Amra Pajalić - Things Nobody Knows But Me

THINGS
NOBODY
KNOWS
BUT ME

THINGS NOBODY
KNOWS BUT ME

AMRA PAJALI

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

www.transitlounge.com.au

Copyright 2019 Amra Pajali

First published 2019

Transit Lounge Publishing

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the

Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

Cover image: Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Cover and book design: Peter Lo

Printed in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group

Pre-publication data is available from the

National Library of Australia: trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN: 978-1-925760-20-0

Dedicated to my mother, Fatima, and all the women who came before me whose lives were full of sacrifice, so that mine could be full of choices. And for my daughter, Sofia, who stands on the shoulders of these strong women and is able to reach for the sky because of them.

AUTHORS NOTE

This is my story, but more than that it is my mothers story. I have changed names in order to protect the anonymity of some people, and in some instances I have also changed identifying details.

In writing this book I have used my notebooks, journals and diaries, medical records obtained through Freedom of Information requests, research undertaken at the State Library of newspaper articles, interviews of my family and my own (possibly fallible) memory.

As such, while every event depicted in this book did occur, I have used fictional devices to recreate dialogue and setting. In some instances I have also compressed timelines slightly in order to create narrative flow.

PROLOGUE

I was sixteen when my wagging caught up to me. It started when I stayed home to ensure my mother didnt drive while she was under the influence of her illness, but I continued to forge her signature long after she recovered.

I ended up in my high school counsellors office. Mum has nervous breakdowns, I told Miss Meadowcroft.

She frowned. What does she suffer from?

What do you mean? Mum called it Slom ivaca in Bosnian, which translated to nervous breakdown in English. Thats what she and everyone I knew called it, and thats what Id grown up telling people.

Miss Meadowcroft asked me what happened when Mum got sick. I explained how she got insomnia and cleaned the walls with bleach until her hands were pruned and wrinkled. That she went on shopping sprees at Copperart and emptied our bank account. The way she physically transformed, with her green eyes glowing as if she were drug-affected, and her speech slurring as if her tongue were too thick in her mouth. The delusions that spewed from her lips: that she was going to speak to the President of the United States and stop wars, or that she was training to race an Olympic champion.

Miss Meadowcroft nodded as I spoke.

I explained that there was no logic to Mum getting sick. She got sick when she was taking her medication, sometimes she got sick when she didnt. She got sick when she was stressed, and she got sick when she wasnt. The one thing that was a constant was the complete shock I felt every time. It seemed as if her illness transformed her overnight from a caring mother to a self-involved woman who was unaware of anyone else.

Miss Meadowcrofts questions made me think. I went home that night and asked Mum what her illness was called.

Nervous breakdown.

What causes it?

The doctors told me that there was a chemical imbalance in the brain.

I was bewildered. This was the first time Id thought of her illness as something that could be controlled.

When I returned the next time to talk to Miss Meadowcroft she had a surprise for me.

I did some research about your mum. She handed me some sheets of paper that were photocopied pages from a book. Does this sound like your Mums illness?

I took the sheets and began reading. The sheets were about manic depression and described it as an illness that was characterised by manic highs and depressive lows. When the person was suffering from mania they engaged in impetuous and reckless behaviour, including spending money, being sexual and losing inhibitions. When they suffered from lows they would struggle to get out of bed and become suicidal. (More recently the illness has become known as bipolar disorder.)

As I read I felt a shock thrumming through my system. I didnt know it at the time, but this moment would change my life.

This is my mum, I gasped. There was a pattern to my mothers illness. It wasnt something that just happened, but instead there were signs that until this point I had been ignorant about.

I went home with the pieces of paper. Mum, I think you have manic depression.

Mum looked at me with curiosity. Some doctors said I have schizophrenia, some said manic depression.

This is all about you. I handed her the pieces of paper.

She took them from me and read.

This is what you have, isnt it? I asked.

Mum nodded.

Why did you call it nervous breakdown?

Thats what we called it at home.

My mothers homeland was Bosnia, once called Yugoslavia, which used to be under Communist rule. Mental illness was stigmatised and shameful. This had shaped her view of her illness as an affliction and a curse. Her rudimentary English also made it difficult for her to engage in the medical jargon surrounding her illness.

After this, everything changed. It was like a veil had been ripped away from my eyes: I stopped seeing Mums illness as an entity that had no logic. Having the correct label meant understanding that Mum had no control when she was under the influence of her illness. Until then I had judged her and found her wanting: as a mother, a wife, a human being. I realised I couldnt judge Mum for her failings. She was a victim of her own brain chemistry, and as her daughter my role was to accept and love her for who she was, not who I wanted her to be.

This is our story.

PART I

A DIFFERENT KIND OF MUM

When I was four years old I watched my mum climb the stairway to heaven and wondered what she would find when she got up there. Would she see God or would she just fall back to earth?

It had all started a few weeks earlier. While Mum had always been religious, now her fervour became all-consuming until she was convinced that God was communicating with her.

I was in the backyard with my two-year-old brother. We were sitting in the leftover sand from one of my fathers many do-it-yourself projects, making shapes with plastic containers and water, while Mum hung out the washing. Mum suddenly stopped and cocked her head as if she was listening to someone. She dropped the sheet in her hands and approached the tall shelves my father had built to store his tools, which ran up the wall of the house and reached the roof. Mum looked like an angel in her long, flowing dress, her brown hair a halo.

Yes, Allah, I know you are looking after me and I will prove it to everyone, Mum said to God. She closed her eyes as she took her first step, climbing the shelf as if it was a ladder. Bismillah, ir-Rahman, ir-Rahim.In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, she prayed in Arabic, the shared language of all Muslim prayers, as she climbed.

My mother had told me that God was all-knowing, all-seeing, but that he had no shape or body. I didnt know where to send my prayers and so I watched mutely, terrified of Mum falling or the untethered shelves falling on her, as I waited for God to reveal himself.