“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.” —Confucius

Who among us has never faced a situation in which we ultimately felt that we had done everything wrong? We chide ourselves for being failures and maybe even give up on whatever we had been attempting to achieve. The one act that left me feeling horrific for many years afterword involved the way in which I agreed to treat my mother’s mental illness the first time that her bipolar disorder raged to the point of depression and paranoia that frightened me. 

Looking back I have been able to ultimately forgive myself. I was quite young at the time, barely past the age of being legal to drink alcohol. I had never before experienced the confusing behavior of a person with mental illness. I knew nothing about doctors who offer care for such things. I was in fact groping in the dark while grieving that my mother was suffering in a most horrific way. Not even the adults with whom I conferred wanted to offer any kind of advice. I realized that I was on my own and would have to take a stab in the dark to make my mother well again. 

As it turned out I relied on the expertise of our family physician, which I suppose was a proper thing to do rather than bowing to old wives’ tales or the advice of laymen. He gave me the names of two psychiatrists whom he admired and I simply drew one of the names out of a hat. The doctor was kind enough to offer to help but instead of first seeing my mother in his office, he insisted that she had to be hospitalized immediately. (I would later learn that such a dramatic move was not necessary but at the time I had no way of knowing better.) 

It took some trickery on my part to get my mom to agree to go with me to the hospital. I did not like fooling her and just as I silently predicted the fact that I had not been totally honest when I conned her into signing herself in for treatment would haunt our relationship forevermore. Still, I was unable to think of any other way to get her the help that I believed she needed. 

Once she was in the hospital the doctor took over and to a large extent used psychology to get me to agree to procedures that I would later learn were not really necessary. Sadly the experience was so horrific for my mother that she found it difficult to trust me from that point until the day that she died. Part of her loved me in spite of what she saw as a betrayal and the other part allowed her motherly love to overcame the hurt that she felt. 

The next time that she became ill, and there were many next times, I was more mature and sure of myself. I set out in search of a doctor for her, taking time to insure that he or she would try to heal my mother without hospitalization and procedures that would terrify anyone. After speaking with many psychiatrists and asking them many questions I decided to take her to a doctor who had listened to my concerns attentively and who explained that he used a different approach to helping his patients than the person who had first treated my mom. He explained that different medical schools pushed different practices and as such he turned out to be exactly the physician that my mother needed. He treated both her and me with respect and she had a very long term and successful time with him. He had shown a willingness to help heal slowly and under my care in a home setting. It was a good match all the way around. 

Still, I carried feelings of guilt until my daughter was studying to be a nurse. By happenstance a discussion arose about the care of mental illness in one of her classes. She described the journey that my mother and I had taken together in the quest to keep Mama well. She furthermore described the horror of the first attempt and the subsequent negative feelings that I had carried for decades. The professor’s response was the the remedy that I had needed for so long. 

She explained to the class that dealing with a loved one who has a mental illness is one of the most difficult medical situations that we might ever encounter, especially if we have not had any previous experience with it. She insisted that even the medical teams who work with such individuals sometimes feel as though they are groping in the dark as they attempt to find the proper treatments for each individual. She told my daughter that I had done what I had to do to keep my mother from delving more and more deeply into the dark pit that was consuming her and that ultimately the initial treatment that she endured had obviously saved her. She applauded me for learning how to tailor future treatments to my mother’s feelings and needs and told the class that I was the kind of hero that doctors not often see. 

I am not writing about this to boast that I am somehow a terrific person but because the journey with someone who is afflicted with mental illness can become so dark and confusing that there are times when the individual seeking care for them is unable to decide whether what they are doing is good or bad. Everyone will experience deep emotions and mistakes will be made. The point is to rise again and be willing to keep trying for the sake of the person who is afflicted. In the end they are the ones who are feeling an indescribable and deep pain for which there is often no permanent cure. Their lifetimes become defined by the symptoms of their illnesses with moments in between when they find themselves again. It is important that we focus on them rather than our own failings. What we need is the strength and willingness to keep moving sometimes slowly forward and sometimes slowly backward. All the while we would do well to remember that the spirit of Confucius’ wisdom is cheering us on.