Encapsulated Mother

Encapsulated mother

In his fabulous book entitled Going Sane, Adam Philips, an author and psychoanalyst wrote that at times becoming depressed, schizoid or otherwise mentally incapacitated is the only sane thing our mind can do. It is my feeling and suspicion that after experiencing a series of lockdowns many of us would recognize the truth in this statement. That at times going insane is the only sane thing we can do because the circumstances are beyond what we have experienced thus far and there are no examples of coping in our histories and experiences thus far. I’ve been struggling a lot with my mental health over the last year, more so than in previous years. Depression was not new to me. I remember when my son was around three, I would often withdraw to an unknown mental space to the point that he would slap me and shout: ‘Mummy, come back. Mummy, come back.’ I would of course awake at that instant but these withdrawal moments were frequent. Mothers with mental health problems, if they are like me, feel that they are in precarious positions. They may feel that as soon as they were to admit to their struggles, they will either be accused of not loving their children enough or that they will be deemed as unfit for purpose. This just exacerbates the problem and prolongs the suffering and a feeling that there are no solutions.

There is an interesting piece of research written by Dana Suskind in which she explains the importance of talking to children in the early years. She says in it that when deprived of social interaction, a child’s brain changes into a sieve. While this is a very convincing supporting argument for enhanced communication, it doesn’t ask the question: what happens to the brain of the mother when she is socially-deprived and isolated with a small newborn at home and then with small children. I think many of us have observed for ourselves through lockdowns what mothers of small children experience regularly, daily and through prolonged periods of times.

I’ve started photographing flowers recently. Partially because they calm me down, partially because I love being among them, partially because I felt they can cheer me up. I’ve tried to create well-lit compositions, colourful and hopeful and while at times this was serving my purpose, I felt incongruent with this light and joy. I felt that some darkness, sadness and exhaustion wants to come out of me. An encapsulated but congruent mother has a higher chance of survival. That by expressing my darkness in those images, I will speak my truth – the truth of the current state and this point in time that I am in – it’s not a global truth, and the only truth available, it is just mine. My mum looked today at the images that I presented here and she said: ‘I don’t like them. They’re all hanging as if they didn’t have the will to live.’ And I just said to her: ‘But that’s the point, Mum. I find it hard to find a will to live at times. This is what I am saying here’.

These were thoughts and photos of the moment. This is not something that attaches to me permanently and I am a little worried about your reaction here, my Dear Reader, as I know that sometimes negative messages of this sort can hold on tight to us. There is, for example, a song performed by will.i.am and The Script called A Hall of Fame which I really liked because I feel it does encourage young people to be someone in life and to follow one’s vocation but the song starts with a scene in which the mother scalds her son by saying he is good for nothing. I remember at the peak of my depression, I used to hear only these words – they clung to me and I couldn’t shake them off. To some extent, now, when I am still fighting with darkness, these words reverberate in my head quite often. When this happens I sing to myself my own song that goes like this: ‘It’s a mirage. Just a mirage. Tomorrow it passes. Tomorrow it won’t last’ and I take my medication because singing it on its own is not enough. Ironically, I have been also drying daisies recently by placing them in a sieve so that they dry flat. I didn’t know until today that daisies symbolize childbirth, motherhood and new beginnings. I think that every session that I have with a therapist right now, and every single conversation with a kind human being is like a daisy being placed in my mind that is like a sieve. I feel that I am healing and the gaps reduce. But we cannot do it on our own. We need society and we need people. This work that was just supposed to be about simple flowers is now developing into a piece of work on mother’s mental health and her need for social support. I think it’s a good theme to explore. Because when we talk about it, our grey roses may gain their colour.