Mental illness from "summary" of The Liars' Club by Mary Karr
"Mental illness" was a term that hovered around our house like a dark cloud, always threatening to burst. It manifested itself in different ways – sudden outbursts of anger, bouts of depression that seemed to swallow my mother whole, and erratic behavior that left us all on edge. We never knew when it would strike next, or how severe the storm would be. My mother's mental illness was like a shadow that followed her everywhere, casting a dark pall over our family life. It was a constant presence, lurking in the background, ready to pounce at any moment. We learned to tiptoe around it, to speak in hushed tones and tread lightly, lest we set it off. Sometimes, my mother's illness would flare up in a burst of manic energy, sending her into a frenzy of activity that left us all breathless. Other times, it would descend like a heavy fog, enveloping her in a cloud of despair that seemed impossible to penetrate. We never knew which version of her we would encounter on any given day, and that uncertainty kept us all on edge. As children, my sister and I struggled to make sense of our mother's illness. We knew that something was wrong, but we couldn't quite grasp the full extent of it. We watched as she veered between highs and lows, never knowing where she would land next. It was like living with a stranger, someone who looked like our mother but behaved in ways that were foreign to us. Looking back, I can see now that my mother's mental illness was a heavy burden that she carried with her every day. It colored her perceptions, distorted her reality, and shaped her interactions with the world around her. It was a part of her that she could never escape, no matter how hard she tried. In the end, my mother's mental illness defined her in ways that none of us could fully understand. It was a shadow that loomed over our family, casting a long and dark silhouette on our lives. And no matter how hard we tried to outrun it, we could never quite shake free from its grasp.
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