Onika L. Dainty

The Complex Mother-Daughter Dynamic: Growing Up with a Nurse Mom and Bipolar Disorder

Just Pray

My mother has always been a devout Christian, there are actually a number of God-fearing women in my family including my dearly departed grandmother Alvira. The irony about my mother is she is also a Registered Nurse, a woman of science which in today's society is considered a contradiction. 

Since I was a little girl my routine was school and homework during the week and church on Sundays. Sunday was God’s day and no sickness or exaggerated stomach ache got in the way of worshiping the Lord. To honour my mother I had to honour God which meant look good for Jesus, go to Sunday school followed by a two hour service where I was instructed to sit in silence so as not to say anything to embarrass my family.

Even when we were back home in Guyana I was more of a religious rouge than a good Christian girl. I rarely received the Sunday school lesson, listening only enough to get the jist so I could report to my mom on our walk home. I was always getting caught in lies and half truths and I forever questioned the word of God. 

When I was 12-years old I was kicked out of Sunday school to the utter shame of my mother. Yep folks, I was a Sunday school drop out but I would like to point out that was the only education I didn’t complete in my 35 years of academia. After this incident I announced to both my mother and grandmother that I would never set foot in church again. I say this all to say this inciting incident was the beginning of the tensions between my mother and I, a tension that would fester and grow especially in the years that followed when my mental health became more and more precarious. 

In 2016, ten years after my Bipolar diagnosis my mother and I were having a talk about some adverse effects I was experiencing from an antidepressant I had started taking. I was concerned because I had developed insomnia and hair loss. My nurse mother’s response was the following: “I don’t know why you have to take all this medication, you need to get off of them, you need to just pray.”

She had a history of giving religious-like advice when I tried to talk to her about my mental illness but on that day in history I had had enough and snapped. My response to her flippant advice was this: I asked her why it was okay for her to tell her Bipolar daughter that she didn’t need meds and the power of prayer would cure me. “Why do you think you can pray the cray away,” I continued my tirade and expressed how tired of her not taking my mental illness seriously. I accused her of being unsupportive asking her why she couldn’t just accept my diagnosis because it wasn’t up for debate. I told her when she spoke that way it diminished what I’ve been going through for over a decade. 

Now all of this was said with a lot of yelling, tears and years of pent up frustration so before things went further in an even more hurtful and negative direction I hung up the phone on her.

At that moment I realized that even though my mom is a woman of science and a believer in God she had no real knowledge of psychology or how the mind works.

My mother had been with me every step of the way in the first 10 years of my mental health journey. She was the parent who visited daily with lunch and dinner when I was locked in the psychiatric unit of the hospital. She attended all my psychiatric visits post-hospitalization. She managed my medication; she nursed me back to health; she financially supported me going back to school and yes she prayed for me when I didn’t know how to talk to God for myself. But after that fight I realized her actions though out of love were mostly out obligation rather than empathy and understanding. My mom is an amazing human and an even better nurse and she did what any nurse would do–she took care of me even when she couldn’t comprehend my illness or how that illness affected my life choices. 

One thing that was a constant point of contention was the weight gain the medication and depression caused. Before my Bipolar diagnosis I was a size 4 once I started taking mental health medication I ballooned to a size 14 and my mother had a hard time accepting that. She constantly made negative comments about my weight not out of cruelty but rather out of a need to hold onto the daughter she knew before the chaos and uncertainty of mental illness entered our lives. This weight expectation was hard on my self-image, self-esteem and ultimately had negative effects on my mental health.

There was a lot of fear and misunderstanding that clouded my relationship with my mother. Fear of disappointing her because as soon as things seem to be settling down, it could be for weeks, months or even years. Mania seemed to be waiting for us around the corner. My mother and I experienced a lot of misunderstandings due to lack of education on both our parts around my illness and substance use disorder. It was only when I stepped away from her and the rest of my family was I able to find stability without familial pressures. It was during this period as well my brave mother sought help to understand her Bipolar daughter and all the challenges that came with my mental illness. 

After the infamous phone call of 2016, I realized I had a lot of bottled up and volatile emotions toward my mother and I had to learn to express myself in a more meaningful and impactful way so I started writing her letters, taking time to think about what I wanted to say and the best ways to say it. Once, I invited her to a therapy session where I read one of my more difficult letters to her in a safe space. We both cried and hugged each other. I practice this method to this day.

Final Thoughts

Now, my mother and I simply talk to each other, we take time to have the difficult conversations we were always afraid to have with each other. We practice radical honesty even if it hurts or makes one or both of us feel uncomfortable. We cry together, we laugh together and we dance together because we are in a much better place. I set boundaries with her around my mental health and she respects them. We go to church (yes church) every Sunday together and I finally understand what she meant not “Just Pray,” but “Pray” to say thank-you to God for watching over us and bringing us to a happier healthier place in our lives. My mother is not the first one I call in crisis but as strange as it is she will always be my number one person. 

We are still on a journey of healing and self-discovery both together and individually. Continued growth and education on mental illness has come as a result of open and honest communication. We have conversations that take us beyond the stigma into a place where the mother-Bipolar daughter relationship isn’t just surviving its thriving. 

“I love you a Universe Mama, thank-you for “just praying” for me and supporting me no matter where in the world my journey takes me.”