My Bipolar Story: The Crack in the Wall - The Crack in the Wall

Written by Marlene Margot

At about 12.30am on the morning of the 30th September 1974, I woke up with pains everywhere, and I thought to myself that maybe the baby was on its way. I got out of bed and went through to the kitchen. I made tea, in fact over the next couple of hours I had plenty of tea. I tried to time the pains. They were irregular and extremely painful. I would get the time on the clock but then the pain would become so intense that I would forget where I had started. I never woke anyone up to help me; I did it on my own. I thought to myself 'my mistake, my pain.' Well as you can imagine it was a very long night. Eventually at about 5am I managed to get some kind of order going and I figured out that the pains were about 5 minutes apart. I want you to imagine this. A young girl six days after her sixteenth birthday knowing that within a few hours it would all be over. The baby would be taken away and she would never see it, hold it or be allowed to love it. Not only was I going through physical pain, I was going through such emotional pain that I didn't know which felt worse.

At 6am I woke up my mom and my sister. My sister went to fetch the guy that was taking us to the hospital [supposedly a family friend]. The whole way to the hospital I had to listen to this guy preaching about how young girls shouldn't get themselves into the situation that I was in, and if they did then they should either abort the baby or give it up for adoption. This idiot had no idea what he was talking about. My sister eventually told him to shut up. In stony silence we arrived at the hospital. My sister stayed with me the whole way through the 'labour,' she rubbed my back for me and spoke to me quietly, trying to reassure me that everything would be okay. The doctor sedated me quite heavily, but even through that drug induced state I knew exactly what was going on. Their reason for sedating me was that since I was a very young girl, giving birth to a baby that I wasn't going to keep, they didn't want me getting all hysterical [for goodness sake, I've never been hysterical in my whole life, oh no! not me, I just hold it all in]. They wanted me nice, calm, and accepting

Amongst all the pain and the drugs I still kept thinking that there would be a way to keep this baby. It didn't seem right that I had gone through so much with no reward. I thought to myself that if God was out there surely he would step in and help me. No good luck was coming my way, not that day anyhow. I remember thinking to myself that if I could just look out of the window, be very strong, and not look at my baby then I would give her up for adoption. I was strong. It was pouring with rain that day. I remember thinking that because I couldn't cry God was doing it for me. In fact he was doing a good job; he was crying buckets full of tears for the misery that was in that room, that particular day. It would have been nice if he could have stopped it all. I gave birth to my baby at 11.15am on that cold, rainy Monday morning. I heard her cry and that was the end of it. They whipped her out of that room so quickly. Louise, my sister, was standing outside the delivery room and she saw the baby. That I only found out many years later. I don't remember too much after that, the drugs, the trauma was just too much for me. It was very difficult in hospital as the ward that I was in was fairly close to the babies. I would wonder if it was my baby that was crying. They never gave me anything to dry up my milk; they made me experience that as well. I really paid the price for my mistake.

Three days after I arrived home the lady from the welfare office took me to register my baby and to sign the adoption papers. I registered her in David's and my name; I couldn't bring myself to register her with a father 'unknown'. I did know the father and I was still very much in love with him. So I went against what everyone told me and I put him down as the father. After registering her I was taken directly to the court to sign the adoption papers. I would like to erase that day from my mind. I was told repeatedly that I was doing the right thing for my baby. Now I ask you. Whom was I doing the right thing for? Not for my baby, she had a mother who loved her. Even if I was young I would've looked after her very well. Not for my family, they just saw all the hardships that awaited us, instead of seeing what it was doing to me. I was torn to pieces inside and I didn't know how I was going to get through the rest of my life. At the court they tell you that you are signing these adoption papers of your own free will. In my mind I was certainly not signing those papers of my own free will. I signed because there was absolutely nothing else that I could do. I was sixteen years old, no great education to speak of, and no husband. There was no way that I could have supported her. There was too much against me. All I got out of the situation was many years of grief. When I got home I told my mom that I had been to sign the 'papers' and all she said was 'well at least now we can all get on with our lives.'

Six months after the baby was born, I met David at the beach. We decided to meet the next day to discuss how we still felt about each other. We wanted to get back together, but my mom and sister saw David and me together. When I got home I was told again in no uncertain terms that if I wanted to go out with David again I would have to leave my family. Now there are confusing statements about this. My mother swears that she didn't say anything of the sort. In fact she reckons she said the exact opposite. Well if that's the case why did I decide not to meet David? Why then did I decide that there wouldn't be any kind of happiness for David and me? Why did I try and commit suicide a few days after meeting David? Would that be the actions of someone who has been given full consent to do something that they had wanted for so long? I don't think so.

After the attempted suicide, the doctors wanted to keep me in hospital for counseling, which I refused. What did happen was that I started to bury all the hurt. It was the only way that I could survive.

PART THREE

In January 1977, I met Gary. Later that year we married. My son Ryan was born on the 7th February 1978. It was wonderful to be able to hold him and feed him. He was and still is very precious to me. My daughter was born on the 19th December 1979. This was another great occasion for me. I now had two beautiful babies to love and take care of. Unfortunately, Gary was not the ideal husband. We argued a great deal and he became very abusive towards me. When my daughter was 2months old, I had to go back to work. Things between Gary and I were not good. He became very jealous of the attention that I gave to the kids. He would pick a fight with me all the time. I felt as though I was being pulled in all directions. My children need me, they were only little. Gary wouldn't help me with anything. I became mentally and physically drained. I lost far too much weight, my hair was falling out, and I had a continuous headache. I was working at a pharmacy at that time. One day the pharmacist called me into his office and asked me what my problem was. I told him that I didn't have any problems that I was aware of; He gave me stronger tablets for my headaches and advised that I se a doctor as soon as possible. A few weeks later, my mom came up to Newcastle to see us. She was shocked when she saw me. I weighed 35kg. I looked terrible. She asked if I would go and see a doctor while she was with us. I agreed.

The doctor sent me to St. Anne's Hospital in Pietermaritzburg. The psychiatrist that I saw was a wonderful man. The first day that I was there, he listened to me for hours. When I had finished my tale of woe, he sat there and looked at me for a very long time. Then he said to me, 'Marléne, you are the same age as my granddaughter, [I was 21] and in all my years as a psychiatrist, I have never seen anyone as young as you, go through so much trauma. I was in hospital for two and a half weeks. In that time, I was given a course of six electro-convulsive treatment [shock treatment], drips everyday and loads of anti-depressant tablets. In addition to all of that, he counseled me everyday.