Helping the Heroes

In one of my very first blogs I mentioned the copy of the parenting handbook that Motivated Mom and I owned seemed to be missing a few pages.  When Media Girl was diagnosed with a mental illness, it quickly became obvious our book was missing entire chapters.

Over the past six weeks Motivated Mom and I have been working to fill in the gaps of parenting books owned by other families. We have been teaching a course in helping parents of children with mental illnesses to understand and cope with the many faces of that illness. Had Motivated Mom and I known fifteen years ago what we have learned just in training to be instructors, our own family might have traveled a very different path.

Over the past six weeks I have come to appreciate that families affected by mental illness (the children who are ill, siblings, and parents) are the real heroes in the world.  They start each day knowing only one thing - they have NO idea what the day will bring. There is no such thing as a typical day for these families, at least not in the way the rest of the world views typical.  Yet these people put their feet on the floor every morning and resolve to do the best they can.  They do this day after day, knowing that doing their best will tax them to their limit and beyond. Parents do it because the alternative is not an option. The children burdened with the illness do it in the hopes that this might be the day that brings a little sunshine.

If, by teaching this course I have made one day in one person's life just a little bit easier, then I can call the past six weeks a monumental success.