My new sobriety and mental stability came with feelings of guilt and regret.
Looking back, I could see how bipolar disorder and alcoholism had caused chaos not only in my life but in my children’s and husbands’ lives as well.
Every morning when Calen and Sander had been young, I had promised myself that I would not scream at them when they were getting ready for school. But as I remember it, I screamed every single morning. Bipolar disorder is not a buzzword for “calm.”
Because my boys went to boarding schools during their early teenage years, they had been shielded from the worst of my alcoholism. Little Mattie hadn’t. When my boys had returned home during summer and holiday breaks, I’d set no boundaries. I smoked weed and drank with them and their friends. I’d been the cool mom, but in reality I’d been the mom who’d put my children in harm’s way.
The only stability in their lives had come from their fathers.
I needed to repair the damage I had done, but I wasn’t certain how. As fate would have it, an opportunity surfaced when I received a call from Gayle Johnson, an official at Sound Mental Health, a mental health services provider in Seattle, Washington. Gayle said her nonprofit group held a gala each year to showcase its treatment programs and raise money. She wanted to focus on the ways families had successfully dealt with mental illness, and she thought having my children and me onstage would draw a crowd.
Gayle was determined to show that people with mental illness have many faces—not just those you see homeless on the streets. Many of those faces look like me and you and our family members.
I agreed to speak to my children and ask if they were willing to participate in the gala with me. I assumed Calen would, because we had done speeches together, and I thought Mattie would, because she had appeared in the public service announcement. The only question was Sander—and he agreed to join us in Seattle.
The gala was being held in a downtown hotel ballroom, where there were seats at dinner tables for several hundred people. I trusted that whatever my children were going to say would be the truth and that I was ready for whatever would unfold—or so I told myself.
After dessert and several awards to local advocates were distributed, the four of us stepped onto a raised platform, where four chairs were set for us at a long table covered with a blue tablecloth. We took our seats, and I clutched my dog, Snitz, in my arms as a spotlight came on and blinded our eyes.
I had told Gayle that none of us wanted to give a long speech. Instead, I suggested that since family was the theme of the night, why not let the audience listen in on our family discussion? Each of us would speak for a few minutes, then we would question each other. It was risky because it was unscripted, but that is what we did.
Calen described his break with reality and what it felt like to be lost in a confusing and terrifying delusional world. At one point, he addressed the audience directly, asking them to be kind and supportive to someone who finds himself or herself in the midst of a mental breakdown. He emphasized that underneath the shell is a person of worth and value.
Sander spoke next:
The more sensitive a person is the more susceptible that individual is to mental illness. It seems like a sick joke that our universe plays on us as children that the more it allows a person to see the world’s beauty and deep connectivity, the more difficult it becomes for that person to maintain good mental health. In our culture, we tend to treat those dealing with that trade-off with a fierce double standard. As long as they are sharing with us beautiful insights into humanity, we will love and cherish them as heroes, but if they fall into substance abuse, depression, psychosis, or any other form of mental illness, we tend to say, “It’s not our problem.” Classically, these individuals with mental illness are artists, musicians, writers, etc., but of course, they come in all sorts, unsung or not. These people tend to add value and meaning to our lives. At their best, they are the types who make us laugh and cry, to learn and to take risks and to love. They are brave, and it angers me that as a society, we abandon them when their skies darken.
I thought I was going to cry.
Mattie told the audience that she was five years old when she realized for the first time that her mommy was different from other mommies.
“My mother was standing in the kitchen after dinner, crying and doing dishes. I pulled my little purple stool to the kitchen sink and asked timidly why she was so upset. My mother sighed and said, ‘I’m bipolar, little one.’ That was my first introduction to an illness that would dominate much of my life. I knew something was wrong because of Mom’s behavior, but my mother’s illness was never talked about and in many cases never looked at inside our family.”
Not everything that was said by my children was easy for me to hear. They told the audience that I “was not a constant” in their lives. I was undependable. I was not a role model. Some days, they would feel loved, and on others they would feel that I was distant and cold. This was difficult for them to understand, and it was hurtful to them as children. At times they had felt abandoned.
I didn’t like hearing that, but I knew it was true.
Mattie and Sander spoke about how scary it had been when Calen had gotten sick, and Calen talked about how frightening it had been for him to feel so lost and alone.
It was deadly silent in the cavernous room while my children were speaking. No one was glancing at a cell phone or fidgeting in a chair.
Near the end of their comments, my children reached a unanimous conclusion. They said that the reason Calen and I had recovered was because we had gotten excellent care—and they were grateful that our family could afford it, because many can’t—but just as important, we had come together as a family. Despite our faults—especially mine—we had clung together. If I hadn’t been able to provide one of them with comfort when I was at my worst, one of their siblings had. We had walked through hell, but we’d done it together.
I was the last to speak, and I admitted my failures. I had always felt abandoned by my own father, and in my own way, during my sickest times, I had abandoned my children. “I honestly don’t understand how it is that my three children have turned out so well,” I said. “They are strong and wonderful, and all I can say is that you can still love when you are suffering, no matter what, and love them I do.”
My voice caught in my throat. Speaking through my tears, I continued, “I love them more than anything in this universe.”
Perhaps it was fitting that our family had a cathartic moment during such a public forum. Like strangers who bare their souls to each other on a long airplane flight, the four of us used our appearance onstage to discuss what had been so difficult for us to share privately.
I would be lying if I wrote that all the issues between us melted away that night. Some of the hurts are deep cuts. Those will take time. Perhaps those hurts will never fully heal. I understand, because it took me years to reconcile with my father.
After the spotlight was turned off and everyone had gone, I went to my room, and for the first time in years I felt good about my relationship with each of my children. Not only was I becoming whole again, so was my family.