The Other Cancer

My grandmother had cancer. The narrative was straightforward. Cigarettes led to lung cancer. The chemotherapy didn’t work. Then she died. She nor I were ashamed of that simple story.

My mother’s story is more complicated but I try to pretend her afflictions are as simple. When someone asks about her, I tell the truth. She’s not okay. She’s depressed. I may add that she has dementia induced by alcohol abuse and she lives in a locked nursing facility. Probably for the rest of her life. I am honest for at least two reasons.

First, outside of my close friends, I don’t like adult conversations. Conversations at the office and kindergarten-parent cocktail parties are superficial and forgettable. I don’t care about your kid’s sleep schedule or where you went last weekend. Talking about my mother is always real. More often than not, someone reciprocates with his own family’s story of mental illness or substance abuse. It often seems like everyone has an alcoholic in the family.

Perhaps I over share in reaction to my mother’s shame and denial. I can’t recall when she told me she was a bipolar manic depressive. It might have been near the end of college. I’m not sure. She didn’t tell me her diagnosis as much as she confessed a dark, long-held secret. One of the most bedeviling questions is why she was ashamed of her illness. Was it part of the disease? The other side of her I-can-do-anything mania? More precisely, who was ashamed? The illness in her? The blackness in her? The Johnson daughter? She is a Johnson and the Johnsons can be a stoic bunch. Whining and excuses are frowned upon.

At the time I didn’t grasp the significance of her confession, but, thinking back on it now, my childhood makes more sense. Things that seemed unrelated now make sense in a framework of depression: her short, intense friendships that ended after she’d felt wronged. Impressing the hell out of new employers with her charm and passion only to have it unravel because “they played games” or “did her wrong” as the paranoia set in.

Most significantly, her failed marriage to my father makes sense. Then, I thought of it as a child. Now I think of it as a man and a husband and I think I would not want to be married to that woman, my mother. When I was 8, I did miss seeing my father every day. Every other weekend was my reality, but I wanted more. As an adult, I can’t blame him for what must have been the dread of every interaction with her–the family and divorce court dates, arguments over money for tuition and clothes, routine swaps of us children–I’d hate to have a crazy ex-wife who had custody of my children. He never used that word, but I’d be surprised if he hasn’t thought it. However infrequently he saw us, I can forgive him because I wouldn’t want to talk to her either.

The nice thing about cancer was that my grandma was my grandma until the end. She lost her hair and she was always tired, but her spirit never left. The disease never altered her mind. I don’t know who my mother is and I’ll never know. Which parts were her and which parts are the depression? Or the psychotropic drugs? Was the disease crying, or was she really that sad? Any narrative I settle on is subjective and mine alone (even my sister, who lived through it with me, has her own, different version of events). Somewhere there is a medical record that can explain my grandmother’s passing. There’s no comparable record that can tell me which parts of my childhood were governed my mother’s mania versus the stretches with a successful therapist versus my real mom.

So, for my own mental health, this is the narrative I’ve settled on: In 1975, my mother made a solemn promise to herself to be the best mom in the world. She took her job seriously and held herself together because she’d decided that my sister and I were the most important people in the world. And we depended on her, the registered nurse who grew up in West Virginia and moved to Harlem when she was 19. She had the means to provide an upbringing from Good Times and somehow turned it into The Cosby Show. To this day I don’t know how to identify my class background. Am I from nineteen seventies Harlem? It doesn’t always feel like it. She got me a scholarship to an Upper East Side private school. With the help of friends she funded lessons for karate, violin, and tennis. I once went to a summer camp that had a lake and row boats (She could not afford it the next year, something she cited through tears as evidence of being a bad mother. I hadn’t thought to consider it an annual treat and didn’t know what she was talking about.) When my guidance counselor suggested a vocational high school despite my high math and science scores, she paid him a visit the next day. I wasn’t in the room, but I suspect he was never the same after. She really began to unravel a little after 2001. It’s not a coincidence that my sister graduated from college that year. With both of us out of the house, what was there to do? Who was there to hold it together for? She, or her disease, had long ago decided that she was worthless. What followed was all manner of self-sabotage–a hundred little events that somehow led to her winding up incarcerated in a skilled nursing facility in Concord, California. She thinks of herself as a New Yorker. If she knew where she was, she’d just hate it.

The last reason I try to speak freely about these things is to fulfill my small duty to destigmatize mental illness. Maybe my mom would be living in New York if, somewhere along the way, she’d accepted herself as an ill person in need of treatment instead of a flawed person who was never good enough.

About the Author: Nicolas King is a New Yorker living in San Francisco. He is the COO, coach and chauffeur for his wife and their two sons.

Fighting Thoughts

In the 2004 film The Aviator, Howard Hughes is shown in his screening room fully naked, his hair grown extensively long, unshaven watching the same movie over and over. Howard Hughes had obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD for short. OCD affects about 3.3 million adults in the U.S.  The disorder usually first appears around childhood, adolescence or early childhood.

Last July my sister wasn’t acting like herself; she had become very erratic waking up in the middle of the night, knocking on the doors of our neighbors. She’d beg them to take her to the hospital. My sister believed she had a life threatening illness and that she needed to be taken to the hospital right away. She would go to the hospital only to be told nothing was wrong.  This would go on for about a week. When I ask her about this now she says, “I knew it was crazy, but I had to keep going to get assurance that nothing was wrong.”

Many nights my sister would go to sleep only to get back up and pace around, get dressed and then leave. One morning, my mother and I were awakened by the Westchester Medical Center’s crisis team who called to let us know that my sister was there.  We didn’t know she had left the house.  When I went to see her the following day, I didn’t recognize my sister.  Well, I did but it wasn’t the person I was used to seeing. She was disheveled and unkempt. We were allowed to sit and talk to my sister for a few hours.  We laughed and joked as we usually did, but we  still couldn’t hide the fact that we were in a mental ward of a hospital. While we sat and talked, occasionally my sister rambled on about being terminally ill.

My sister was in the mental ward for the next ten days.  During that time, we traveled back and forth to visit her. On the day my sister was expected to come home, the doctors didn’t believe she was ready to leave.  M  sister refused to stay.  She  told me, “I couldn’t stay there any longer. I had to get out and try to live my life.” That night my sister came home. I would like to say that she never went back there, but I can’t. She was again hospitalized for two days but finally got it together and has not returned since.

Every day is a battle for my sister not to return to days of constant obsessions and rituals. Some days if the sun is shining she’s in good spirits; if it’s raining she’s down. Some days she has to perform some type of ritual to keep from getting anxious. Like most people with OCD she also has to go to therapy and receive counseling. But it’s not all violins and teardrops;  she is able to live a normal life and go about her day.

June’s submission is an excerpt from an one-act play, Scrambled.  Scrambled takes place in one of your ordinary, neighborhood greasy spoons in New York City. A young woman is sitting at a table with her Mother. The restaurant is empty except for the handsome waiter/ actor who is taking their breakfast order.  Everything appears to be normal, until the Mother begins to have hallucinations very similar to the delusions she’d had in her disturbed past.

Scrambled

DAUGHTER

Give her same as me. And two coffees too.

WAITER

Back in a jiffy.

(Waiter exits.)

MOTHER

I told you. I don’t want anything.

DAUGHTER

Why not, Ma?

MOTHER

Didn’t you see him?

DAUGHTER

See him what?

MOTHER

His head.

DAUGHTER

His head? It looked normal to me.

MOTHER

It was green.

DAUGHTER

Green! His head was not green!

MOTHER

Yes. It was green. Bright green and his eyes were. Oh God, his eyes were yellow. Lemon yellow with red specks.

DAUGHTER

Mom, he did not have yellow eyes. Or red specks.

MOTHER

Yes. He did. I know exactly what I saw.

DAUGHTER

What on earth are you talkin’ about? That guy looked as normal as you and me. And he was kinda cute, too.

MOTHER

No. He was not cute. And he didn’t take your order. He was taking your measurements.

DAUGHTER

Excuse me.

MOTHER

Yes. To see if you’d fit.

DAUGHTER

Fit into what? His arms. I’d like that.

MOTHER

No. Fit in the ship.

DAUGHTER

What ship?

MOTHER

Their ship. I’ve seen this all before.

DAUGHTER

Maybe I should ask him for a date and he can invite me on his ship. It sounds kinda mysterious and sexy.

MOTHER

I’m not fooling around here.

DAUGHTER

Mom, you’re freakin’ me out. Please.

(Waiter returns and places two coffees on the table.)”

This is a short excerpt from Scrambled, a one-act play. For the full one-act play, contact at june0spa@aol.com

About the Author: June Rachelson-Ospa

June Rachelson-Ospa is writer and producer.  Along with her partner, Daniel Nieden, June has the following credits with her company Bozomoon Productions.
(Book, Lyrics and Music) (www.bozomoonshows.com) Producing credits: MEESTER AMERIKA (St Luke’s Theater).  NO MORE WAITING (NYC premiere/Duplex). MIDTOWN CHILDREN’S MUSICAL THEATRE FESTIVAL

Writing Credits: WELCOME TO TOURETTAVILLE Very Special Arts Playwright Discovery Award: performed at Kennedy Center; BOLLYWOOD AND VINE with Edward Jordon; RAPUNZARELLA WHITE (Woodlawn Theatre/San Antonio and Bergen County Players) TRUE COLORS OF WEEDLE. Ship of Dreams (from T’ville) featured on CD: “Songs for Children 3 To 103.” UP AGAINST THE WALL (vocals Rock Icon Peppy Castro.

As Producers:  OH RATS (Doug Katsaros, San Antonio, Oregon); GUARDIAN ANGEL (Bramble/Katsaros/La Mama), for TRU Musical series: ADDING MACHINE.  June’s lyrics: GONE TO TEXAS (Globe Winner/San Antonio), STELLALUNA (Scholastic Ent./MGM). TRIANGLE (Book-June, Music-Mark Barkan).

Daniel/June are currently developing: THE HOTEL BELLECLAIRE (Music, Kezia Hirsey), STUPID WIG (Music, Daniel Neiden), THE ACCIDENTAL PERVERT  Theme Song, TOURETTAVILLE (as an animated film of a Dr. John song, by Jacob Ospa) BULLY ON YOU (Book, Stephen McCall). WELCOME TO TOURETTAVILLE 2012 at 13th REP in NYC.

Compassion, Kindness and Humor: One Therapist’s First Experience on Working with the Mentally Challenged

I’ll tell you a funny story. I got “bamboozled”, many years ago, into working with my first group of mentally challenged patients at our local community outreach center. I am a Creative Arts Therapist who had worked in many environments around Southern California including Battered Women’s shelters, Children’s Hospitals, Prisons, Schools and a great deal of Drug & Alcohol Rehab, which is what I was doing when this story takes place.

I was facilitating a group of addicts for the Prop 36 program at our local Mental Health Clinic in Los Angeles when a terrified young intern interrupted my class asking if I could help her. Apparently some policemen were at the front of the building with a woman they had picked up on the streets who said she was being treated here. I excused myself and went out front to find a couple of overworked, overstressed cops standing next to a lady who was clearly disoriented. Behind her the policemen were rolling their eyes in the way folks do who do not understand mental illness, and asked me if I was in charge. “I don’t know about that,” I responded, “but let’s see what we can do for this lady.” She interrupted the formalities by exclaiming, “Thank God you’ve arrived, I have something critical to tell you about.”

Turning to her I smiled and said, “Ok. May I first ask you your name?”

“Nancy.”

I asked her if she was seeing a doctor at this facility and she indicated yes, but hadn’t yet come for her first appointment. A-ha. She was impatient to impart her information to us. Apparently the policemen hadn’t wanted to listen. Perhaps I would.

“So are you currently on any meds, Nancy?”

“I haven’t gotten them yet.”

“Ok. So I will put in a call to your doctor or the attending tonight, but I must tell you that the earliest you could be seen is tomorrow, I would guess. Do you have somewhere safe to go tonight?”

“Look.” she said urgently, “Forget all that. Jon Bon Jovi is about to go on a tri-county murder spree and I have come to warn you about it.”

That pretty much changed the direction of the conversation. The policemen were doing the twirly finger around the ear movement behind her back, but I looked her deeply in the eyes and said, “Thank you, Nancy. I’m so glad you have come here to tell us. May I ask how you learned of this?”

“On the radio.”

“Ah- yes. Ok. Good. Well, Nance, we’ll be able to take it from here. May I ask again if you’ve got a safe place to go tonight?” (hoping the policemen would not have to take her to the local hospital).

“Yes, I live with my sister.”

“Well then would you let these nice gentlemen escort you home and make sure you come back tomorrow for your appointment with the doctor?”

“Yes.” And with that she left, feeling safe, and having been heard.

I got a call the following week from the director of the Clinic asking if I would take on the job of “Sober Events Coordinator” – essentially bringing what I lovingly refer to as “Karaoke Therapy” to the clinic for the outpatients. Frankly, I had been used to dealing with the addicts and other “normies” in the program and assumed that my new group would be made up of these individuals, all folks seeking to stay sober and find healthy outlets for their energy. What I found the first night was most of the mentally challenged population of our community, both homeless and family secure. It turned out to be one of the most rewarding, wonderful experiences of my life.

I ran that group for many years until budget cuts and the financial crisis hit our small center and forced us to disband.  I will always remember that with kindness, respect, compassion and a lot of humor, we built a community that felt safe and honored. A haven away from the weird looks and hurtful behavior these wonderful folks endured on the streets. I would serve a full dinner to anyone who would show up, have a wonderful roundtable of discussion and stories, and then retreat to our foyer, where we would sing our hearts out for the rest of the evening. I treated them like they were the stars of American Idol and they loved it. I will admit that it was some of the worst singing you could imagine, but came with the biggest smiles one could ever see. You have not heard George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” until you have heard it sung by a heavily medicated patient dealing with paranoid schizophrenia. Priceless.

I still see my “singers” all the time around town and each one comes up to smile and share their stories with me and talk about how much our group meant to them. I still get emails from some of the participants, extraordinary letters that could only be written by the special folks with these challenges, and I always love to write back and praise their work and thank them for taking the time to communicate with me.

The special care and kindness, the respect we show, the humor we can share with our mentally ill  brothers and sisters will offer untold benefits in the years to come. For them…and us.

e.e. cummings wrote a beautiful piece on this subject which has really become my mantra as I continue my practice at Rehearse for Life.

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals

that deep inside us something is valuable,

worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder,

spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

-e.e. cummings

Amen.

 About the Author:  Bradford Bancroft, MFT, RDT

Bradford Bancroft, MFT, RDT had a long career in the performing arts before turning the games, improvisations and role-play he learned as an actor into therapeutic techniques. Bradford studied music at Yale, Film and Theatre at California Institute of the Arts and then got his Masters in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University. He has a private practice in Glendale, California and continues to offer his Rehearse For Life seminars around the country. Contact him at RehearseForLife@aol.com. or at www.bradfordbancroft.com

Help me to spread the word. Please share this post with someone and encourage them to consider submitting. You can never be sure who might be struggling themselves or have a family story to share.

Why aren’t more men submitting?  Please answer my quick poll. Also, please share any comments or thoughts on how I might get more men to share their stories.

Finding My Way Home

We would be awakened in the middle of the night by my parent’s fighting.  Then there were unexpected bursts of rage from my mother at us and strangers on the street.  My mother, a young Jamaican immigrant, must have found it challenging to traverse the cultural divide of island life to big city life.  And yet, over the years her untreated mental illness led to job losses, isolation from family and friends, homelessness and at its height several hospitalizations in mental wards throughout the city.  Sadly, I followed suit to a much smaller degree but somewhere deep inside of me because I resembled my mother so closely I thought that she and I were destined to have the same life.

My psychotic episodes during my daughter’s first year of her life resulted in two hospitalizations: one in the Bronx and the other at Harlem Hospital.  Soon after being released, I was given the directive that I needed to be on Lithium for the rest of my life and remember sitting in a large psychiatrist’s outpatient waiting room while other people exhibited side effects from the drug:  shaking legs, off putting demeanors, etc.  I took myself off of the medication without a doctor’s help and proceeded to spend the next year in bed debilitated by depression.  My mother took care of me and my daughter who would toddle over to the bed I slept in while I remained incapacitated and terrified that I would never regain my strength enough to work and support us.  As a young, black woman who was a single parent, my resources were limited and I did not know many people who had dealt with mental illness or even talked about it.  People just tried to be there for me but were at a loss as to what to do.  My sister made the tough decision to have me hospitalized once I became a danger to myself and others.  My behavior during the nervous breakdowns put me in dangerous situations where I’d roam the streets, talk to strangers, give my mink jacket away for a bag of weed, break windows, talk to myself and climb up on top of a totally unknown person’s van.  The owner of the van tried to swipe me down using his cane as I tried to dodge the attack.

It is a wonder I did not get seriously hurt during my escapades.  I was even told later that I tried to walk the yellow line down the middle of the street while cars were on the road.  I would call people randomly in my quest to connect but with a disconnected way of communicating.  A few times my daughter’s father tried to find me and return me to safety but basically I was unreachable.  I managed after a year of debilitation to gain my strength and slowly head back to the work force.  I later was introduced to a wonderful support group that gave my life an anchor and which led me to therapy which I have been going to off and on for the past fifteen years.  I went through another depression which was triggered by an emotionally abusive relationship and decided to take medication this time around.  I was referred to an excellent psychiatrist through a therapist who told me I didn’t need to suffer the way I did.  After encouragement from a friend in my group, I mentioned it at a support group and several people came over to me later to say they too were on medication.  This helped me to feel less shame about needing medication during a rough emotional period.  I stayed on it for six years and was weaned off of it when I wanted to have another child.  I have still had to deal with the effects of the depression but have shown neither signs of clinical depression nor any serious psychosis.  Staying connected to other people, going to therapy and my support groups which includes working out regularly with a great group of women keeps me  on track most of the time.

I seek many avenues of help unlike my mother.  I go to therapy, find ongoing spiritual support and have several networks to help me to stay healthy in various arenas of my life.  I have become less judgmental of my own mother’s severe mental health issues and her lack of support in finding the aid to give her a more livable existence.  I still have pain from growing up with someone who was out of control but I am lucky that forty years later there are many more avenues of help for me and that I was given the type of spirit to seek help when needed.  Sadly, whenever I walk into most self-help arenas there are very few people of color.  I have had many feelings about this over my twenty years of seeking help but miss that more people of color don’t seek this type of help.

About the Author: Frances Saunders

Frances has a B.A. in African-American studies from Smith College. She received training by the California Black Women’s Health Project to be an advocate for Black women in the political arena. She has an A.A.S. in Writing & Literature from the Borough of Manhattan Community College where she came in second place in their annual 2005 non-fiction writer’s contest.  She is currently working on a book entitled “The Black Woman’s Guide to Preparing for a Husband.”

Dan’s Story

I could tell by the way he sounded on the phone that all was not well, but the condition in which I found him shocked me. I had just flown fifteen hundred miles to be with my son Dan who was in college. I was stunned to discover that he had not eaten in over a week and was spending hours at a time sitting in one particular chair, hunched over with his head in his hands, doing absolutely nothing. He could barely walk from here to there and to top it all off, he was self-injuring. My son was in the throes of severe obsessive compulsive disorder.

What followed was our family’s desperate attempt to find the right help for Dan. We floundered and fought our way through a disorienting maze of treatments and programs, including seven therapists, ten medications, and a nine-week stay at a world-renowned residential program. Our frustrations turned to horror as it became evident that many of the drugs and therapies used to help Dan were actually hurting him. There were times I wondered if my son would ever be able to function again in society, or even worse, survive.

Dan was eventually weaned off of all his medications, and ultimately, it was Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy that saved his life. Three years after we sought treatment, Dan was back to himself and our nightmare was over. He is now a senior in college, living life to the fullest. Dan still has OCD, but OCD does not have him. There is a big difference.

Looking back on our journey, I am amazed at how few people, including many therapists, are aware that ERP Therapy is the treatment of choice for OCD. Also, obsessive compulsive disorder, no matter how severe, is absolutely treatable, and sufferers and their families need to know this. There is hope for all OCD sufferers. These are the initial reasons I became an advocate for OCD awareness (www.ocdtalk.wordpress.com), but my advocacy has expanded to include anything and everything to do with OCD and mental illness. The more open and educated we can become about mental health disorders, the more people will understand, and the better our chances will be of reducing the stigma that directly affects so many people. Chances are we all know people who suffer from OCD; it is often not difficult to hide it and they may just not be talking about it yet. I hope that my continued work as an advocate for OCD awareness will get people talking and sharing. To me that’s what it is all about; We are all in this fight together.

About the Author: Janet Singer

Janet Singer, an advocate for OCD awareness, is published regularly on various mental health web sites such as psychcentral.com. She is a non-clinician blogger for www.mentalhelp.net and the blogger for OCD Chicago (www.ocdchicago.org). She was an invited speaker at the October 2011 OCD Texas conference. Janet explores all topics related to OCD and shares what helped and what hurt in her son Dan’s recovery from this devastating disorder. While there were many lessons learned along the way, Janet feels the most powerful one of all is that there is always hope. She is committed to getting the word out that OCD, no matter how severe, is treatable. Janet has her own blog at:  www.ocdtalk.wordpress.com. She uses a pseudonym to protect her son’s privacy.

What If?

I met Stacey, my husband’s younger cousin when she was fifteen years old.  My son was a year or two younger.  I was off from work during the summer, so I brought Stacey into our home because she was home alone during the day.  Her mother was a nurse.

As Stacey spent time with us I noticed that she had a very poor concept of self.  When I took her shopping for clothing, she would select items off the rack that were a size 5, 7, or 9.  Stacey was easily a size 12 or 14. She would become absolutely infuriated when I would not buy her the small sized items unless she was willing to try them on in the fitting room.

I also observed that her mood would swing from high to low.  During the lows, Stacey would be verbally abusive to family and sleep for unusual periods of time.  During the highs, Stacey would laugh uncontrollably, speak in a high pitch voice, and talk excessively.  I got up the nerve to speak to my husband.  He chalked it off to “this is Stacey”.  I spoke to my mother-in-law and she felt that Stacey was going through the teen-age years.  I let it go.  I recognized denial.

Stacey went to school in England when she was 18.  By the second semester, Stacey was wildly spending on her American Express card.  She spent $8,000.00 on nothing substantial.  The school called her mother to come to England.  When mom arrived she found Stacey in her freezing cold room, lying naked under a sheet.  Her room was a wreck.  Mom brought Stacey home to the states and the situation went from bad to worse.  There were incidents of inappropriate interactions with young men, violence towards mom, wild spending sprees, and stalking a popular performer.

Mom could not take the pressure from family members.  She is going to be an attorney, and I do not want the fact that she had psychiatric treatment on her record.  Mom and Stacey moved to Jamaica, WI to escape scrutiny.  We heard from family in Jamaica that Stacey’s mental and physical health deteriorated.  Her weight had ballooned up to over three hundred and seventy five pounds.

In July 2009, Stacey and her mom came up to visit.  She would call my husband several times a day making irrational demands and was verbally abusive and even threatened to kill me.  Shortly after arriving in the US, she was hospitalized.  She remained in intensive care in a coma for three months until she died at the age of 37.

For over twenty years, the family attributed her behaviors to teen-age woes, menstruation, being rude, etc.  The topic of Stacey was like the pink elephant in the room.  No one was willing to discuss options to help Stacey.  Everyone remained in denial until the end.  I was surprised to hear her mother make a passionate statement at Stacey’s funeral about her mental health issues.  Unfortunately, her acknowledgment came too late to help Stacey.

Two and one half years later my husband and I still talk about what we could have done to change the course of Stacey’s life.  While there were many times that we were so frustrated with Stacey’s behavior, we have come to the realization that she was really miserable.  Stacey was crying out for help and no one answered.  This fact has left my husband with a lot of guilt.  He feels directly responsible for Stacey’s demise.  I too feel guilt and remorse that I did not do a better job to educate Stacey’s family.  But, how would I educate them when I had no knowledge or understanding of how Stacey’s problem should have been handled?

About the Author: Renee Turner Gregory

Renee Turner Gregory is a Bedford Stuyvesant resident.  She is married and has one son and three granddaughters.  Ms. Gregory is an attorney, a member of Community Board #3 and Brooklyn Alumnae Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta, a Girl Scout Leader, and a St. Philip’s Episcopal Church parishioner.  She is committed to community service that will help to enhance positive experiences for young people.

Lieutenant Jones reflects on his lifelong battle with depression which has included suicidal ideations.  Thankfully Lieutenant Jones is doing well on a journey to brightness, having  opened up and sought help.  Familiar Minds has compiled a listing of resources, including suicide prevention, to support people living with mental illness and their families. 

Lieutenant Jones’ Journey to Brightness

It’s not easy coming out of the closet exposing yourself;  you get ridiculed, people shy away from you and you’re called crazy when you expose yourself. I’m a retired Lieutenant from the Federal Bureau of Prisons and founder of Advocate4justice. I retired because of major depression, post traumatic stress disorder and severe anxiety disorder.

My depression started when I was a 6 year old boy. By the time I reached the 11^th grade I went to a doctor who told me I was suffering from depression and he wanted me to see a shrink – I refused! I was afraid of what people would say.

Refusing to get help was not the thing to do; mounting damage occurred due to my refusal to allow the doctors to help me at that time. When I was in college I started drinking to ease the pain. I also smoked reefer but it made me paranoid so I stopped. After graduating from college, I got married; prior to getting married, I shared my depression with my fiance but she brushed it off. This made me close up once again on the subject of depression and anxiety.

One day I began actually planning my suicide – I decided I would blow my brains out; the mental pain was so unbearable – suicide was my only choice; then I thought about the affect it would have on my kids.

My next plan was to get on the highway and drive as fast as I could but I thought to myself if I failed at committing suicide and ended up a quadriplegic or with brain damage then I would be in worse shape, I will be living and not able to take care of myself which would only make the pain worse. I put deep thought into this, even going so far as to think about the insurance company paying my children.

I thought, if I carry out this act and the authorities could prove I took my life, the insurance won’t pay and my kids would be devastated by my death and wouldn’t  have money from the insurance company. Working in the prison system I have seen inmates that failed at suicide and the condition the failed attempt left them in.

Eventually, I chose to seek help for myself and open up publicly. It took a great deal of courage for me to speak on a television show about my depression and anxiety. Today, speaking out about depression and anxiety disorders is not stereotyped with the term crazy as it was during the time that I was a young boy. Though I won gold medals in weightlifting competitions, was a correctional officer and eventually a lieutenant, no one ever knew that at any given time the pain I was in.  I am currently seeing a therapist for my condition. While I have a good day every now and then, the depression remains – I am learning to live with it.

About the Author: Lieutenant Garry Jones

Lieutenant Garry L. Jones was born and raised in Kinston, North Carolina; receiving his formal education from the Kinston City Schools, where he lettered in football and track. He then went on to attend North Carolina Central University, earning a B.A. in Criminal Justice in 1986. Following graduation, he was employed by the D.C. Department of Corrections in Lorton, Virginia as a Corrections Officer. In January of 1991, Mr. Jones began working for the U.S. Department of Justice at Federal Prison Camp Seymour Johnson, eventually he was promoted to a Senior Lieutenant at FCI Tallahassee. After working a combination of 16 years for federal and state prison facilities, Mr. Jones retired. After retirement he started the organization Advocate 4 Justice and authored 3 books. His latest book entitled, “I Wasn’t Raised to Play by Their Rules,” touches on the negative affects of the retaliation he endured during his career with the Department of Justice and the events that helped reveal a secret he kept for 30 years.

Him

And then it was gone in that moment. I was not the only one who knew. I had told. I think he has it too. I think he is bipolar. The silence on the phone was so loud. My heart sank lower than it had when I was told but not as low as it would sink over the next days. I told his mother (my sister),  the only other person I didn’t want to give this news to. This made it too real but was confirmed by the hour long conversation I had with my nephew the following day. In between his tears and anger and yearning for me to make sense of things that didn’t to anyone else but him, he said “ I did everything right Aunt Marsha.”  And he had. And all I could do was say, “ I love you and I believe you and I’m sorry.”    

We gave everything we had to him. His mother gave him the gene that gave him more than we wanted. Some people struggle in the beginning of their lives and then they have beautiful experiences for the rest. This is what I’ve been telling him since he was 10 and missing his mom and not understanding her strange illness. Now he will understand more than we want him to. I wish I didn’t know what to do. I wish I could linger in denial. But I know too much. Too many years spent learning that we could do nothing for my sister but pray after it was all over. Too many years in front of him to be disappointed. Not the life I promised him in dark cars when he was crying because he couldn’t live with his mom.

He’s the little boy at 5 hiding in my closet on a mound of clothes when his dad picked him up and he didn’t want to go. Too little to understand why he couldn’t live with mommy. Now his dad picks him up at the beginning of his first semester of his third year in college driving him away from his dreams. Away from his friends who don’t understand his fast talking and strange behavior. Away from the boy who hit him with a bat and broke his jaw because he was scaring his girlfriend and friend. To what only God knows. Lord Jesus help us. Help us to still have faith. Pull us up from depression. Soothe our souls.

About the Author: Masha Coleman

I wrote this literally on the day that I told my mother, sister and best friend that my nephew was experiencing mental issues.  I wrote it to help with the pain.  We have since found out that he had post traumatic stress syndrome but we are watching him carefully.  His mother my sister has lived with bipolar for almost 20 years.  She is now doing well after being incarcerated on a charge that stemmed from her illness.   She currently lives in a group home funded by Volunteers for America and she attends a Clubhouse program on a daily basis.  She is my hero!  My nephew is now in his second semester of his Junior year in college.

The Hospital

The pediatric resident
held my newborn
by the heels,
smacked her on the back,
and said, “She won’t break”
as she vomited
across the room
before we took her home
to a mountain of sheets
piled on the unmade bed,
dishes high in the sink,
an uninvited mother
on her way,
and by morning I didn’t know
my name,
pupils fixed and dilated,
my husband
calling the doctor
who sent me back
to the hospital
and checked me onto
a locked ward, where
I was kept for three months,
the first three months
of my baby’s life.

About the Author: Eleanor Brawley

Eleanor’s passions include writing and photography.  She is a poet, and writer/video producer. She is working on a poetry manuscript, which will feature a number of poems about her experience with being bi-polar after the birth of both daughters. Her daughters are now grown and mothers themselves.  She is the curator of a photographic exhibit, Families of Abraham.

Geology

I.
When you were three,
you loved to load your pockets
with rocks, even hard-edged gravel
from the church parking lot.
As if you’d discovered diamonds,
your fists clutched all you could hold.
Plaid pants dragged the ground,
barely hanging from your hips.
Arms held high, you ran to me
to show what you had found.

II.
Older now, you gather thoughts,
fill your mind with fears, cut
sharp and clear, each facet
a window into a troublesome world.
Worries form in your skull
like amethyst crystals
grown in a geode.

III.
In my dream, we’re in the water.
I float face down on the sunlit surface,
and grip your hands, try to pull you up
so you can breathe.
But we’re sinking to the deep
beyond light’s reach. My arms
grow weak. And I’m afraid
you’ve lined your pockets
with stones.

About the Author – Elizabeth Swann

Elizabeth Swann is an English and journalism teacher at Nations Ford High School in Fort Mill, SC. She earned my MFA in Creative Writing Program at Queens University in Charlotte. Recent publication credits include The Chicago Tribune Printer’s Row, Inkwell, Iodine Poetry Journal, and The Atlanta Review. She has a poem forthcoming in an anthology entitled Dare to Repair, and her chapbook, Port Desire, has been accepted for publication in 2013 by Finishing Line Press.

In The Tipping Point, Gladwell’s premise is that it is the convergence of a few things that ignite the flame for social epidemics to spread. He applies his concepts to the take off of Sesame Street and Blues Clues, and to more serious topics such as the drop in crime in New York City  to the phenomenon of teenage suicide in Micronesia.

I  haven’t found my answer yet for creating the tipping point for Familiar Minds, but I am determined to find it in 2012 and hope you will help me.

Gladwell introduces several useful concepts, but most powerful for me was the Law of the Few.  In short, he suggests that it is just a few unique types of people – connectors, mavens and salespeople– that serve as the instigators for most if not all social movements. Very simply put, the connector has the vast network to spread the word, the maven collects information and data worth spreading, and the salesman is the one who persuades others to take up the charge.

Special thanks to each and everyone who has shared this project with someone, even if just one person. I am especially grateful for the support of Patch.com (Bed Stuy Patch and White Plains Patch) for connecting Familiar Minds with new audiences by covering the project.

I think I spoke to a Maven the other day. His name is Nicholas. I listened in awe as he ranked countries around the word in the order of their support for mental health.  Thanks for reaching out and I can’t wait to meet you.

As for salespeople, truly, I can think of no better ones than the people who have shown their courage by sharing their stories publicly.

Which one are you and can you help?  I look forward to hearing from you.  Please post your thoughts on the blog or send me an email at familiarminds@gmail.com.

In the meantime, please accept my best wishes for a new year filled with happiness, health and renewal.

Playing Catch

My sister sees dead people. Well, not exactly. My sister sees people who aren’t really there. Some of them are dead, some are alive just not currently in the room, and some, as far as she knows, never existed at all.

Once, Jerri called me at 2:00 a.m. to say her neighbor was in her living room and wouldn’t go home.

“Which neighbor?” I asked. “Third.” (Sadly, Third’s father, with narcissism equaled only to George Foreman’s, named all of his sons after himself. To keep them straight, the family simply calls them by the appropriate suffix.)

“Just tell him to go home.”

“I did, but he won’t.”

Hmmm. This seemed a little odd and reminded me of another conversation in which Jerri described a pleasant encounter with the three sisters from Charmed. They had apparently gathered around her bed for a friendly little chat.

“Of course, I knew they weren’t really here,” Jerri had joked, “but it was still fun talking to them.”

“How did you know they weren’t there?”

She’d rolled her eyes. “Duh! Movie stars. And besides,” she’d added, “when I threw them my cigarettes, nobody caught them. So, of course, they weren’t real.”

With this in mind, I ask if she’s sure Third is really there.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I threw him my lighter and he caught it.”

I can’t even imagine what it must be like to live in a world where you can’t be sure someone is real until he plays catch with you.

Jerri is bipolar and is considered dual diagnosis because of a past history of substance abuse. Sometimes she goes into a deep depression and is unable to get out of bed for days or do even the most basic tasks like taking her medicine or brushing her teeth. Other times, she swings into a manic state and may go an entire week without sleeping. Her mind races and she talks super fast, trying to get her thoughts out before they escape. She gets really paranoid and thinks, for example, that her neighbors are running a child pornography ring. They know that she knows, and therefore, must kill her. And, of course, as already stated, she sees and talks to people who aren’t really there.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (and they ought to know) psychotic symptoms like hallucinations—hearing, seeing or otherwise sensing the presence of things not actually there—can sometimes accompany severe episodes of mania or depression. But as far as our parents are concerned, the only thing that causes hallucinations is LSD. They don’t believe Jerri has bipolar disorder. To them, she is an addict, pure and simple—a substance abuser who converted from street drugs to prescription psych meds when she discovered Medicare would pay for them.

That is probably the hardest part for me. Our parents don’t believe. I’m on my own here, me and Jerri, waging war against a disease that has devastated her and divided our family. I don’t see the point in debating which came first—the drugs or the disorder. Her illness is real and it has forced me to take sides. I intend to be here to catch whatever she throws my way.

About the Author

Terri is a marketing director at a pharmaceutical company and has a Master’s degree in computer science but her true love is writing. She has published creative nonfiction in Home Life, the Durham Herald Sun, and several literary journals. Her blog, Trophy Daughter (www.trophydaughter.wordpress.com), relates her experiences as a sibling of a bipolar sister. She resides in NC with her husband; her dog nephew, Max; and Ramsey, the corgi princess.

My Favorite Brother – What Happened Next?

It’s amazing what authentic sharing can do. I was somewhat hesitant at first to share my brother’s story so publicly. Exactly for the reasons this initiative was started. There is so much taboo on mental illness as well as feelings of shame by association that prevent us from truly expressing ourselves.

Before I made the final decision to submit a posting, I wanted to check in with my family to see how how they felt about it. Surprisingly my brother was immediately positive, but others had some reservations. Will people understand? Won’t they judge even more? I had similar feelings and we wanted to protect my brother from further stigmatization. Fortunately, the people that live, work, and deal with my brother on a daily basis all know about his situation and are very supportive and understanding. So who cares what those who don’t know him think; people will always have opinions and judgements. Hence, I went ahead and sent in my submission. In hindsight I did not need to have any doubts, because only good came out of it! The responses I received both online through familiarminds and facebook as well as in person are first hand evidence of that.

It feels good to touch other people through sharing and to have a positive impact on how some look at their loved ones with a mental illness. I truly want to thank everyone for their supportive commentary. Also, my sister shared the story with a co-worker who has a child with a mental illness, just to let her experience the power of sharing. More importantly for me and my family, it opened a second door to deepening the conversations around OCD and how we can better support my brother in his struggle. Not that we avoided the subject, but my sharing has led to new insights for us all and therefore seems to give a little more structure to the conversations and the process towards healing. Although it sometimes seems that this is a battle without end in sight, I now know that this is something we can overcome as a community of support.

The Price She Pays

My sister is bipolar and has been functioning (and at times not functioning) with her illness for over 20 years now. Upon meeting her you would probably never know. She has a husband, two lovely children and a home in the suburbs. She runs for fitness, has friends and throws dinner parties. She takes her children to school and enjoys baking for her family. Yet, she takes enough medication to tranquilize an elephant, has a lot of help with her house and children and has not been able to quit smoking despite considerable effort. And, occasionally, she winds up in a mental hospital. When this happens it is as if she has to push the reset button on her life.

In the early years of her illness, I begrudged her. She turned everyone’s world upside down when she got sick. In my juvenile mind, I believed she brought her illness on herself somehow. She usually got sick when she either stopped taking a medication or over did it with another. What I didn’t realize at the time is that as a manic depressive, if you treat your depression with too many anti depressants, you may cause a manic episode where you don’t believe you need any medication at all and, the next thing you know, you are in a downward spiral of psychosis.

By her third or fourth breakdown I came to understand that the pain she suffers far outweighs whatever disruptions we must confront as part of her support system. There were countless jobs she lost, numerous classes she never finished and several friendships that ended as a result of her breakdowns. When she emerges from the hospital, she has to start over. There is humiliation to contend with. Manic people often act impulsively. They may make inappropriate advances, undress in front of neighbors and friends, physically hurt themselves or others, spend money frivolously, etc. They must confront the consequences of these actions upon their return from the hospital.

Luckily, my sister has a support system that works for her most of the time. She has a cocoon of a family, a doctor and a couple of friends on whom she depends. Despite this, changes in the lunar cycle, her menstrual cycle and prescribed medications can lead to wild mood swings beyond her control. Now, with her children around and her life entrenched in a community, the stakes are higher. That reset button is a very costly one.

About a year before my brother’s paranoid schizophrenic diagnosis,  I dated a guy who shared with me that his sister had suffered from depression and then later committed suicide.  At the moment, he told me, my impulse was to run away.  While I stayed, I certainly distanced myself slowly, judging him and silently questioning him.  What is wrong with you? What is wrong with your family?

To this day, I still think of him, and feel guilty.

Just the other day even, I asked a friend to share the project with his enormous friend’s  list.  While thrilled when he posted a pitch, I felt suddenly exposed myself.  My name in lights my thoughts immediately turned to worry that people might think I have a mental illness. I wanted them to be clear that my project was to create a space for those with family members with mental illness to share.

While I am a bit embarrassed that these thoughts crossed my mind,  I am proud of how I responded next. That is I shared these thoughts with a couple of friends.  I had a good time laughing at myself with them.  I am now sharing with all of you.

Shame on me, but it’s a journey…..

Tracey Capers

It’s your turn

“It’s your turn to bring her Diet Dr. Pepper,” I say with a serious smirk on my face looking him in the eye, knowing the only person who can’t stand hearing my mother scream our names from her bed more than me is my brother. “Awww fine, but when is she going to get out of that dam bad, I can’t take this anymore, she acts as if she gave birth to us to be her slaves,” my brother says as he is putting ice into her glass. We can make light of my mother’s helplessness in this moment, but the truth is that both of us die a little each time we see her too weak to get out of bed. It would be easier to take it less personal if she were suffering from Cancer, but there is something about an emotional illness that makes it hard not to feel like this is somehow my fault. Maybe if I were a better daughter she wouldn’t be so sad. “Get your butt back in here,” she screams louder than she has all week. “There is not enough ice in here.”  Nope, I know it’s not me, she really is just crazy!

I would have never survived my childhood without my brother and believe me, he would have never survived without me. I loved him so much it hurt; I am haunted by the time when he cut an artery in his arm, blood was literally squirting everywhere. To this day, I don’t know if my nightmare flashbacks of this moment continue because of the amount of blood that came out of his arm or because of the way my heart broke open watching him suffer and fearing for his life. I could deal with a crazy mom, but not without my brother.

After a terrible marriage, a divorce that was worse than the marriage and carrying two beautiful strong twin girls through years of being medically vulnerable, my heart can no longer bleed like my brother’s arm. But now, I am being challenged to protect my heart as the worst has just happened; I am now watching my brother lose his children, become homeless and live in a world of fear as a dreaded disease of the mind has now gotten a hold of him too. I must somehow find a way- literally right now- to put enough pressure on my wounds to prevent the life from draining out of me.

My weak mother must become stronger so that she can care for my brother, as I insist on using my only free hand to stop my own wounds from bleeding. Little does my mother know that she is the one who taught me that I must save myself first; otherwise, we both would have suffered from a mental illness. I know that even if I knew how to stop the helicopters from following my brother or if I could stop the FBI from taking time out of their busy schedule to plot against him, I too would lose my sanity.

Staring into my brother’s suffering eyes and then gazing at my mother’s aging face as they stand on my porch – arriving with no warning in my only moment of reprieve from the battle of my divorce and the constant responsibilities of being a single parent – I can say to my mom with confidence, “It’s your turn.” And I love you!

Words from Allyson Cole, Psy.D.

After being in the field of psychology for over twelve years and obtaining my doctorate in clinical psychology, I am still unable to fathom the amount of resilience, compassion and personal boundaries that are required to remain supportive to a family member or friend who is struggling with a serious and chronic mental illness. I attempted to write this article in the voice of my dearest friend, as her time is limited due to all of the events mentioned in this story. When I asked her whether she thought I captured her experience, she said something to the effect of “I cried all night after reading this, some of my tears were about my family, but mostly I cried because I realized that I had been carrying a belief that no one listens to me, thank you for listening.” Little does she know, I hang on her every word, as she is one of the strongest and wisest women I have ever met.

Finding Dad’s True Personality

Thinking about my dad brings up a range of emotions. In the latter years before my dad passed away, I saw a very gentle side to him. I think it was a function of his getting up in age but also because of the medication he was on. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disease rather late in life, well after my siblings and I had graduated from college and moved away. In my case, I was living in Kenya at the time completing my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I was on an overseas call with my mom whenI learned of his breakdown that included her having to flee from the house in the middle of the night on more than one occasion, only returning after she believed he had fallen asleep. Things deteriorated to the point where she was afraid to return to the house and was advised by family and friends to not return, as my dad had been saying delusional and threatening things about her to them. I don’t know the particulars but eventually they managed to talk my dad into signing himself into a hospital for evaluation. I believe that was also when he began treatment, which included medication and psychotherapy.

By the time I returned stateside, and saw my dad for the first time in two years, after he started treatment, he was a shell of a person. He didn’t say much and seemed docile, and I felt a sadness and empathy that I had never experienced before then nor since. My mother told me that he wouldn’t stay that way, though, because his doctors were still figuring out the right medication for him.

To my relief, he did get better and in time I saw a lighter, more easy going side that I hadn’t seen previously. He was more quiet than I remembered him being when I was growing up, yet he seemed more in tune with our family and content overall. It was subtle but you could see it in a slight smile or something he would say that would catch you by surprise because you didn’t think or notice he was listening. My mom told me that it was during this time, in the years after the doctors got his medication right, that he would often ask about my siblings and me. He even started calling us on the phone just to say hi, and she and I got a kick out of this; he was going beyond the usual second-hand updates on his kids from my mom. We were surprised about such calls but we were happy to feel connected to him, and see him connect with others, in this new way. My mom said his doctors told her his true personality was coming out with effective treatment.

Several years later my dad passed away in the hospital due to complications from surgery for an aneurysm. It was so hard to lose him but I took consolation in knowing that the latter years of his life were probably his best, and that I had included him in my life more than ever and it was effortless. When he went into the hospital for the surgery, my mom and I spent the most time with him there, as she had just retired and I was able to take more time off from work than my siblings. Although I didn’t know then that those were his last days, I knew it was a special time to be there with him and for him. My only regret after he passed was that I had never said, “Dad, Let’s go out to lunch, just you and me,” or “Dad, Let’s hang out. What do you want to do today?,” like I’ve done countless times with my mom. When I think about why I didn’t, the other feelings and memories about my dad surface, the ones from my childhood that were dark and volatile, which I now know were attributable to his then undiagnosed bipolar disease.

About the Author: Gina

Gina has spent most of her career with the federal government, working in the fields of international development and environmental protection.  She earned a Master’s degree in public administration  and an undergraduate degree in business and economics.  Originally from Pennsylvania, Gina has lived in Kenya and Washington, DC.  Through her work and personal travel, she has visited many cities and points of interest in Africa and the USA.  She currently resides in Maryland with her husband and two young daughters.  When she can find the time, Gina enjoys practicing yoga.

Introducing Jako Borren.  This essay speaks powerfully to Jako’s struggle with understanding and acceptance of his brother who is mildly mentally challenged, while also suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder.  What I particularly love about this essay is that it poignantly and honestly depicts how the process of sharing has the power to heal, renew and stretch our relationships.

My Favorite Brother

 From Another World, I Understood

It must be lonely in there
You say green
I say blue
Pick up the pieces of the fragmented mind
Can’t decode to unscramble

We speak, you speak of little words as they say
a lot—
wishing to be understood
wishing to be loved

Sudden outbursts of anger and tension
as we hold to what you carry
hold to what you want us to feel
want us to see
the illusions they say
but to you they are from another world perhaps you tapped in

and yet we call you crazy
another language perhaps?
how quickly we disassemble your world
your hopes
and your dreams
of what we thought you should be

yet we continue to suffer and feel hurt
as our levels of how we see the world
are not the same
we look the other way
we turn a blind eye to what you are trying to tell us

Please know that we are hurting to see you hurting
as we are on different levels of this playing field
Come close, you are my friend
But you don’t trust,

Come close, you are my friend-
you think I’m your enemy

Where can we have a meeting of the minds where you exist and it is ok?
A place where society won’t turn a blind eye and we know what to do and how to respond
All we can show is love from a distance as we can’t hurt anymore.

written by K. Michelle Sellers
on November 3, 2011

About the Author: K. Michelle Sellers

When I wrote this piece, I thought of my dad because he has a mental illness.  Growing up with a family member who has a mental health issue was challenging and chaotic.  There was no stability and all of our attention was focused on him.  I felt like I suffered a lot growing up because he wasn’t able to give me the emotional support that I needed from a dad.

I am 33 years old.  Born and raised in Oakland, CA.  I am Filipino and African-American.  Writing has been my passion as I used it as therapy growing up.  I continue to write poetry, prose and a few short screenplays.  I am a filmmaker as I am working on a project to help me heal and move on with my life….as this part is new for me.

Bee’s Nest

Someone asked me recently what year my mother died and I said I didn’t remember.  I felt embarrassed.  Most people, especially in the South,  remember important anniversary dates like birth and death.  “I know exactly when Aunt Mabel died,” they say.  “It was January two, nineteen fifty,  at four-thirty in the afternoon, right after Oklahoma beat the crap out of LSU  in the Sugar Bowl.  Yes ma’am, I remember it clear as moonshine.  Damn near the saddest day of my life.” They suck their teeth and gaze at the horizon as if watching a train disappear to the north, and you might not be sure whether losing Aunt Mabel or losing the game was the heartbreaking thing.

I’m usually good at the birthday part, but when it comes to my mother’s date of death, I never can be sure.  It’s not that it wasn’t significant to me, because it was.  The day my mother died changed my life in the same way having a first child or getting married to a high school sweetheart or being shot in both knees might do.  But the truth is, a mother like mine never really dies.  She lives with you every single day of your life.

My mother, Lillian, was paranoid schizophrenic, diagnosed in her early forties, about the same age as I am now.  The day I heard the diagnosis was almost as life changing as the day she died, because that was when everything I knew of maternal love and relationship was turned on its head, became a product of chemical imbalance and not of the ornery nature or inadequate nurture that I had always suspected. Until that day, life with my mother had been a worsening nightmare of physical and emotional abuse, of a deep, deep fear for every next thing.   But that day, across from her psychiatrist in a small patient conference room at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, I learned that the nightmare was really my mother’s, not my own.

Here is the problem with finding out that a person who is supposed to love you but who hurts you over and over again is mentally ill: once you know, it is no longer reasonable to be angry with them, just as it is unreasonable to be angry when the nest of bees you’ve been harassing begins to swarm, or when a dog tips over your favorite vase with his wagging tail, or when LSU goes down hard in an important game.  The bees are protecting their queen best they can.  The dog is simply happy.  And you win some and lose some of any game.  That’s just the way it is.

Still, you are angry, even if it is unreasonable, and no one can really tell you how to let it go, no matter how many Sundays you go to church or how many years in therapy you spend.  The anger is always there, and so is the person who might have made you that way and who did, in fact, love you.

About the Author: Bethany Chaney

Our first author is Bethany Chaney, my friend and colleague for close to twenty years.  Bethany is a non-profit consultant and writer living Carrboro, NC.  She is a past NC Arts Council Fellow and winner of the William Saroyan Foundation Centennial Prize for Non-Fiction.

For all those who submitted to the project, thank you. I will be getting back in touch with you shortly. Each and every story submitted reinforces the importance the importance of this project. Further, your honesty and bravery inspire and indeed will inspire so many others.

In the meantime, keep following this site as I will be posting excerpts from initial entries in early November. I will contact writers before any submission is posted.

I want to thank to everyone for your many kind words of encouragement and support.  I also truly appreciate the many people  that have passed on the blog to friends and networks.   The early feedback has overwhelmed me with the tremendous possibility of this project. I’m so looking forward to seeing the entries that will be submitted for the October 15th deadline.

I want also to use this blog entry to encourage you to submit  your entry and ask that you continue to share this project far and wide.  My hope is to have entries from people of all backgrounds and experiences with mental illness from all parts of the globe.  So, I clearly need your help.

Please know that the guidelines that I offered in my last post are simply a guide for submissions.  Feel free to use the guidelines or alternately you may feel free to write anything you like on your perspectives and experience on mental illness — how it has affected you personally or your family.  For initial submissions, I only ask that submissions be limited to 500 words.  This call for entries is not limited to ‘writers’ but to all that have a story to share.  Please know, however,  that a submisison will not guarantee acceptance in the planned book project.

Thanks again for your interest and support!

About 20 years ago,  I lost my brother Tim to suicide.  Tim, a handsome, young black male at 28 was an engineer and recent graduate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).   A year prior to his death, Tim was diagnosed with  paranoid schizophrenia.  This diagnosis inaugurated what proved to be a most surreal year for the family.

Over time, as I healed, I was able to discuss and share what happened to my brother little by little. To my surprise, I encountered several close and dear friends that had stories to tell - of their mothers, brothers and their own battles with mental illness.  How could it be that I could call someone my best or dearest friend and not know the depth and pain that they were suffering at home.   I often wonder if I had known –how would I have responded? Would I have been a sympathetic, understanding ear or would I have cowared with ignorance? I also think back and wonder if these stories were shared would I have been  able to notice the warning signs of my brother’s illness and would I have been better equipped to support him.  I will never know for myself but I am inspired that there might be a way to touch someone else who might be dealing with mental illness in their family. I want them to know that they are not alone, there is help.

This blog is the starting point for a book project that will compile essays written by people with mental illness and/or by the family members that support them.  Toward this end, I am inviting submissions of abstracts of between 250-500 words. Abstracts will highlight potential content for a larger essay.  Suggested content might include but not limited to the following topics:

• first signs of mental illness and early diagnosis;
• racial, ethnic, religious, and social economic influence on conversations, reactions and perspectives to mental illness; and
• how perceptions and perspectives on mental illness have evolved and changed over time.

Submissions should accompany a brief biography on the author.

Please submit your abstract and biography to familiarminds@gmail.com no later than October 15. Submissions should include Familiar Minds Call for Abstracts in the subject line.  Please include day time telephone number where you can be reached.

Starting November, select excerpts from abstracts will be published on the blog.  It is anticipated that 15-20 writers will be invited to submit longer essays for the anthology book project.

Thank you for your interest in this project. I encourage and ask that you share this call for abstracts widely.   Together, we are creating the opportunity to eliminate the stigma of mental illness in communities everywhere.

Yours Truly,

Tracey