Why a blog about children of mentally ill parents?
I’ve been looking for freedom is not actually by David Hasselhoff, but by Marc Seaberg – and on top of that, it’s almost a 1:1 rendition at the behest of Jack White, the father of the whole thing, who also produced a German version for Tony Marschall in 1978.
Freedom, that’s what it’s all about.
And that’s why it was perfect that the song was sung in the context of German unity. I was 14 at the time and only got to know the song later through the media. German reunification had passed me by, while I was yet to be confronted with the issue of freedom.
However, the basis for this question had already become clear: my mother developed paranoid schizophrenia.
Unlike the protagonist of the song, I was not a “rich man’s son”, i.e. not the son of rich parents. And I didn’t set out in search of my freedom either. Because I couldn’t.
Inner and outer freedom
Freedom in the sense of one’s own personality and one’s own life has two sides, as I only learned much later: Inner freedom and outer freedom.
External freedom means being formally free, i.e. everything that has to do with regulations or material boundaries. What can I do on the basis of my material and formal resources? What opportunities do I have? Winning the lottery, for example, creates a lot of freedom, but also the legal right to travel.
There is also inner freedom.
This inner freedom is much more difficult to grasp because it is not spread out in front of you and is much harder to quantify, i.e. measure, than the contents of a bank account, for example. Although it is also dependent on external circumstances, the manifestation of its self is not primarily in the power of its owner.
Inner freedom must be made possible and then learned. The goal is the inner autonomy of the individual.
On the other hand, there is the assumption of responsibility and a sense of obligation. So it’s all about emotional issues, because a guilty conscience also plays a role. These factors restrict inner freedom.
A mentally ill mother holds her children accountable – at least that’s how it was for me. At the same time, the child wants to take responsibility for a task that it must fail at: saving the mother. However, this does not happen for the mother and for her sake, but for the sake of the child, because it needs the mother.
The mother, in turn, loses the opportunity to be a mother as a result of the illness. She also loses the chance to teach the child what it means to live a life of their own.
This is all about the child’s inner freedom, because they are trapped in taking responsibility at home instead of trying to find out for themselves. It is not free inside because it knows that there is a mother at home who cannot bear its paranoia and is afraid of being killed.
How is the child supposed to feel good about going his or her own way in such a situation?
So this blog is another step towards inner freedom for myself. This also includes being able to say what is. That is why it is written under a clear name. Because hiding behind a pseudonym would be tantamount to playing the game of bondage.
So when Hasselhoff sings that he searches from door to door to find his freedom, this blog is another door.
„…and the search goes on!“
