorter, like up
to my knees. Could I just get a little slack please? Well, the argument that
ensued resulted in my Mama telling me, “Fine, make it yourself;” and
I, with my fast mouth said, “Fine, then show me,” and the rest as
they say is history.
In that moment, Mama realized that she had found something that
made me come alive, so she provided instruction on how to sew the
pleats and put on the waistband, then gave me the creative freedom
to design my own version of the skirt. With a new-found focus on
sewing, it became a lifeline that pulled me out of a very, very dark
and depressed place. I was allowed to spend more time on the sewing
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Author: Yassin S. Hall | Co-Author: Loán C. Sewer
machine but only after I had done my homework. Given that I had
“checked out” for almost an entire school year, this was major
progress and I found a healthy way to express myself and bring my
own identity to the forefront. By the end of the school year, those
same children who had tortured me or just flat out ignored me, began
to take notice of the skirts I was wearing to school. After all those
years – from elementary school to high school - the bul ying that had
sapped my spirit was over, at least for now. I had finally found
acceptance, and believe it or not, I wound up designing and sewing
their school skirts for them – for a fee, of course! Now isn’t that
something?
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JOURNEY UNTOLD: TWISTED LOVE –
MY MOTHER’S STRUGGLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS
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Author: Yassin S. Hall | Co-Author: Loán C. Sewer