More Motivation

 I also feel compelled to share my personal experiences with the legal system. I never hired a lawyer but successfully managed to go to court for full custody of Ian (took two tries, the first set of paperwork was rejected because my mother consented but upon reading the papers I was informed that she could not simply sign over parental rights given her mental illness) and get my dad a legal guardian in charge of his medical decisions to hopefully make it possible to get him psychiatric help even without his consent (epic fail- more on that later). I never would have thought any of this possible had I not gone through these processes myself, so I want others to know how I was able to do these things, at age 21 and then again and 25, in the hopes that if these experiences are somehow relevant to their lives, this knowledge can help them.

Arguably my primary motivation for writing given its relevance to the others is my desire to compile and analyze data, plain and simple. I have always been interested in understanding human behavior from a psychological perspective. My mom loved to read non-fiction crime books and by the time I reached middle school I had gone through her whole collection and then some. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was also interested in human behavior from a sociological perspective. The desire to understand people, how they think, and why they behave in particular ways has always been fascinating. Lots more on that later. By college I knew that I wanted to be a psychology major. I was well aware of my parent’s psychiatric issues and I think I wanted to understand what was going on in their minds, but also gain an understanding of myself, my personality, and my own thoughts and behaviors. 

Actually pursuing a career in any type of counseling or the mental health field though, hit too close to home, at least then. To detach myself from my own family and personal struggles, I preferred to study violent criminals and extreme deviance. I felt that I had a pretty complete understanding of mental illness and besides, had always been the confidant, listener, and advice giver for most if not all of my friends. I didn’t want my career to essentially be akin to how I communicated with friends in my personal life. When I realized that there was a criminology major in the area of sociology, I picked up that major as well. It was the best of both worlds: understanding criminals from multiple perspectives. Eventually I went on to earn a Master’s and Doctoral Degree in Sociology with an emphasis in Criminology, although I will say that after all of the training I am not convinced that social environments are the key to human behavior; instead, I believe that there are many keys and that the impact of each is highly variable based on individual cases and can never truly be measured or known.

So yet another goal of writing this is to share and understand my own very subjective perspective of one of life’s great mysteries and most hotly contested debates: nature vs. nurture; or, as I prefer to conceptualize it, biology vs. psychology vs. sociology. Not that these disciplines have to be in opposition to one another; they don’t at all and in my mind, are all equally valuable and interconnected. I can only share how my personal experiences, research, and training affect my perceptions and individual point of view regarding the interplay of how people are wired, how our environment contributes to the development of the machine that is our mind, and how outside forces impact who we become as adults, what we do, and how we live. I will explore this with regard to myself, my mom, but most of all, my dad. 

Motivation #1: Lack of Adequate Resources

Still, it’s about more than paying tribute to the positive elements in my life and understanding and sharing how they saved me and made me who I am today. It’s about more than facing the things in my life that I packed away in a neat little box in the depths of my brain while trying to deal with day to day life and achieving my goals. And it’s about more than using this journey to help others deal with similar life struggles, understanding their hardships better through mine, or finding their silver lining so that they can heal (if I can be so lucky to help even one person in any of those ways).  

I can’t share my experiences without addressing the current state of resources available to deal with the severely mentally ill in contemporary society in The United States. Over the years, I have made many attempts to get my father the long term psychiatric care he would need to stabilize on medication and end his cycle of homeless, jail, mental hospital, release too soon, repeat. Others have tried to help as well: social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, police officers, attorneys, you name it- and all over the country! I am grateful for the countless conversations I have had with caring people who were legitimately concerned with my father's best interests. 

Unfortunately, there were always road blocks to impede my dad's progress. Some were put in place with the best of intentions to protect individual rights; for instance, HIPPA. I can't tell you how many times HIPPA worked against my efforts to communicate with people involved in my father's care in a timely fashion when the clock was always ticking. Other hurdles were due to unavailable, nonexistent, or inadequate mental health services designed for people like my father. All of the hospitals and state run psychiatric facilities my father has been admitted in over the years emphasize short term band aids i.e. "stabilize, then release" given institutional constraints (legal issues, budget limitations, overcrowding) rather than longer term solutions. Later as I go through my journey trying to get my dad back, specific examples will make this sad truth undeniably apparent. 

The only exception may be the state hospital where my father currently resides, but only because he has pending criminal charges and is currently deemed incompetent, meaning that legally he can't be released- more on that later. And there are others just like dad roaming the streets, filling our jails, and living a sad, nomadic life without hope…with families that love them and want to help them get the help that they need. And it’s difficult to say but currently there is little to no hope for people like my dad. But there could be. And there should be.

Family Photo

The most recent and only complete photo I have (and to my knowledge that exists) of my immediate family-1993 ish...somewhat surprising since my family remained "intact" until 1999...

Locus of Control

I think a lot of how we deal with adversity comes down to the psychological concept of locus of control, or how people mentally process life events: internally or externally. The extent to which this response is learned cannot be overstated, although it is dynamic. I could justify walking around bitter and angry because my parents are more like children and I was thrown into an adult role when many my age were going away to college for four years of self discovery and freedom, and to be honest there were times when I had these thoughts. “It’s not fair. I didn’t ask for any of this.” 

Eventually, though, I was able to see that even though I truly had no control of my parent’s mental states and their selfishness (mom not focusing on our well being by being immersed in loneliness and dad’s choice to roam the country homeless, immersed in his delusions and psychotic break from reality), I did have control of my reactions to the cards I was dealt. Resenting them would do me no good and although I spent many years trying to control the uncontrollable, something (some things) gave me the strength to focus on aspects of my life I could manage: Ian’s well being, my education. In many ways, Ian saved me. Having another person who relied on me and needed me forced me to be strong and stay on a productive path. School saved me by giving me a future to look forward to and a goal to distract me from self/family pity and wallowing. 

I became a master compartmentalizer though (not necessarily the most adaptive coping mechanism but it “worked” at that time in my life)…which brings me back to my urge to write about my experiences having mentally ill parents and raising Ian. Focusing on the present was my defense mechanism and it helped me when I needed it most, but at some point it is time to open the floodgates and not simply deal, but heal. That time is now. So through this process I hope to heal and maybe, just maybe, in some small way, help others (or at least one other person, really) be better equipped to deal with hard knocks. A lot to hope for, I know. 

Glimmer of Silver

But my desire to share this is more than just an opportunity for catharsis, although acknowledging the positive elements of my life so long ago and nearly forgotten is just that.  It is also a chance for me to share my thoughts on how certain advantaged dimensions of my upbringing saved my life and sanity, arguably more so than for some others for whom the mental illness of family members is an overarching life theme. It is possible to overcome, and thrive. Life is not always easy and there are times when rather than seeing the brighter side, people drown in their sorrows: “Why this, why me?” The only thing that kept me going over the years (well besides the fact that I felt I had no choice given my perception as being  the only person in my immediate family capable of being responsible for everyone else) was the positive side: “Whatever didn’t kill me, made me stronger.” It was a lot more difficult to acknowledge this while I was going through some of the more trying and devastating moments, but in retrospect it has become crystal clear. And I know it sounds cliché but once internalized, it was life changing. It gave me the confidence to believe, or rather know, that I can handle anything that comes my way in life. It made me look at others in my life who have had a smoother path thus far and empathize with the possibility that one day, they may experience something difficult that they are less equipped to handle than I would be. It could be something more or less traumatic than what I have dealt with in my life; being thrown a curveball without ever having played the sport is unimaginable to me; I am a seasoned athlete (in the figurative sense only, I assure you).  Everything is relative and for that I am thankful (now). 

Tribute

Part of me wants to make tribute to my family for providing such a strong foundation that allowed me to survive the hardships to come as soon as I reached adulthood. First and foremost my father who, despite being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic before I was even born, managed to raise and care for me, my brothers, my mom, and even my grandmother  (his mother in law) with Alzheimer’s Disease for so many years. A “sane” man may not have been able to handle the responsibilities as well as my dad did, and for so long.  But unfortunately he eventually broke, which also plays a huge role in my desire or more accurately, need, to tell his story along with how it affected my family and me. When people see the homeless roaming the streets or panhandling, many assume that they are just lazy drug addicts, which is not usually the case. So many are, in fact, severely mentally ill. I do not know what I would have done or who I would be without my dad’s love and support throughout my life growing up. 

I also feel compelled to acknowledge my mom, who I considered to be "the unstable one" growing up because she was in and out of short term psychiatric hospitals over the years. Her concern for my success is an important dimension of the strength I have called upon to get through difficult life circumstances. From a very young age, my mom instilled a strong sense of self confidence in my intellectual abilities and did everything she could to allow them to flourish: reading with me, providing me with educational tools, sending me to enrichment programs and private school with the best possible education. She facilitated my passion for reading and learning in general which had a huge impact on my early life, academic success as a child, teenager, and adult, and ultimately the person that I am today. 

And finally, my beloved grandmother, who sheltered me from what could have otherwise been a very different life had I been around my parents enough to realize that they had severe psychiatric issues from an early age. Growing up I spent as much, if not more, time with Grandma than it home; she mentored me and taught me things that remain with me to this day. She also provided the financial resources that facilitated my education and ability to fit in with my private school peers despite mom’s modest income as a social worker and dad’s role as Mr. Mom. Despite the underlying family circumstances which could have detrimentally affected my psychological well being, the first twelve years of my life were relatively functional; arguably more so than some families with fewer dysfunctional attributes. Empirical evidence from the childhood psychology literature suggests that the first decade of an individual’s life has the largest effect on personality development and in my mind, this was undoubtedly accurate, at least for me.  

Why? Part 2

I will never have objective answers to tell me exactly how my brain chemistry, upbringing, and environment contributed to the development of my personality, attitudes, and behavior choices , but I am okay with that.  What I will have is my own subjective answers once this book manuscript is complete, which is everything a hopeless overanalyzer could strive for. Part of my motivation for this project is undoubtedly selfish. My rational, logical mind has processed everything that has happened in my life regarding my family, but I have not opened myself up to the emotional repercussions of having two mentally ill parents. I often try to wrap my head around what’s worse; never having social support from my parents once I reached adulthood, or the pressure of being the sole provider of social support as a young adult. And maybe “worse” is the wrong word because there are positives: Living my life without having parental "support" has made me so independent that I know that the only person I need in life is me. I think about the adults out there who are overly dependent on their loving, supportive parents and consequently, miss out on important lessons about themselves that life has to offer. They get less of a chance to learn than I have had. Not to mention the reality of the cycle of life and that one day, their parents will not be around to hold them up and support them. I don’t ever have to worry about that because I know I am okay on my own. Then there’s the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. Too much too bear at times? It certainly seemed so, especially when so many things were happening at once. But it taught me resilience and gives me confidence in myself to know that there is nothing I can’t handle. And part of me needs to feel needed, probably because it is all I know and am used to. But at the end of the day I know that if my brothers get into a situation where they need advice or support or someone to bail them out (being an enabler is the flip side of that, and I have been guilty of that), that they know that they have me.