As a little girl lying in bed, I could hear her crying. It’s the person I love the most in the world…my mother.
I laid there, quietly, thinking to myself not again. Darkness would slowly give way to the morning sun but when silence lingered, longer than usual, I realized that it’s going to be another dark day. I got dressed for school, then phoned her work to call in sick. I made my mother a sandwich, so she at least had something to eat before I went to school. This was just my normality, in Grade 1!
To me this was neither strange, nor out of the ordinary. I grew up quickly because living with a mother with severe depression leaves little room for normal childhood days.
 
Over the next few days she would gradually return to her normal smiling self, cooking breakfast, sitting with me as I do my homework. It would seem as if guilt would overcome her as she would then bring me cake, ice cream or just any treat. It felt as if these gifts were somehow to make up for the love she didn’t always know how to give.
 
As any child would, I gladly accepted these gifts, only to realize the cost in Grade 8. Like a bad dream, my awakening, would leave me overweight and feeling terrible about myself. I had gone from a healthy teenager to an overweight teenager, and then into bulimia in a very short time. It was a difficult time for me, as I had to learn several lessons, including how to eat again, just like a baby. To this day I struggle with emotional eating, often not knowing when to stop.
 
One night the phone rang and when my mom turned around I noticed a different kind of deep sadness in her eyes. She wrapped her arms around me and my heart was torn in two. The most positive person I have known has been shot and killed. In a split second my dad was taken from me, and the world no longer made any sense.
Horror would give way to questions with no answers, which would not bring him back!
I had abandoned all hope of a happy childhood, and I remember on the day of my dad’s funeral, as dirt fell from the shovels, and onto his coffin, my world totally collapsed. As a 17-year-old with no idea how to deal with real loss, I ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Given the circumstances at that point in time, that turned out to be the best place for me at the time, I felt safe! I have also been diagnosed with depression, and I use the tools I have acquired to help me deal with endless waves of emotion to this day. I will be okay!
 
As the years went on I saw my mom getting worse day by day and I felt the disconnection returning.
Finding the balance between inducing positivity and by overcoming negative behaviour seemed like an uphill battle. Our journeys have been so similar yet so different.
I have been blessed with a gifted son who has ADD and a touch of autism. I have also been blessed with twins of which one has recently been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

Throughout the years I told myself it will get better as it always did, but then there came a time my mothers smile would not return. When I saw my mother’s lifeless body laying on her bed, I realized the signs had been there all along. That the voices must have gotten so bad, that all she wanted was to make them stop.
  
I have also been diagnosed with Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but I refuse to bow down to it, knowledge has empowered me to deal with it!
It is my opinion that these conditions have two points of attack. To isolate and to make you feel worthless.
Worthless as a daughter, a mother, sister, wife or partner. But you are not alone!
So whenever negativity whispers my name, I stand on God’s Word and I’m reminded that “how can I be lost when YOU have called me found!”
 
My name is Janine Goosen and I am saying “enough!”
No more will I sit idly by while others struggle with Mental Health whilst their lights are fading!
 
 “HOPE” – STRONGER TOGETHER❤️