Thanks Gail. mental health

Gail recommended this website and after reading a good bit of it, I think it is one worth recommending. Though much of it is about helping directly those who are mentally ill. I did find that they offer information for those who deal with mental issues, of either parents or siblings.

It is not about comparing apples to oranges, though of course their are different degrees of mental health. Dad had his mental disability diagnosed from the Veterans and though he did get treatment, his mental health issues became my mothers and became ours. Sadly enough, a whole family is affected by the actions of one.

My sister doesn't have computer access and though I myself have worked through much of the issues that we lived with and have found and outreach she has not. Unfortunately she is reliving it through tapes and newspaper clippings and so for her the information you provided will help her in many ways. That she is not alone and she can surface above the hauntings of the past.

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Helpline1&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=70800

Domestic Abuse,

I find there to be Irony in the fact that people know when they are wrong and still continue on a journey of dysfunction. I really don't have memories of my mother before the age of ten. I have seen pictures of her, but I don't relate to the woman. I do remember that her eyes gave away her emotions and that when she knew it was going to be bad, she would say to my eldest sister get the children out of here they don't need to see this. I guess that is why we spent a lot of time down by the river or in the city park.

My father had tape recorded his memories as far back as the death of first child. When he passed away my sister held on to the tapes. She called me troubled and rambling. I said why would you want to listen to them, when we lived them. Let it go! She is not one to let much of anything go. My parents weren't drinkers, my mother would have a social drink maybe once a year. Her vice was condoned, it was medical prescriptions. A rather bizarre situation as my father was extremely violent with the children and my mother with him. Some kind of off the wall circle that encouraged viscous and uncontrollable behavior between them.

Looking back as an adult I now understand more about the social sins of mental health. The time in which they lived and how little is known about the deprivation of the brain and its need for a source of nutrition, health and well being.

Some stories were repeated over and over so many times, between strangers, newspapers and my father, that what we didn't witness we felt we did. Sometimes we saw the blood,sometimes not but the fall out was always there. There is no condoning such violence and as I tell my sister to let it go, I don't ask her to forget but to blow it in the wind, is to free her soul.

I am not actually sure what set it off all the episodes. There was a blend of issues, depression, health and that led to financial as well as personal problems. Suicide was an almost acceptable alternative when you didn't know what to do. My grandfather had succeeded in taking his life,my mother had made many attempts without success and following in their footsteps was my only brother who or more than once had his stomach pumped.

Noise blocking out noise, that is what allowed me to sleep, to this day I need noise to block out noise so I can rest. My father looked down on me as the weak link, I think he didn't beat me because he didn't want to. He was afraid that I would be the mouth piece that would reveal the horrid stories of abuse to children and adults alike. Literally not able to stop shaking from a very young age on, it raised a red flag, Sent to the doctors they were told to bring some kind of normalcy to the home. When all that could be done was I was sent to a private school where I spent seven years. These seven years were a time of healing and though separate much of the time from my siblings I was able to experience a world outside of the daily dysfunction.

I was certain there wasn't any good which would come from reliving the stories but as I see it, there is a certain amount of baggage that needs to be tossed out. Not only is it to help in the final healing process, but also to acknowledge and reveal the hidden secrets of an abusive family.

My mother was seventeen her father had asphyxiated himself by allowing the exhaust into the car. She never truly dealt with the death of her father. She blamed her mother for his death, because she had asked him for a divorce. Though several stories surfaced, a few that he was going deaf and his health was ill. My mother was never really clear on where he was emotionally obviously he was depressed, alone and separated from my grandmother. My mothers closeness with her father left scars on her soul.

It was world war two and many of the young girls wrote letters to the soldiers, my mother wrote to several of the men, my father would be one of them. An attractive young woman my mother dropped out of school in her senior year. She took several jobs as secretary, waitress and in a toy factory. My father had become smitten with her and as the war was coming to and end a new war one on the home front would begin.

Revenge

We are our own worst enemy

Speaking with my elder sister, I found her pain, her disappointment and I found that her anger had her on the path of revenge. Is she revenging a wrong or is her resentment getting the better of her spirit? Let it go I said, the sooner you quit punishing your self, the sooner you will heal. She said I have to do it, I have them make them pay.
Something horrible is brewing within in the family, the vengeance in which she is planning on taking will do nothing but disrupt every one's life. My first thoughts are why is she doing this? It's much like misdirected anger, I find she wants to inflict a punishment on family members who indeed crossed the path of injustice. I asked her what will come of it, what do you think you will gain by allowing anger and hatred a place in your heart and soul? Revenge she said, they will pay it is my revenge.
I felt troubled at her words, I felt as if she was taking advantage of a mental health issue of someone who is now gone. So if your not helping yourself and your not helping the person who was desperately in need, then who are you hurting? I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to wish it all away. The turmoil within me is cautious as if there maybe truth to what she says, will she be stopping another hell from happening or encouraging another chapter that consist of page after page of the unthinkable.
I gave it some thought she is talking murder and health issues, if there is truth who will suffer next from the hands of evil and if there is no truth to her accusations, how many family's will suffer from such direct vengeance?
The negativity of the last few weeks is overwhelming and it drains the spirit. Part of me doesn't want the horror to come out. If a person speaks many times the same story, does the story to them gain some measure of reality for them? I see a family drowning with no help to be found, surely they will be there own demise.
Truly it is becoming a horror flick in the making. Where does vengeance fit in, with those who need mental help. With many people independtly giving me their side of the story, I view many beginnings and many endings to the hell that waits.
Nothing good will come of this so revenge, only pain, hatred and evil.

Dancing with the Angel of Darkness.....

One tear fallen for those I'll not chance to meet,
another for those I have and lost.

When Tragedy comes to visit.

The Violin played was melodic music to the ears, but it was the
hands of fate that played me throughout the years...........

A potential client was screening my thoughts on Suicide, he went on to tell me of a couple who had one son at war and another son who recently hung himself. “What is your view of suicide and where do you stand? he asked." My first thought was it was a cowards way out and then I reviewed out loud how diverse mental health issues are. His request was that I write for the couple and the loss and love of their two sons. He said how will you know what I want to say or how I feel. I replied from our discussion and if you have any thoughts, jot them down. The next week he delivered this whole letter which seem like a honor for the son who had commit suicide. I usually give clients two rough drafts and allow them to choose. I felt very strongly that this was different. This project I was working on was to honor these people as parents and human beings. I knew that if I were in that position I would have a weight of guilt, first I needed to relieve them of the heavy weight "the burden of guilt. "

I started writing to the graphics, “ Nothing Separates the bond between parent and child, it is eternal even at the time of death. “ Then moved on to write about their achievements. When it was finished, my client paid me twice my asking price, he said you are very in touch with what they are feeling. I replied, I have had experience, been down this road before. Different stories the same emotions. We are after all human!
.
It jarred thoughts of how close suicide was to my own family and the scars it leaves or maybe its the negative lesson of an “easy way out.” I never had a chance to know my grandfather, though I heard of him. He was a professor of music and he had a great love for the future. He was the first on the block to own a car and a television. But he will always be remembered for his love of the violin. I guess that is partly where our love for music came from. All of us girls played the violin, but my older sisters both played concert and could get down and fiddle.Grandfather had been stricken with ear problems it had developed into mastoid ears. Medical technology not as advanced at the time, grandfather was going deaf.

Standing in the graveyard reading over his gravestone, my mind chased over the stories to try and clarify what had truly happen. He was not in the section where family was buried. Grandfather had chose to end his life. In the 1940’s suicide was so frowned upon by the church that he was forbidden to be buried on sacred grounds. He was in the section they called “lost sinners.” The story my mother told us what that he couldn’t live with going deaf, though my great aunt told me the dirty little secrets of a marriage gone bad. My grandparents had separated and grandmother was filing for divorce. Depends who tells the story, which version you hear. At this point that mattered very little, the black mark against the family would become a string of an unwanted legacy.

My mother was extremely close with her father and had prepared right before his death to move in with my great aunt and her father. She stopped into check on him as she always did and he wasn’t in the kitchen, calling“ come here princess” . She went down to the garage and there in his pride and joy, his 1945 Ford was her father, unconscious, cold. Grandfather had connected a hose from the exhaust into the cab of the car, closed his eyes and gone to sleep forever.Was grandfather depressed ? I am sure he was! Physically in pain? that too, heart broken, yes I think the fear of loneliness is more than many can bare.

Unfortunately the scars left behind from such a emotional experience seems to seed insecurities and a poor view of self worth, as well as give few alternatives to problems in life. My mother never really got over the loss of her father. She lived with a lot of what if. What if, they had the medication at the time to cure, what if he would have accepted surgery, what if they would have accepted his sisters invitation to move in with her, what if grandmother didn't want a divorce.

Mother’s life was far from perfect, her and my father had a physical spark between them but little else in common. Mother’s education exceeded his by leaps and bounds. But as life is very vulnerable for us all, we cannot put ourselves on a pedestal.Simply, because we do not know what we would do “ unless we walked a mile in their shoes” Mother repeatedly tried to take her life and her failed attempts baffled me. It seem like each generation had one who would come to close to walking in grandfathers foot steps.

My brother was engaged to be married, her parents wanted the marriage called off and at one point it was. My brother was devastated, he took my mothers pill from the shelf and went to my grandmothers and wrote a note, I cannot and will not live without her. Grandmother found him unconscious and had him rushed to the hospital where they pumped his stomach.

I feared how close would this sickness come to my own children or my own family. Overly cautious, I listened and talked as my children worked through the trial and err of life. If nothing I wanted them to know I was here, that there are options, that someone cares and loves them. I wanted them to know that I know about heartbreak and love and that they will survive and the heart will heal. That life will go on , but more importantly how saddened the world would be without them. How saddened I would be without them. I have been fortunate as far as motherhood goes. I say it is true “God only gives us as much as we can handle.” Though a few times I have said " Don't push it God"

The fall from Grace..

Not one for watching television, and still you can’t get around the media circus over Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith. Everywhere you go grocery stores, shops etc people are talking about them. Is it that we like to point fingers at those who have more and fall from grace? The old adage” we all put our pants on one leg at a time.” or is it “curiosity killed the cat?”


Trying to get the facts for my own childhood, I glanced over a few articles my sister had saved. For my brother and sisters, life for them seem pretty perfect, at first that is. We came from what seemed from the outside a fairly average family. But life was going to take a drastic change. My mother had quite the princess lifestyle. The only little girl in a rather large extended family, she had everything she ever wanted. In the era it was unheard of supermarkets and malls, everything was little shops.My grandmother owned her own Beauty shop. Grandfather was a music professor and my great grand parents owned the groceries stores that were so common to the city. Educated an attractive her life seemed almost perfect, until that is her father took his life, her world came crashing down around her. She was daddies little girl, the stories circulating varied. Some say he couldn’t deal with the fact that he was going deaf , a musician without hearing. Others said that he didn’t deal well with my grandmother asking for a divorce in a time when divorce was uncommon and unheard of . Either way it was devastating. Unstable and not dealing well with the loss of her father, she married far to young. Even worse she married a man from the wrong side of tracks. At first family extended a hand out, and they
pulled some strings to get him employed with a great company making a very comfortable wage for the times.
New home, new husband, new life and then came four children. The stories vary to some degree depending on who your talking to. My mother went about living the lifestyle she was accustomed to, She shopped only the finest boutiques, and her children dressed in the best of clothes. It was all about image, to the outside it was perfect.There was more going on as they say “ then meets the eye.” My father became ill, not manly to be ill,he didn’t go for medical help, instead he allowed a infection to get into his blood stream, one that would nearly kill him. He didn't recuperate very quickly and didn’t get back to work. Mother went on as if nothing
happen the children in dance classes , shopping for the best , a new car, life as usual. They used what savings they had to pay the bills and as my mother said" I thought he would make it back to work sooner." It didn’t quite happen that fast, taxes , utilities and store credit cards were mounting. She picked up some work secretarial and even went into a factory for awhile. But the pressures were mounting, Dr. prescribed drugs just complicated life, uppers, downers and something in between.

I was two years old and my sisters eight , ten and my brother twelve, when my mother in a very public display attempted suicide. She broke her back and was hospitalized for quite a long time after that, my eldest sister had become really the only mother I knew, what little visions I can remember were of her pushing me in a stroller and holding me. Ah... they grew up quickly as their childhood life shattered., ridicule from other children, the struggles that came with children raising children.

My father eventually made it back to work and I remember as a adult asking why he didn’t stay working he had children that to needed to fed, he said it was difficult with the other men, his pride had gotten in the way. What did he think was going on for his own children,had he not visioned his own childrens plight, what they were enduring in school etc.

Strict he was and the house was perfect, the eldest sister worked washing clothes by hand , ironing , cooking cleaning, she became a little adult. My brother did everything possible to make a few dollars to pay the corner store grocery bill from picking up odd jobs to penny pitching. I use to love to watch him penny pitch, he became so good that he could make a few dollars in one till and that bought a lot of milk and bread.
For me many of the memories from the years of ten and under are muddled, I think I have unconsciously blocked many of the extreme and violent ones out. Occasionally a word, a place, a conversation would evoke a thought and like a flash, a chapter would open.