Crazed: A Family's Story of Mental Illness

Next Generation Part 3

2005-11-09T07:03:00.000-08:00

Reading thru the blogs, enjoying the banter with my blog-friends. Going thru my "link" list, I come to a strange entry. It's racing thoughts. The more I read, the more my heart pounds, reading as fast as I can. I can relate! Someone knows exactly what I am going thru! Soon, it looks too familiar. Am I really reading this or is this the biggest episode I've ever gone thru? I look at the title of the blog, and realize, it is my last entry. Crazy fool.

The Next Generation - Two

2005-09-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

My body is exhausted, I finally turn out the light and off with the television. I snuggle up into the pillow and as I close my eyes I picture the red numbers from the alarm clock. Suddenly, they zoom in and become all I can see. Then they look as if they are flying, in and out, closer and farther. I open my eyes and they are gone. I wait a few seconds and close them again, and there are the numbers staring me in the face, then in and out. It's not that the numbers are significant, but they are moving so fast. These are racing thoughts? Then I see the television, not even on, flying towards my face and stopping suddenly, as if I'm nose to nose. Then the objects are changing, a stomach, a shoe, all flying back and forth. I open my eyes to stop it, doing my nightly routine until my meds finally kick in and I can't help but fall asleep. Only when my eyes are closed, and only when I'm trying to sleep. My heartbeat quickens as the objects move faster, get larger and smaller. Finally, sleep takes over, and I move from racing thoughts to violent dreams, finally...

Three

2005-08-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

It was, "poof", I'm home, and I'm walking down the street. I don't know how I got there. All I know is, mom bought a house with the help of a boyfriend. I don't know how it happened, or if anyone else out there had this problem with these holes in their mind. I don't remember anyone telling me that I was going to go home. I don't remember meeting my mom's boyfriend, who was very prevalent in her life at the time. And I don't remember the day I came home. I just remember my sister and my brothers in a house one day. I went outside, walked down the street, and a boy my age came up to me and asked me, "What the hell are you doing on my street?" And he beat the hell out of me. I ran home, crying, and told my mom, and I think she got mad at me. I never said any more about it.

My mom met this married man. His name was Theodore. He owned his own real estate company and was very well off. He had kids of his own that I'd never met. Mom had told me about his family. He started dating mom when she was a waitress. He couldn't believe it when he found out about her kids in the orphanage, so he helped her to buy a home to get us out. My father never knew, so he said, that we were in the orphanage. I had always wondered, how could any father not want to know how his kids were and where they were. That bothered me my entire life. I loved Theodore. He was in his fifties, tall, big man. He looked like a lumberjack who let himself go. He loved us. I could tell.

In this period of my life, a woman named Dee lived with us in our three bedroom home with her four kids. Not much good had come to her living with us, other than both her and Mom saving money raising their children together, because of their drinking. I remember one of her kids hitting me in the face, giving me my first black eye. Dee was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, I felt such love for her. We were having eggs for dinner one night and I had asked for a second. She told me how selfish I was because my mother hadn't had one yet. This felt so much worse than the nuns saying it because this was from someone I had loved. I felt so ashamed. That is when I first felt bad for my mom, that Mom really had it hard. I felt so sorry for her because it must have been so hard to raise us. I was crushed.

I remember a lot of booze bottles back in those days. Years later, Johnny had told me that Theodore hated that. Then, "poof", Dee was gone. Theodore didn't feel that she was a good example for us, but I didn't know then that it was the other way around. It was a lot better with Dee gone, it was much quieter, and Mom didn't seem to be drinking as much. Her and Theodore would go out, they went out to places like the old Playboy Club in Chicago. She would dress beautifully, so elegant. She looked just like a movie star. Before they would go out Theodore would put Lilly and I to bed and tell us the adventures of Suzie and Lilly, the princesses who would get kidnapped and he would have to save. This was the only time in my life that I really felt a parental love, even though he wasn't my dad. I felt safe, secure, and snug in my bed when he would tell us these stories every time they went out.

When Christmas came, it was my best Christmas in my life. It was like waking up in a toy store. There were so many gifts that they covered two-thirds of the living room. We got Barbies, a pool table, any kind of toy you could think of. We got banjos, harmonicas, games, clothes. Pajamas. Mom would let us open one gift on Christmas Eve and it was pajamas, a tradition that is kept in my family today. The food mom would cook. We had turkey, ham, and she would bake cookies, at least 15 different varieties. She would make fruit cakes, but of course they would be soaked in rum. Everything else was so good. I felt that I'd died and gone to heaven. And I thought, "Wow, what a nice life." Everyone was happy. Mom was happy, Theodore was happy, my sister and brothers.

The summers were just as fine. I remember him taking us to the beach. I wanted him to be my dad so bad. I don't remember my brothers coming with, but I remember Mom, Theodore and Lilly, and all of the hot dogs. We were all sunburned. We couldn't sit back on the seats because of the heat in the car. It was so much fun.

Michael and I decided one day to skip school. We just decided not to go. We snuck in Mom's room because we were never allowed in there. She had so many neat things. Then we heard the front door.

"Michael, Susan! Open up, its Theodore. I know you're in there because the school called your mom."

This time she was working as a secretary at an insurance company. We hid in the furnace room. In my heart, I felt that if he didn't hear us or see us, he would believe that we were really in school and they were mistaken. What an idiot I was! If that wasn't bad enough, Michael and I got in an argument. I don't know why he had an egg in his hand, but he dropped one in my room. I got an egg and threw it in his room. Before you knew it, we were egging each others' rooms. We didn't even think to try to clean any of it up. We just knew that we were done for. Mom came home.

"What the fuck did you do?"

We just looked at her. What could we do? We lied. I guess we got what all liars got. She got her belt and there were red welts all over our bodies. I guess that would be the reaction to any parent in my day, but still, I could never hurt my daughter like that. But we took it, and then it was over. It was never mentioned again, and we never did it again.

Then, "poof", it was another day to change the rest of my life. Mom went out with Theodore, and she was drinking a lot then. They would argue a lot because of it. One night they had got in a bad fight and Mom took off with her car. He took off after her. She turned on the road and he went straight through a fence. He didn't die because of the car accident, he died of a heart attack. We always knew that he would die of a heart attack because of his blood pressure. Mom came home crying, telling us that Theodore was dead. We couldn't go to the funeral, of course. His family lived about 45 minutes away. Mom would drive back and forth from the house. I don't know why. I think it was to see what the wife was doing. I think Mom was really mad that she wasn't going to get anything from Theodore dying, and that it was all going to his wife and kids who he didn't love at all. That didn't matter to me because they had a right to everything, they were his real family. He couldn't leave his wife, that would be a sin. I really never expected that he would. That part of my life was the best part. It was like a wonderland, a good dream. Like that Shirley Temple movie where she wakes up in the attic and she has all the treats, and her girlfriend comes to share it with her. That was how that whole part with Theodore was. I was so angry that he was gone. I would pray to God, "Why? Why can't Theodore be with us?" I had finally had a father and he was taken from us. And that was the end of that.

Preview of the next generation

2005-08-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

I was driving my usual drive to work, about thirty miles along the expressway, listening to Limp Bizkit. This song, I listen to over and over again all the way to work. Every day it made me more angry, more hurt.

Its just one of those days
When you don't wanna wake up
Everything is
fucked
Everybody sux
You don't really know why
But want justify
Rippin' someone's
head off
No human contact
And if you interact
Your life is on contract
Your best bet
is to stay away motherfucker
It's just one of those days!!

I know that all of the girls in the office talk about me, they're jealous because of my friendship with Mike, my marriage to Frank. They look at me, think life is perfect. All I want to do is smack them silly whenever they speak. I'm gonna run away. I'm gonna go to the city, dump my car, and live homeless. Then I won't be responsible for anyone, no more customers to scream at me for the incompetence in the office, no boss to make me do their jobs. I don't have to live up to Frank's expectations as "the president's right hand man". No more kids to look up to me, failing in their eyes over and over as I scream at them. Why can't I be a good mom? Why can't I cook for them, clean for them, love them? I won't have to see that look of disappointment in my mom's eyes anymore when I pick them up after working ten hours a day, saying that I should be at home with them instead of putting work and my good-for-nothing husband first. I'm starting to panic, this is becoming too real. This plan, I've had for too long; the details are too vivid, feelings too strong. What do I do? Here is my chance, take the first exit to the city. Do I go? There will be no more responsibility, no more anything. Just worry about the clothes on my back and getting food in my belly. Who can I get to stop this obsession?

Two

2005-08-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

A lot of my experience in the orphanage is lost in my mind, and I think that is for my benefit. I think my brothers had it worse than I. I was the kind of little girl that you would look right passed, and look at the wall. I wasn't noticeable, had no interesting qualities. People just ignored me, including the nuns. I do remember the few times Mom came to see us, always promising that it wasn't going to be too much longer.

Every child at the orphanage had their own chores. My chore was washing the stairs. I hated it. I would wash it, and people would go up and down, up and down. I was too young for that. But you had to do something. They did give you a small allowance, and that was to buy yourself treats. One year, they bought a soft ice cream machine, and I spent all of my money on a vanilla ice cream cone. That was my favorite treat. I didn't see my brothers much. My brother Johnny was in the older boys' unit. My brother Mikey was in the younger boys' unit, and I was in the younger girls' unit.

I remember getting up every day, and you had to kneel in bed to say your prayers. You then got up, cleaned yourself up, brushed your teeth, went to breakfast, and had oatmeal and hot chocolate every morning. The hot chocolate always had a layer of goo. I loved my layer. Johnny hated it. Whenever he saw that layer, it reminded him of the orphanage. After breakfast, we had to again say our prayers.

In the summer we were allowed outside to play. In the wintertime, I would go to school. I would say my prayers again before school started and after school was done in the morning. We would then have lunch, which was always peanut butter sandwiches. We would say our prayers before and after lunch. We would either go back outside to play or go back to school, saying more prayers before and after class. A lot of what else happened was hazy. In the evening, all of the children would sit together and watch a small black and white TV. We had our evening meal, saying prayers before and after. Bathtime was before bed, where we would say our bedtime prayers.

The prayer we always said was the Lord's Prayer. I always said it, but I never prayed to be sent home, I never prayed for a better life. Why didn't I pray for that?

This was my life for what I thought was two years, my brother, Johnny, saying it was four or five. There was one Halloween that the older girls decorated the halls for us littler kids to walk down and feel "spooky". My mom never came for the holidays. She always promised, but she never showed. Maybe that's why I don't remember them. Families would come and take home some orphans for the holidays, but my brother would always say no, that our mother was coming for us. We would stand and wait but she would never come. One winter, we went to a cookie factory, and once to an Aunt Jamima Pancake Festival. We all recieved a present, and mine was a small iron. I loved that thing. I received two presents the entire time I was there. One was the iron.

When my mom didn't show up the last year at Christmas, my brother told them at Easter-time, yes, to let me go with a family for the weekend. I remember them coming to get me. They were in a little waiting room. I was so shy. I had to force myself to speak, "Hello." What I saw in their eyes was as if they were saying, "that is pathetic." They were very nice, but I just knew in my heart that they felt sorry for me, and if they wanted a child in their life, it wouldn't be me. They said, "Susan, look around the room! We brought you a present!" There I found the biggest Easter basket I had ever seen. I picked it up and said, "Thank you, thank you!" I was very polite. That was beat into me by my mother and the nuns. They took me home for the weekend. I don't remember anything but eating Sunday dinner. I do, in a small part of my brain, remember getting in trouble with one of their children. I don't know what it was for, but I knew I didn't do it. They didn't believe me, and that really hurt. They made me go back, and I felt unloved and unwanted. They told on me, and one of the few nice nuns told me that she didn't believe me. They tended to look down on us because, if your parents didn't want you or couldn't have you, then you didn't belong in society. This nun I liked a lot, for whatever reason, but that day the way she looked at me, I just had to do something to get her to love me. Inside the Easter basket was the softest chick. You could turn the handle and put it on the floor and it would hop and peep. I loved it, especially being one of the only gifts I had received in years. I had wanted this nun to love me so much that I gave it to the nun. She asked why I was giving it to her.

"Because I want you to have it." Inside I wanted this chick. You don't really need a nun to like you, but she was the least cruel of them all. There was a lot of hitting, slapping across the face. If you were ever labeled, like me, not pretty, no talent, I was worthless to them. When you're worthless, they tended to not believe anything good about you. If you were in their way, they would slap you right down. When you were viewed this way, you had no way to defend yourself, no one to stick up for you. It was scary, not having anyone to protect you, no one to love you, hug you, or kiss you. They never did that.

One day the nuns took us to the beauty parlor. They were having a treat and they let all of the girls get their hair done. My mom had always liked my hair long. She had always told me, "never let them cut your hair." Well, they wanted to cut my hair and when I told them no, I was called selfish and could see the hate in their eyes. I changed my mind and said, "Ok, please cut my hair," to avoid getting in trouble. I did, however, get in trouble when Mom saw it. She was very angry. But that's how it was. You just accepted it as your life. I was lucky that I was in the little girls' ward. Michael was lucky that he was in the little boys' ward. Johnny wasn't lucky at all.

In the big boys' ward, they had to say prayers just as much as everyone else, however, when the boys were kneeling on their beds, their pajamas had no covering on their genitals so that the nuns could detect any impure thoughts. If they were caught, they would get beat on their genitals. The things my brother has told me about the orphanage sickens me. The beatings he took, the hard work he did, but nothing compared to what we had to tend to at least once a month. This place was also an old folks' home. And what do old folks do mostly? Die. We had to go to a funeral about once a month. The caskets were always opened and we would be forced to walk by. One woman, they made us kiss on the cheek. These bodies were ugly, pruney, and we could see where their faces were stitched during the preparation for the funeral. Johnny, as an alter boy, would sometimes have to get the bodies dressed. Being unwanted and unloved by our families, at first it was hard to get used to, but after awhile, you got used to the disrespect. If you're lucky, you get to go home, but that isn't always lucky. We got to go home.

One

2005-08-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

When I read Joan Crawford's book, I laughed. What she wrote about, to me, was nothing. I couldn't believe that all of these people thought it was so bad. Later in my life, when I found out about mental illness, I felt really bad for her. If all of those things were true, all of the things she was going through in her brain, in her mind, it must have tormented her. I don't know how she could have gone through life with it.

My mother's name was Roberta, named after her father, Robert. Her mother's name was Dominika. Dominika immigrated from Russia in the early 1900's, where she met her husband Robert. She sang opera on the radio and never forgave her husband for ending her career by getting her pregnant, as I was told by my mother.

In my first memory of my mother, I was choking on a potato chip. My second memory was of me choking on a chicken bone. My third memory was my father leaving when I was four. I unhooked the latch on the front door, ran down the street after him, calling him. In my mind, I knew he was leaving us for good. No one told me, I just knew that he wasn't coming back. Shortly after, the police brought me back home, waking up my mother, who was very apologetic to the policemen. When they left, she got her belt and beat the shit out of me. My next memory was the start of my life.

I somehow appeared at a Catholic orphanage. I didn't know how, I didn't know why. All I knew was that I had to be a big girl and stay there. I remember crying for her, "Mommy, please don't leave me here, please," and her walking away from the nuns holding me down. I was later told that my brother was acting up and that it was his fault that the three of us were in an orphanage, that she couldn't handle us anymore. There was my brother, Johnny, who was 11, my brother Mikey, who was 6, and me, and I was 4. My sister, Delilah, whom we called Lilly, was left at home. According to mom, she was too young for the orphanage and she was sick with pneumonia, but she more or less lived at the babysitter's.