So after 15 years and with lots of help, we do need help, with lots of help from Social Workers and lots of help from Government funding, I am lucky in a sense that I have got a lot of Government funding for respite for my daughter, I can employ carers to come to the house and look after her. Things are getting better and she is getting better and I am getting better.
I was sick for 13 years, I have got back problems from head to toe, I have fibro myalgia, I have chronic fatigue, I have got irritable bowel syndrome. You name it I had it; back problem from caring and all from caring and stress. But I am getting better this last year, and she is getting better this last year, so hopefully things will just get better for us. You know it is just the hope that carries us through.
I studied for 5 years to be an engineer and I only work for 1 and a half years. I got married very young and I had the child very, very young too. I had just worked one and a half years and then she came along and I had to drop everything to care for the child because I love her so much.
And like, what a stress
you know. It is the mother's love, it is the parent's love, you love this
child so much, so much unconditional love for this child. And initially
she cannot give you back anything. She is hitting you and pinching you
and you are thinking, you are caring for this child that is constantly
hitting and pinching and pulling your hair and pulling at your clothes
and grabbing you and digging her nails into you and kicking you and head-butting
you and the whole lot. And breaking things around the house, the whole
house is all messed up. And you are sitting there in these heaps, in this
mess and you are thinking, "What am I doing? What is this? Is this
going to be my life for the rest of my life? I can't even survive this
day, how can I survive the next 70 years that she is going to live?"
So we went though all that. And I think mothers need a lot of counselling.
The counselling helped me pull through. The social workers they came to
me a few times a week just to talk to me, just to have somebody to talk
to me, because nobody really understands. Your family, your friends, they
don't really understand unless they live in your shoe. They don't truly
understand what is going on.
And you can't explain to people. So with all this help I am getting better.
And I think mothers need it right from the beginning, not when they reach
crisis point; right from the start. You know, from when the child is born.
They need help and guidance along the way. Not when they reach crisis
point, which is what happened to me. I only got that help because I was
really desperate.
12.