The Summer of '83
Feeling like a Hare Krishna without the orange toga and tambourine, I awaited our flight back to New York while my mother boisterously sang in her Scottish brogue “Yessssss Jesus Loves Meeeeee”. People were staring and whispering and I, humiliated and defeated, bellowed “PLEASE shut up”, “Fuck you!” she screeched back as I took my seat in the airport terminal. I was shocked and paralyzed that my mother would yell at me and even more horrified that she would swear in front of hundreds of strangers. Cringing in my embarrassment, I prayed to be invisible.
In the summer of 1983, I was 15 and my life was like most teens, awkward and embarrassing. I had; braces on my teeth that stretched out my over-sized bubble lips, newly formed breasts and hips, and an enormous nose in the middle of my little round face, and flaming red hair, all of which made it very difficult to be invisible. I was emotionally guarded, stunted and totally self involved; I was in full on puberty and completely normal. I had seen the orthodontist the week before I left, he had tightened the screws on my braces to the edge of unbearable or what I thought was unbearable. I left for my sister’s house in Colorado with great anticipation of having a summer of adventure, unconcerned with my mother’s fragile mental state. As soon as school was out I was on my way to my sister’s house on Powder Puff Drive, the street name sounded so sweet I was convinced it would be nothing but fun. Little did I know that Purgatory was just one street away.
Four weeks was all my summer vacation lasted, just a measly month. My sister was sent to Mississippi by the Air Force shortly after giving birth to my nephew and the plan was to stay with her husband to help him take care of my nephew while she was gone.
By the time I had arrived in Colorado my mother, who arrived in Colorado one week before me, had scouted the neighborhood for kids my age. Immediately upon arrival I had a friend. Lupe lived a street over from my sister’s on Purgatory Drive, she was a year older than me and three years more experienced. I am not really sure why she agreed to be my friend, or what crazy things my mother could have said to her. I don’t think that either the beer drinking or pot smoking that she did in the park with her friends were on the list of prerequisites my mother had when scouting for friends for me. Her list was most likely; Christian – check, Catholic – check, right age – check, cross around neck – check, lives in the neighborhood – check. Eventually, Lupe became very busy with her babysitting career and I became busy avoiding the situation that was developing at my sister’s house.
My avoidance wasn’t working, I knew it was happening; it wasn’t the first time. I could feel it start to spin, everything was coming undone. Initially happy and excited to see her first grandchild my mother was now unraveling. Her days were filled with excessive sleep and her nights with inconsolable hopelessness; the only thing that seemed to interest her was her skewed interpretation of the bible. We were supposed to be taking care of my nephew. Me an awkward teen, my mother a rotund shell of a woman, my nephew, only a month old; still pink and wrinkly and my brother-in-law; 26 and struggling to learn his new role as father, together the four of us fumbling through the complexities of our roles.
The neighbors were a friendly couple with a young daughter and they paid nicely for a couple of hours of babysitting while they went to church. They were the kind of people that would freeze grapes for an icy treat on a hot, dry day. They generously invited my mother to attend Sunday sermons with them. For years I was my father’s stand in at church on Sunday’s, I was the lucky one chosen to be my mother’s date. Over the years my mother and I had sampled several different churches, we got to be Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics and now Scientologists. But now I was finally free of that obligation, thanks to the neighbors. My father had refused for years to attend church with my mother, he would say things like “Damn it Betty, I don’t want to talk to those bible thumpers”. I couldn’t blame him after all the toe dipping into every religion my mother did, I felt the same way. The most recent church we attended back home was very strange but not as strange as the Colorado Church. Yes, the church at home had a cross-dressing minister and child molesting treasurer but it couldn’t compare to the Colorado Church in the unintentional damages that were done to our mental well-being. The neighbors were Scientologists. My understanding is that Scientology doesn’t recognize mental illness. At first the church seemed to be perfect for my mom for the usual reasons; she was out of my hair on Sundays and then overjoyed for hours and sometimes days afterwards.
At the time I didn’t know what it was called and I am not sure that the adults in my life knew either and if they did they certainly didn’t talk about it with me. My mother was sick. The kind of sickness that envelopes your view of the world, rips it apart and regurgitates it back on you. I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t want to know what it was, I didn’t want to be near it, I didn’t want it to touch me, speak to me or love me. I wanted to be invisible, out of sight from the pitying eyeballs of my classmate’s parents and the knowing glances from relatives. I knew my mother was sick but the mystery of what her sickness was, was contained behind the thick glass door of our little blue house and pushed deep into our closet behind the chest that contained all of my fond childhood memories. My parent’s friends would say things like “she’s fine, she just needs a little tough love” while discussing her hospitalization over cocktails with my father. She had been admitted to the Psychiatric Facility in Marcy a few times, it was connected to and just feet away from the prison that once housed the serial killer, “Son of Sam”. I knew she needed help but even then, I could tell it wasn’t the right kind of help for her. The other sick people at the hospital would shuffle around in slippers while chain smoking Pall Mall cigarettes, muttering obscenities or carrying on incomprehensible conversations with their-selves. The Doctors there said that my mother was depressed or schizophrenic or going through the change or acting out for attention, they didn’t know. I didn’t want to.
I also didn’t know that there are many kinds of mental illness and not one treatment fits all. The treatment my mother received helped in the short term but ultimately ended up stealing her from me. She was given a high dose of an anti-psychotic drug, this is what I believe gave her the psychiatric ward shuffle and the Rip Van Winkle sleep pattern. Back then the sick brain was more of a mystery than it is today. Fortunately a great amount of research has been done and new medications developed to help lift that turbulent storm cloud that follows so many people like my mother. Her depression was immobilizing and made her living unbearable while her mania was exhilarating and powerful.
Some mentally ill people seek out drugs and/or alcohol to ease their suffering. My mother chose religion. Religion was her drug of choice. The neighbors, not believing in psychiatry or psychiatric medicines, diagnosed my mother as being possessed with the Devil, the only logical explanation.
Sadly, she was convinced that the neighbors were right and plunged herself deeper into her self-medication. The dark cumulus nimbus clouds appeared once again and everything became dark and overcast, my brother-in-law was increasingly stressed although completely in control and strong. My presence was not helping, I was 15 what did I know about taking care of a baby. And I was certainly not interested in taking care of my mother and a baby. I could help no one. Frightened with the idea of being possessed, my mother had her fourth “nervous breakdown”. The gusty winds that traveled with her storm clouds seemed to carry her sweet soul away. My brother-in-law decided he didn’t need any more “help” and we disappeared.
