1980ish...or, The Year My Family Imploded

This needs editing, my apologies...but I had to get it out of my head, I haven't been able to sleep, thinking of what I wanted to write.

The problem with being so diligent about keeping journals since the age of 10 is, well, you get to go back and read them.  Some are absolutely cringe-worthy.  But some of them are so sad, hearing the voice again of my little girl self, so confused about everything that was changing around me.

The chronology of all of this may be wrong, most is from memory.  But I do know that these things happened in relatively quick order. My mother was running for city office of some kind, and our home became her election headquarters. My sister had a psychotic break and was committed to a mental hospital.  My brother was kicked out of our mother's house and went and lived with our dad.  I decided, in the midst of all of this madness, that I wanted my dad to have joint custody of me. And, living in a four bedroom house with only two people left, my mother decided to rent out the spare rooms to strangers.  I was around 10 when all this went down. 

When my sister was a senior in high school, she was accepted as an exchange student and spent the second semester in Japan.  She became very close with her host family, particularly her host mother.  However, when she returned, she had a rude awakening.  Her friends had moved away to college already, and beyond Japan, she hadn't really made any solid plans.  She was also having a lot of confusion about personal issues in her life, and she needed her mother.  But our mother was running for office...out of our home.  She didn't have the time for my sister that she so desperately needed at the time.  I remember, clearly, my mother asking my sister to make an appointment to talk with her.  I'm not blaming my mother for the events that followed, no one knows what would have happened if things had gone differently.  But my sister began to act very strangely, erratically.  She hid in my closet and while I was listening to records one night, burst out speaking something in French and scared me to death. She was feeding my dad's dog spices to see how he reacted..  She stopped making sense.  My dad was flummoxed, and had no idea what to do, so I'm pretty sure he just drank more. I knew about a lot of things earlier than I should have and was exposed to things that were inappropriate, mostly at my dad's house.  He should have tried to enforce some sort of sane boundaries, but it was probably easier for him to just keep drinking. At some point, my sister was sent to live with our grandparents, who were wonderful and nurturing, but she was already in the middle of this storm of a breakdown.  After this behavior had been going on for awhile, my mom decided to take her to a mental hospital, a day that she still describes as the worst day of her entire life. My sister was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (Manic-Depression back then) with Schizophrenic episodes.  I had no idea what was going on or why.  I have a VERY vivid memory of going to visit her in the hospital with my mom.  In the waiting room, (lobby?), there was an older woman, curled up into a ball under a table, giggling to herself.  I remember thinking, "what happened to her??"  We walked down the hallway to my sister's room, and she was not in a good state.  Knowing what I know now, she was cycling in her manic stage...she had a rubber stamp of Susan B. Anthony, and she had made some kind of cosmic connection in her mind between herself and the civil rights leader.  She began stamping everything in sight, including the walls, and she was constantly talking, ideas, theories, nonstop...none of it was logical.   That evening, they had to move my sister back into the intensive care unit, ironically called La Siesta.  The grounds of this hospital were incredibly beautiful, with amazing gardens overflowing with flowers.  As we walked through these gardens accompanied by a nurse, I looked up at my mother and saw an expression that I can't describe, but don't want to ever see again.  She looked like she aged ten years in ten minutes, just complete despair and pain.  We left my sister there and went home.  I don't remember anything else about that evening, the drive home, or what my mom may have said or not said to me.  But I was so scared that night. Who was this person we just visited?  Is this going to happen to me too? But it also planted the very first seed of curiosity about psychology for me...I wanted to understand.  Too much for a ten year old to digest at the time, but the interest did begin that evening.

My mom lost the election.

Somewhere around that time, my mom lost control of my brother, who was around 14 or 15 at the time.  He was sneaking out at night, not adhering to ANY rules, and there was one night when my mom swung to hit him and he caught her arm in mid-air and lowered it back down to her side.  She realized he was bigger, and stronger.  So the decision was made that he go live with my dad.  "Decision".  So many interpretations of what happened, and I'll never know the exact truth, I wasn't there.  My mom has said that she discussed it with our dad and they both agreed it was the best thing.  My dad has said he showed up on his doorstep with his suitcase.  My brother maintains that he was "kicked out" something I think he's still wounded from, deep down.  I was left with mom.  My sister had gone crazy.  My brother was kicked out.  Crap, what was going to happen to me? Hmmmm...okay.  My 10 year old self decided that I wanted my dad to have joint custody of me.  Mom was often gone in the evenings, dad was always home.  I missed my brother.  It made complete sense to me.  Mom was NOT having it, and we were going to go to court over it.  I actually wrote a letter to Dear Abby about this, and recently while cleaning out our dad's home after his death, my brother found the letter.  I remember writing it, and deciding not to send it.  I never knew my dad must have found it at some point and saved it.  In it, I described my brother being kicked out because my mom thought he was "impossible, but I don't think that's true."  I also described how my dad, my brother, and myself all wanted me to have equal time with my dad, but my mom did not.  I signed it "10 in Pasadena" and "P.S. And please don't suggest counseling, because it's already messed everything up."

Oh my GOD, that counseling...it was supposed to be for me.  It was through Fuller Seminary, and it was two interns, they may have been married.  They did not have the foggiest idea what they were doing, that was clear to me, even then.  After maybe one or two sessions, they decided that my counseling needed to become family sessions.  Ummm, powder keg, anyone?  I don't remember if my dad ever went, he may not have.  My sister didn't because she was still hospitalized.  But I do remember one session with my mom, brother, and I.  My brother was SO ANGRY with her. I remember he kept banging the arm of the chair he was sitting in, so I started doing the same on my chair.  The focus quickly transitioned to the conflict between them...then these amateurs decided that they needed to get both mom and dad in there to talk about the divorce...7 years ago!  They were hired to help me...and I was totally pushed aside and essentially forgotten about, which proved to be a common theme in my childhood.  Counseling didn't last long.

We never went to court.  My mom threatened to say certain things about my dad that were untrue, and my dad didn't want to put me through that, so he dropped it.  She told me later, "I fought for you!"  I just couldn't figure out why.  I  know she loved me, but she was never home, not even in the evenings.  I spent a lot of time by myself during this time, the typical "latch key kid" of the early 80's. Did she just not want to lose all three of her children in a year?  I would have been there half of the time, dad only lived ten minutes away, but it was not to be.  She then made another major decision...she would rent out the vacant rooms in our home!  Then I wouldn't be alone at night, someone would be there, and she could generate some additional income.  I was never asked how I felt about it.  And for the next 7 years, until I was 17 years old, I lived with strangers, at least they were to me.  There will be a longer chapter to come about those years.  I need to try to remember all their names, there were men and women.  Let me say that no harm ever came to me as a result of living with these people...but BOY it could have.  It couldn't have been easier, the stage was practically SET for it.  God was looking out for me, and I spent a lot of time in my room.  Books, friends, and music became my constant companions, and are what kept me sane.

So reflections...my sister recovered, but in subsequent years was hospitalized two more times.  We've talked a lot over the last several years, and determined that we never really got much of a chance to get to know each other growing up.  She is 8 1/2 years older than I am, and we're about as different as two women can be.  When I was a baby, she doted on me, and I have lovely pictures to prove it, but I don't remember.  She still sometimes calls her own 11 year old daughter by my name because she resembles me at that age.  We're at a good place now, but it took a long time.  As we've become closer, she's shared her own stories about what it was like at those hospitals, and they are horrifying.  She described hallucinating in the shower that the streams of water were knives and the water running down her body was blood.  As an orderly rushed in to help her when he heard the screams, she was convinced he was going to rape her. She told me of forced medications, Thorazine and Lithium, and having her jaw completely and painfully lock as a side effect.  She told me of waking up one day and realizing it was about 2 days later.  Her descriptions of complete loss of control and human dignity hurt my soul now.  She was sick, I remember.  But I wish she hadn't had to experience such horror, and I know she's still holds some resentment toward our mom for initially putting her there.

Now, at 40, I'm trying to see things from my mother's perspective.  If my first born child was acting the way my sister was, and I'm sure there is a LOT I don't remember, I probably would have done the same thing.  She didn't know what else to do!  My dad was of no help, the situation seemed to paralyze him.  I'd like to say if they'd caught it earlier and gotten her into counseling and perhaps on some less severe meds, it could have been avoided.  But things were different back then, and she still may have had her break from reality, despite the interventions.  My brother probably WAS impossible.  I remember the fights that went late into the night.  She couldn't raise him alone, that was clear, but maybe that could have been handled differently too, by facing the problems head on and trying to work them out, and maybe have him spend more time with our father instead of all of his time. But I do know that my brother still deals with some deep-seated abandonment issues as a result of being kicked out. I don't think either of them have ever truly worked through that, maybe it isn't possible. My mom has historically not been very comfortable or skilled at talking things through. However, as close as my dad and I were, and as much more attention I likely would have gotten, I can't help but wonder what kind of person I would be if I'd been raised by him more so than I was.  He spoiled me mercilessly.  I had NO rules.  As I got older, we drank together and he knew I drove drunk frequently. Would I have ended up more of a mess than I did?  As much as I still have a major problem with the mere notion of leaving your ten year old daughter alone in a house full of strangers, I do believe it taught me independence and resiliency. I had to grow up very quickly, and that may not have happened otherwise.  Now granted, no rules were enforced there either, no one was home to do so at my mother's house, these weird adults sure as shit weren't going to try and tell me what to do, and I got away with a lot.  And finally, in addition to being a combination of horrified and fascinated, what happened with my poor sister IS what lead me to be a psychologist.  That, and the fact that through the years, I went to counseling a lot, and realized how many of the counselors out there SUCKED. The intern experience wasn't the only one...when I was 13 or so and my sister was being hospitalized again, I saw another counselor.  I remember describing the evening when we had to take my sister back to the intensive care facility at the first hospital and how scared I was, and the counselor interrupted me with , "You were scared a monster or something would come out of the bushes?"  Are you serious?  "No.  I was scared about what was happening."  She asked, "Were you scared of the dark?"  "NO!"  I was scared that my sister had become the monster, you stupid shithead!! I knew that at 13...what an idiot.  So BAD counseling led me to want to become a good one.

My own sweet daughter is 10 now, which is probably why this is all coming up and out of my brain with the force of  a fire hose. I can't imagine her going through what I did, and I'm so thankful she'll (hopefully) never have to deal with such turmoil at such a young age.  Does all adversity lead to lessons and new directions and healing?  Not all of it, no.  Am I okay?  Generally speaking, I like to think so.  But big, big mistakes were made, by many involved parties.  Despite this I have to believe that good came out of that horrific year.  I just have to.