“It’s My Baby,” by Anna Quon

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It’s My Baby

By Anna Quon

I turned 40 this year. Not such a big deal. I only ended up in the mental hospital for the first time in ten years. But it wasn’t just turning 40—it was the fact that a couple people—one of whom I loved and another whom I once tried to love—died, close to my birthday. And because I quit the most grown-up job I’d ever had, after only a few months at my desk.

The thing is, probably none of those things would have landed me head first in the hospital. It was a med reduction that I asked for. I now realize that I am much closer to the precipice and freefall into mental illness than I suspected. I am protected only by a thin layer of pills. That’s a little hard to stomach, and a little frightening too. But 40 is a good time to learn a lesson that’s been trying to teach itself to me for a couple decades or so.

In a few years, I will have been officially mentally ill for half my life. That’s longer than any intimate relationship I’ve ever had. As long as my entire formal education lasted. My mental illness has already been around as long as a child that is ready to go off to college or to buy a ticket to see an x-rated film.

Speaking of children, I am old enough to be a grandmother, but have never been pregnant. And that’s fine with me. Instead of a biological clock I was born with a smoke detector. Any time things got a little steamy, it would go off and remind me that no, actually I don’t want to be a Mom.

I sometimes wonder if the smoke detector was a free gift that came with my mental illness. If I’d never gone nuts, would I have wanted the normal stuff people want—like a baby? I like babies. I love to see their little unfocussed eyes wandering around, their drooly little mouths sucking air, the swirl of hair on top of what is, let’s face it, baldness.

They’re beautiful, mesmerizing, heart stealers. But I’ve never wanted one of my own, or at least, I have never wanted one enough to go looking for one.

That’s lucky for me. Because my life would have been full of heartache if I’d had both my mental illness and a child to look after. No matter what anyone says about my right as a person with a mental health disability to have a child, I am quite sure that the best thing for me has been not to have one.

The hard part about turning 40 was knowing that, soon, it will be out of my hands. Soon it won’t matter if I want to have a child because soon my fertility will be replaced by lightning hot flashes. It made me panic, but I’m over that now. My body has its own wisdom and I’m content to let it be.

Besides, this mental illness of mine has been child enough. A handful. It’s almost sunk my ship a few times. I’ve had to feed it pills daily, rest according to its schedule and pander to its needs and neuroses. It’s been delicate and tentative, like a shy child. But it’s my child.

Bizarre as that may seem. I have a relationship with this illness, am beginning to anyway.

My mental illness still has a lot to teach me, and I have only recently become a willing learner. It’s a bit like an accordion, a breathing thing I have to learn to play. It’s the bean vine to my bean pole. The grown up child that now sits across from me, ready to engage in a grown-up conversation about the future.

Now that I am older, I can see that my mental illness, once an unruly kid, is something I can cooperate and compromise with. It is closer to me than my own skin, but it also stands apart, almost like a person in its own right. I need to respect its limits and accept its limitations, if we are to co-exist in a friendly sort of way.

It is sometimes said that mental illnesses can “burn themselves out,” disappearing from our lives in our later years. I have a feeling this won’t be the case for me—that my illness will be with me as long as I am with this earth. If so, it is a good thing I have a certain fondness for it.

It is, after all, a child of my own mind, one that is still teaching me the value of being gentle with myself, and kind to others. It may not be the sort of child most people hope for but it is the kind that has been given me, to teach me the things I need to know before I am myself birthed into the next world. Besides, just like a real child, I can’t send it back.

Anna Quon is a Nova Scotia-based writer, and a much-cherished ongoing contributor to Irked Magazine.

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