"It's okay. I'm fine."
Four words I tell the people around me.
Four words that tell a lie.
The truth is? I'm not okay. It's not fine.
Why?
Because my kid's bunny, Jerry, died.
Because my kid's hands keep hurting because a self-centered person in their world insists that they don't have sensitivities after outright lying that he hadn't changed anything and tried to use the "you're schizophrenic and may not know what you're talking about" manipulative card.
Because my kid's doctor and social worker(s) can't or won't say that continued injuries to children: dog bite, blisters on hands, and more... are concerning enough to help me protect my children.
Because a piece of paper stating what was agreed upon in mediation seems absolutely worthless when only one party cares about following the order and keeping their word.
Because I am alone and trying to figure out what to do.
Because not one single person seems to remember how many times I was left alone with my kids because someone else was inconvenienced by the responsibilities that life entails. No calling to see how children were. No message asking for an update. Days. Weeks. Perhaps months?
But I remember! And I remember that that was so much better... yes, the kids were frightened by the in and out and ups and downs.
But, it was better than them being confused as to having a MN mommy and a SD mommy. And now that I'm in a relationship, that their MN mommy isn't letting them have a MN dad too.
It was better than them being told that Mommy wouldn't let them see their Dad because he got mad and left.
It was better than being threatened with court action if I don't comply with the demand to take the kids in blizzard conditions where staying at home is advised.
It was better than them getting told that Mommy stole Daddy's stuff and takes all of Daddy's money.
It was better than them getting mad at Mommy because she has all of the rules and isn't "fun."
It was better than being told "get a court order to make me" follow the court order already in existence.
It was better than not knowing if my children will be allowed to call me on our schedule or not.
It was better ... and I made the mistake of believing people who said that maybe it'll be better with you guy's split.
Abuse doesn't just "get better" when you leave a person who is comfortable slamming you against the wall and threatening to kill you.
Abuse doesn't just go away when the abuser is no longer allowed on the property.
It just changes.
Changes to putting allergens/asthma triggers on the children to make them the reason that Mommy gets sick.
Changes to Mommy doesn't love me anymore and got rid of me... kicked me out... so that now they worry that I will suddenly stop loving them and get rid of them too.
Changes to I don't care what the doctor recommends, you are not allowed to medicate our child for his PTSD of the bad guy that hurt mommy and tried to kill her.
I hear the "I'm sorry"s of so many people - but it doesn't fucking help if everyone's "sorry"!
It doesn't help me to know what to do or where to go.
His own lawyer sounded like he was sorry. Numerous times.
But, this is what I get for putting family first in my values. This is what I get for taking his definition of "hit" as the correct answer after years of programed silence.
Because I am tired of fighting alone.
Fighting for my child's disability rights.
Fighting for my rights.
Fighting to keep my head above water when I am so damn tired of swimming through this life.
Fighting to pay for things that I cannot afford.
Fighting to not live my life in fear that one day, he will keep his promise that "I'll be lucky if I ever see my kids again."
Fighting to believe in the good of humanity that my autistic brain keeps resetting to as I give everyone the benefit of the doubt.... that so many do not deserve.
Fighting to teach my kids that everyone has to follow rules when they point out that someone else doesn't have to follow the rules.
Fighting to teach my kids that cops and doctors and social workers are there to help them, not hurt them... when they can point out how the system is failing them.
And maybe it isn't the system failing them... maybe it is me.
Maybe it is because I want to allow them to know their family - even the ones who make their mom into the punchline of their joke.
Maybe it is because I can't work a full time job because of... what everyone said was "schizophrenia and anxiety" but was so much less mental illness as it was a developmental disability that was missed.
Maybe it is because I love too hard and don't want to "ruin people's lives" by "bad mouthing them" - even after learning that telling the truth is not bad mouthing someone.
Maybe because my abuser was right... and I am a failure.
"I'm not broken - just totally defective." was what I said to my therapist.
I just don't want my kids to continue and/or start believing that about themselves.
So, even though I am exhausted of living... I continue fighting - for them, for their future, for their safety, for them to know what love in action looks like.
It looks like safely storing your abuser's junk even when you may want to burn it.
It looks like trying to hide the asthma attack so that they don't ask "why are we making you sick mama? Are you going to die because of us?"
It looks like crying alone in the shower, shaking as I remember the overheard statement of "you shouldn't have stuck your dick in crazy," the "joke" of the gun pointed at my head that shouldn't have scared me because it wasn't /really/ loaded, the coldness in the eyes and the absolute calmness whenever he got me upset enough to react with that small grin he'd try to hide.
It looks like letting my kids tell my abuser all about my life so that I am at least one person who doesn't expect them to lie or to keep secrets.
It looks like holding my kids when their bunny has died while being bombarded with memories of holding them when I got to tell them that we weren't going to have a baby(s) after all.
Memories of all I had to go through this year... last year...
And now, when people ask "How can I help?"
I do not know. Because I don't know how to fix this.
I just know that I won't take the "easy way" out that /he/ did and walk away from my kids when life gets hard.
That is my reality. This is my reality.
So, no, I am not okay, nor am I fine.
But, I am okay and I am fine - because I will not give myself another choice.
I am strong. I am not alone.
But, some days I feel totally helpless and alone. Like today.
I am feeling the need to have a complete autistic meltdown. But, instead of letting the screams of rage out at how much the very people that are supposed to help me have left me feeling completely alone and a burden... I am once again turning it inwards.
Keep it inside.
Don't worry anyone.
No one can or will help anyway - not sure which or even if it really matters at this point.
It triggers an extremely painful shutdown, but hey, at least I didn't inconvenience anyone with the emotions raging within me, right?
About the Creator
The Schizophrenic Mom
I am a mother of 2 precious angels who drive me slightly more crazy
than I already am with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
When asked "are you crazy?!" my favorite come back is:
"yes! And I have the papers to prove it! How about you?" LOL
Keep reading
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Questions and Answers from an Interview
1. When did the realization of your desire to become a writer first dawn on you? I realized that I wanted to become a writer around second grade. I wanted to have the power to make a movie come alive in other people's imagination like I enjoyed from reading books. It was reinforced steadily by my mom who always encouraged me to improve and who always eagerly read whatever I offered to share.
By The Schizophrenic MomExclusive • 9 months ago
Why Smiling Can Feel Like the Hardest Thing
The Unbearable Weight of a Smile: When Your Face Refuses to Lie Anymore "Just smile," they said, as if my face were a light switch I could simply flip. As if the muscles required to curve my lips upward hadn't become so heavy that lifting them felt like deadlifting my own despair. As if smiling—the simplest, most automatic human expression—hadn't become the most exhausting performance of my entire day. I'm standing in line at the coffee shop, and the barista is making small talk. "How's your day going?" she asks, cheerful, genuine, expecting the standard response. My jaw tenses. My face feels like stone. I know what I'm supposed to do—smile, say "great, how about you?", participate in this basic social ritual that I've performed thousands of times without thinking. But I can't. My face won't cooperate. The muscles required to form a smile feel paralyzed, or more accurately, weighted down by something too heavy to lift. I force it anyway. The corners of my mouth move upward mechanically, but it doesn't reach my eyes. It doesn't feel genuine. It feels like I'm wearing a mask that doesn't quite fit. "Fine, thanks," I manage, and the barista's smile falters slightly. She can tell. Something's off. My smile is wrong somehow—too tight, too forced, too obviously fake. I take my coffee and leave quickly, exhausted by the thirty-second interaction. My face hurts from the effort of that brief, failed smile. And I still have an entire day of this ahead of me. When Your Face Becomes a Traitor I used to smile easily, automatically. It was a reflex, an unconscious response to humor, kindness, joy, social situations. I never thought about it, never had to try. Now every smile is manual labor. Every upward curve of my lips requires conscious effort, deliberate muscle activation, sustained energy I don't have. My face has become resistant, like it knows I'm lying and refuses to participate in the deception. In meetings at work, I'd notice other people smiling, laughing, their faces animated and expressive. And I'd try to match them, to mirror their expressions, to look like I was engaged and present. But my face wouldn't cooperate. It would freeze in this neutral, flat expression that read as either bored or angry, even though I wasn't trying to look either way. I just... couldn't make my face do what faces are supposed to do. "You look upset," my boss said after one meeting. "Is everything okay?" "I'm fine," I said, and tried to smile to prove it. But even I could feel how wrong it looked—this grimace that pretended to be a smile, this contortion that fooled no one. "If something's bothering you, you can talk to me," he pressed. Nothing was bothering me. At least, nothing specific. I wasn't angry or upset about work. I was just... unable to smile. Unable to make my face perform the basic signals that tell others I'm okay, I'm engaged, I'm a functioning human being having a normal interaction. The Exhaustion of Performance Every day became a marathon of forced facial expressions. Wake up. Try to smile at my partner over breakfast. Fail. See his concern. Force a smile to reassure him. Feel my face muscles strain with the effort. Get to work. Try to look pleasant and approachable. Feel my face settle into that blank, heavy expression despite my best efforts. Force periodic smiles during conversations. Feel exhausted by 10 AM from the sheer effort of manipulating my own face. Lunch with colleagues. They're laughing about something. I hear the joke, understand it's funny, know I should be laughing too. Try to make my face do the laughing expression. Produce something that's almost a smile but not quite right. See them notice. Feel them pull back slightly, unsure how to read me. By the end of each day, my face would actually ache. Not from overuse, but from the constant tension of trying to force expressions that wouldn't come naturally, of fighting against muscles that wanted to remain flat and unresponsive. I started avoiding situations that required me to smile. Stopped going to social gatherings where I'd have to perform happiness I didn't feel. Turned down invitations to celebrations, parties, events where smiling would be expected and my inability to do so would be conspicuous. My world shrank to environments where I didn't have to pretend—mostly my apartment, alone, where my face could rest in its natural state of heavy neutrality without judgment or concern. Understanding the Impossibility "Why can't I smile?" I asked my therapist, genuinely baffled by this loss of what seemed like the most basic human function. "I'm not trying to look miserable. I just... can't make my face do it anymore." She explained it in a way that finally made sense. "Depression doesn't just affect your mood—it affects your motor functions, including the facial muscles. The neurotransmitters that allow for spontaneous emotional expression are depleted. Your face isn't refusing to smile. Your brain isn't sending the signals that create smiling." She showed me research about something called "facial feedback"—the way our facial expressions both reflect and influence our emotional state. When you smile, your brain registers that feedback and generates corresponding positive emotions. It's a two-way street. But in depression, that street is blocked. Your brain can't generate the positive emotions that produce genuine smiles, and forcing smiles doesn't trick your brain into feeling better—it just exhausts you with the effort of manually operating machinery that's supposed to be automatic. "It's not laziness," she emphasized. "It's not attitude. It's a literal neurological impairment. Your brain has lost the ability to generate spontaneous positive facial expressions." Knowing this didn't make it easier, but it helped me understand why something so simple had become so impossibly hard. The Social Cost The inability to smile carries a staggering social cost that people who've never experienced it can't understand. Humans are wired to read faces. We make split-second judgments about people based on their expressions. A lack of smiling reads as unfriendly, unapproachable, angry, or unstable—even when that's not what you're feeling at all. My relationships deteriorated. Friends stopped reaching out because interactions with me felt flat, heavy, unrewarding. I wasn't fun to be around anymore. Not because I was actively negative, but because I couldn't reflect back the warmth and positive energy that social bonds require. My partner grew increasingly frustrated. "You never seem happy to see me," he said one night. "I come home and you just... look at me. No smile, no warmth, nothing." "I am happy to see you," I insisted. "I just can't make my face show it." "That doesn't make sense," he said, hurt and confused. "If you're happy, why can't you smile?" How could I explain that happiness and smiling had become disconnected? That I could feel some small sense of gladness that he was home, but that feeling couldn't translate into facial expression? That the pathway between emotion and face had been severed? I couldn't explain it in a way that made sense to him. And eventually, he stopped believing I was happy to see him at all. The Judgment and Misunderstanding The worst part was the constant judgment from people who didn't understand. "You should smile more!" Random strangers, usually men, felt entitled to offer this advice, as if my face existed for their viewing pleasure. "Cheer up, it might never happen!" People would joke, assuming my expression meant something bad had occurred, when really it just meant my face was resting in its default depressed state. "Why are you so angry?" I wasn't angry. I was just unable to smile. "You need to work on your attitude." My attitude was fine. My face just couldn't show it. People assumed my lack of smiling meant I was rude, unfriendly, hostile, or miserable. They couldn't see that I was simply exhausted from trying to operate machinery that had stopped working. Even well-meaning people hurt me with their attempts to help. "Just fake it till you make it!" they'd say. "Force yourself to smile and you'll feel better!" But forcing smiles didn't make me feel better. It made me feel like a fraud. It highlighted the gap between what my face was doing and what I was actually feeling. It made the depression more obvious, not less, because the smile never reached my eyes, never looked genuine, never fooled anyone including me. The Breaking Point The crisis came during my niece's birthday party. She was turning five, excited, adorable, having the time of her life. She ran up to me with a drawing she'd made, her face lit up with pure childhood joy. "Look what I made for you, Auntie!" I looked at the drawing—a colorful, enthusiastic rendering of the two of us holding hands. She'd drawn me with a big smile. And I couldn't smile back at her. I tried. God, I tried. This innocent child showing me something she'd made with love, and I couldn't produce even a small smile of acknowledgment. My face remained flat. Heavy. Unresponsive. Her face fell. "Don't you like it?" "I love it, sweetheart," I said, my voice breaking slightly. "It's beautiful." But she'd already seen my expression—or lack of it. She walked away, confused and a little hurt, and I stood there holding her drawing, hating myself for not being able to give this child the one simple thing she wanted: a smile. That night, I called my psychiatrist. "Something's really wrong," I said. "I can't even smile at a five-year-old. What's happening to me?" The Medical Reality My psychiatrist adjusted my medication and explained what was happening. "What you're experiencing is called 'psychomotor retardation'—a slowing down of physical and emotional responses. It's a core symptom of major depression. Your facial muscles aren't responding normally because the neural pathways that control spontaneous expression aren't functioning properly." She also mentioned something called "anhedonia"—the inability to feel pleasure—which often comes with an inability to express pleasure, even when you're trying. "The medication we're adjusting should help," she said. "But it takes time. Six to eight weeks, possibly longer, before you notice a difference." She also recommended something unexpected: facial exercises. "Research shows that deliberately practicing facial movements—even without the corresponding emotion—can help retrain the neural pathways. It won't cure the depression, but it might make the physical expressions easier." So I started doing these bizarre exercises. Standing in front of the mirror, manually moving my face through expressions. Lifting the corners of my mouth with my fingers to simulate a smile. Holding it. Releasing. Repeating. It felt ridiculous. I felt ridiculous. But I was desperate enough to try anything. The Slow Return The medication took seven weeks to start working. Seven weeks of forced smiles, exhausted facial muscles, and social situations I couldn't navigate properly. Then one morning, my partner said something funny at breakfast and I felt it—a real smile, spontaneous and genuine, breaking across my face without effort. It lasted maybe three seconds before fading. But it was real. It was mine. It happened without me having to manually operate my face. I started crying, which alarmed my partner until I explained: "I just smiled. A real smile. I didn't have to force it." He looked at me with such relief and sadness. "I didn't realize how hard it's been for you," he said quietly. After that, smiles came more frequently. Not all the time—I still had days where my face felt weighted and unresponsive. But the genuine smiles started outnumbering the forced ones. The effort required diminished. My face started cooperating again. Living With the Memory A year later, I can smile relatively easily again. Not effortlessly like I used to, and not constantly. But the heavy impossibility has lifted. My face has mostly remembered how to express what I'm feeling without requiring manual operation. But I haven't forgotten what it was like. That period when smiling felt harder than anything else, when my face betrayed me every day, when the simplest human expression became impossible. I'm gentler with people now. When I see someone with a flat expression, with a face that doesn't smile easily, I don't assume they're unfriendly or angry or rude. I wonder if maybe they're fighting this same battle. If maybe their face is as heavy as mine once was. I also don't take smiling for granted anymore. Every genuine smile feels like a gift, like evidence that my brain is working properly again, that the neural pathways are transmitting signals the way they should. The Truth That Needs Telling If you can't smile right now—if your face feels like dead weight, if forcing expressions exhausts you, if people keep telling you to cheer up and you want to scream that you're trying but your face won't cooperate—please know this: You're not broken. Your face isn't defective. This is a symptom of depression as real and valid as any other symptom. Your brain's ability to generate spontaneous positive expressions has been impaired by depleted neurotransmitters and disrupted neural pathways. This isn't attitude. This isn't choice. This is neurology. And it's treatable. With the right medication, therapy, and time, your face can remember how to smile again. The heaviness can lift. The effort can diminish. The genuine smiles can return. Don't let people shame you for something you literally cannot control. Don't let them tell you to "just smile" as if you haven't been trying. Don't let them mistake your depression for rudeness or hostility. Your face will cooperate again. The pathways will reconnect. The expressions will come naturally once more. Until then, be patient with yourself. You're not failing at something easy. You're managing something impossibly hard. And you're doing better than you think. When smiling becomes the hardest thing, it's not because you're ungrateful or negative or refusing to see the bright side—it's because depression has literally disconnected the neural pathways between emotion and facial expression. Your face isn't betraying you out of spite. It's malfunctioning because your brain chemistry is disrupted. The effort it takes you to produce a smile is the same effort it would take someone else to deadlift a car. You're not being difficult. You're being incredibly strong, showing up to social situations and manually operating facial machinery that's supposed to be automatic. The heaviness will lift. Your face will remember. Until then, please stop judging yourself for not being able to do something your broken neurology has made nearly impossible. --------------------------------------------- Thanks for Reading!
By Ameer Moavia6 days ago in Psyche
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