A Carer’s Diary – Episode 2

Linda is a well-loved aunt. She lives only a few miles away, but Harriet is rarely well enough to see her. When she was young, she would go with her brother to spend days or nights over there. There are photographs, countless photographs, of them both playing happily with Linda, and with children from down her street: happy and silly and carefree.

All this is a different life, now. Something has been lost. It is Harriet’s mind.
  “You all right, Harr?” her aunt will ask, as she arrives.
  “Yeah, fine,” she will reply.
And that will be that. We are all so polite. Mental health does this to families and to friendships. It seizes them up. If Harriet suffered with MS or breast cancer for instance, we should spend half the barbecue discussing her latest doctor’s visit, her medication, how she’s doing day-to-day. But this is different. This is ‘mental problems’, and we do not speak of them.

I don’t blame family or friends for not talking these things through. We feel awkward, too. It is far easier for us to shy away and pretend we’re all regular and ‘normal’ for the evening. While she is feeling OK, Harriet can get through this evening without showing her everyday side to her guests. 

We are like this with everyone else, too. With her parents, with my parents; everyone knows she is mentally ill, that she receives psychiatric care, that she cannot live a normal life – but none of us talk about it. Now and again, my mother will flirt with the issue.
  “How’s Harriet?” she will tentatively ask. “How is she doing, really?” 
And on these rare occasions I may offer a few words more than the usual script. I may tell her what the consultant said last time, or admit that she’s “really struggling,” knowing full well that my mother cannot possibly imagine what this struggling entails.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with such silence. If Harriet might be helped by talking through her mental condition with friends and relatives, then it’s something we should consider. But neither of us see how not talking about it is making the situation any worse. There is a nascent theme throughout modern society, that ‘talking about it’ helps. Perhaps it does; and perhaps our ‘not talking about it’ compounds the stigma mental illness retains. But we choose – as so many other people in similar situations do – for a simpler life, to say as little as possible.

THE new CPN is struggling to get to grips with our life. He is young, perhaps younger than either of us, and finds Harriet quiet and afraid. Through the first couple of meetings, she sits awkwardly in the far corner, saying little, avoiding eye contact.
  “So, tell us what you’ve been up to,” he will attempt.
  And Harriet will not have a clue.
  “What have we done?” she will eventually ask me.
  It’s hard to answer that question. For much of the time, she is up to doing nothing. Going out nowhere, seeing no one, achieving nothing – beyond survival.
  I tell him about a bicycle ride we’ve recently enjoyed.
  “Anything else?” he asks.
  “That’s about it,” says Harriet.

And it does sound so very little. To an outsider, to someone who is not subject to Harriet’s everyday difficulties with living, it sounds pathetically little. The bike has been a god-send to her through this summer. She’s enjoyed several long rides in the country – untold freedom by her unique standards – but hardly epic when said out loud.
  There is a subtext to Al’s questioning. I sense him thinking: Is this all you do? But of course, that cannot be right. He’s a CPN. His entire carer is spent visiting mad people who cannot live normal lives. I make a point of telling him about the odd trip out I’ve managed when Harriet’s been well enough to leave alone for a few hours – just to prove to him that I AM NOT LIKE HER. 

There is a feeling of cabin-fever to the carer’s role sometimes. For Harriet has hours, days, when she simply cannot be left alone. I take passing solace in the moments I can get away: a game of tennis, a cinema trip, a walk to the cricket ground. These moments are savoured all the more for their rarity.

But even as I enjoy them, my mind is turned back to Harriet. First and foremost, I worry that I have left her alone – and what could be happening to her? And secondly, I grimly acknowledge that such pleasures as I am enjoying are out of bounds to her. There is a stab of guilt, the How Dare I Enjoy Myself Syndrome. And I am always so relieved to get back to her. To re-take my enduring post.