Post
Script to The Journey
On
Suicide, Domestic Violence,
Mental
Illness, Addictions
By Sara Niles
In the United States of America, one the most prosperous countries in
the world where people have more reason to be happy than in ‘third world’
countries, suicide is one of the leading causes of death: for males it is
second only to diseases that cannot be controlled, and ahead of homicide. It is
ironic that self-murder is a bigger threat to many than fear of coming to harm by a stranger.
The world is full
of good and bad, and you can find joy and pain wherever you look, if you look
in the right place. There is no greater outward evidence of internal pain than
suicide, the murder of self. In the United States of America, one the most
prosperous countries in the world where
people have more reason to be happy than in ‘third world’ countries, suicide is
one of the leading causes of death: for males it is second only to diseases
that cannot be controlled, and ahead of homicide. It is ironic that self-murder is
a bigger threat to many than fear of the outside ‘boogie’ man, the dangerous
stranger lurking in the dark, because, the most dangerous stranger is sometimes living
deep inside us, unable to get out. It is the Boogie Man inside us that we must
fear the most. Dysfunctional Perceptions, Raging, Unfinished Issues, and Fear, can kill us when we reach one of the many low points that must be navigated in life.
When
I was a little girl, I heard hushed references between my aged family members
concerning two relatives I would never meet, Lucie, and Jo Ann, both were
daughters of my Uncle Robert’s older brothers. Each committed suicide at
separate times, perhaps one was copying the blueprint left behind by her
sister, who may ave inadvertently left a model for problem solving. The reasons for suicide are
always locked within the person, but sometimes they share them with the world
with notes that say ‘I can’t go on like this’ or ‘I have no reason to live’,
words of pain, futility, and desperation developed over many years, usually.
As
a child, and especially a happy child, I had no broad life experience from
which to evaluate suicide, so I was puzzled and mystified with the idea of
someone wanting to die. Who would want to actually die, to leave this wonderful
earth with so many good things to see and do, to enjoy foods, wonderful people, and great and endless beauty with each day? I perceived the world as a happy place
and I was a happy and safe child. Perhaps if I had been a child living in an
unsafe world, I would have seen the world as an ugly place, and all things
would have been colored by that perception. If I had lived such a life in such
a world, perhaps all people would have been suspect as threats, and a happy life
would have been a hopeless dream.
Life
is a complicated mix of many things for many people, and there are multiple
factors that color each person’s view of himself and the world. I am no longer
a little girl living in a world of naiveté, I have since become older and wiser
with the experience of life behind me, and I can see that one of the biggest
threats to happiness is Mental Illness. Regardless of the external reality a person
lives in, the ‘reality’ inside them usually wins. Emile Durkheim, the famous
sociologist cited more than one type of suicide, all with the underlying theme
of a sense of powerlessness. Some of the richest, most talented and famous
people in the world have demonstrated that they felt powerless to change their
lives and thus ended it through suicide. The mentally ill, lose the ability to
control their ‘motor’, the ‘motherboard‘, the main controls of their senses when
their mind is sick, and thus their world becomes colored by a dirty, distorted
perception of life and hope. Persons
with a major depression and depressive disorders are at high risk for suicide, and with
schizophrenia leading the list. The emotions are at risk when a person is
depressed, they can feel so distraught that they fear the pain will never end,
but in schizophrenia, both the emotions and the actual though processes,
cognition, and beliefs, are at risk, for the ability to use rationalization and logic is lost to a storm of emotion.
It has been estimated by different
government funded researchers that as many as ninety percent of suicides are completed
by those with a chronic mental illness. In many of these cases, a crisis
involving family or money was a precipitating factor. The stressed mind was
overcome by outside stressors, it was too much. William Butler Yeats in the
Second Coming, stated
“The falcon
cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the Centre cannot hold”.
The world has a serious problem, when the
pursuit of happiness is under attack from every angle, but especially from
within.
There
is another side to mental illness that people often fail to see, or chose to
forget, the effects upon the family of the mentally ill. In cases wherein the family is close, there
is a storm of powerful emotions that besiege the ‘normal’ family members,
feelings that need processing such as guilt, powerlessness, a sense of failure, and sometimes of hopelessness.
My
middle daughter, Ariel, admitted to having had ‘Survivor’s Guilt’ when she was
a freshman in college and doing well.
Ariel’s mentally ill sister, Kera, was missing for four years while in her self-appointed
exile from us, and Ariel said she felt as though she did not have a right to be
happy because she did not ‘even know where my sister was’. When a family members dies, all members have grief
reactions, as the famed researcher Elizabeth Kubler Ross defined in Death and
Dying: Denial, Anger, Negotiating, Depression and Acceptance. These same grief
reactions apply when any major, life altering loss is encountered. In the case of Kera’s emerging mental
illness, she rejected the family while still at home, isolating herself from
her siblings for the most part, so the feeling of being rejected and discarded
created anger and resentment in her younger siblings that also appeared to
merge into the normal grief reactions. Complicated Grief. When
Kera returned under adverse circumstances, the normal blending back into the
family and natural processing of what had happened, never happened. Kera’s
mental state and her psyche were never strong enough to withstand the stresses
of processing negative emotions for herself or in the context of interaction
between her family members and herself. Sadly, Kera seemed to not even care.Many years passed before Kera’s siblings
would get another chance at mending the broken relationships, but yet again,
Kera would not have the soundness of mind to participate.
Both
Mikey and Ariel laboriously worked through their feelings and established a
healthy relationship that was open and interactive and together they tried to
incorporate Kera into the bond, but once again, it could not be done, Kera was
too fragile and resistant. Mikey said under duress that he felt as though he
had ‘lost a sister’. Kera was unreachable in her own world, like an emotional
turtle that carried her hard shell around with her and never took it off. I suspected part of Kera’s problem was the
medication was not adequate to meet her needs; despite the medication she was
taking, her reality remained warped and her cognition was filled with delusions and
fears common to schizophrenia. It did not matter how small and insignificant a
situation, such as a misplaced item, Kera always believed things were done on
purpose to make her life miserable. If I moved something and she could not find
it, it became a sign I did not like her, and if someone left a strand of hair on
the bathroom sink, it was because they were doing it to spite her. Regardless
of the different scenes, Kera often misattributed motives, accusing people of having
hidden agendas in every case, and the schizophrenic ‘plot’ that they are all ‘out to get me’ continued, making it
nearly impossible to foster a normal and healthy relationship with her for long
periods of time.
Although
Mikey and Ariel finally came to terms with the fact they were indeed
‘schizophrenic, it was a long and arduous battle for them and for me. Just in
as the case is when dealing with any problem that has a negative impact on a
person for life, whether it is physical paralysis or emotional and mental
impairment, both the individual and the family has to learn to accept limits, and work within a new set of boundaries to achieve their goals in life.
John
Nash, the real life character upon which the movie a ‘Beautiful Mind’ was
based, suffered as a paranoid schizophrenic. People who are mentally ill are
more than just the ‘sum of their parts’ just as we all are more than just a few
characteristics. John Nash was more than a ‘paranoid schizophrenic’, he was a
highly motivated individual guided by some of the same passions as others
who achieve such greatness as he. A
prominent professor of Nash’s wrote a letter of reference concerning Nash that
simply stated:
“the
man is a genius”, a statement that
proved true for the entire course of Nash’s life, who at the age of 66, despite
the fact of his being in and out of mental institutions, won the world renowned
Nobel Peace Prize in the field of mathematics in 1994. Nash earned a doctorate
from Princeton before his first documented
schizophrenic crises that led to his commitment, but long before this,
his sister had remarked that she had a very ‘odd’, but bright brother. This information
was enough for me to realize the tendency toward ‘odd’ behavior as a teenager
can sometimes be linked to very intelligent children trying desperately to mask
their emerging illness. This was certainly true in my son’s case: Mikey was
very intellectually gifted as a child, yet exhibited slightly ‘odd’ behavior as
well, from an early age.
When
I first realized three of my five children had inherited the schizophrenic
‘gene’ or disposition, I was devastated. I did not want to believe that it was really
true, anything else would have been better, even drug addiction, for at least
that could be ‘cured’ or overcome in time, but schizophrenia is as lifelong an
illness as severe diabetes, and like diabetes, can become deadly if allowed to
get out of control. Unlike a physical disorder in which the person subjected to
the illness can have normal relationships with his or her family, and function
well in the outside world, schizophrenia changes the affected person’s
perception of the world, and impedes their relationships with others. The
illness is an overwhelming thing that consumes the person and often swallows up
their hopes, dreams and ambitions. In the case of Ariel and Mikey, both
possessed exceptional minds, with Mikey having been in the top 1% in the nation
at one time; schizophrenia disabled their unleashed potential. Ariel never fully
accepted her limitations, pressing on to do things she could not do, and
crashing every time-riding roller coaster emotional highs and lows that no one
could reasonably survive for long. Self-destruction was inevitable, and the
final outcome would be bleak and tragic.
The
problem of mental illness is not a small one, nor is it a rare one. There are
millions of faceless mentally ill people living on the streets of major cities and it is estimated
that the chronically mentally ill make up about a quarter of the homeless, with
Veterans making up another large percentage. I believe that if those homeless
veterans were evaluated for mental illness, that a new number would emerge and
of that number, schizophrenia would rank highest among the mental illnesses encountered
on the streets of America. Schizophrenia is horrible thing that I have
witnessed up close and personal for over four decades, and although I have been
blessed with a strong and clear mind, I know that gift was not given to
everyone.
Schizophrenia
not only ‘splits’ the mind, as Emil Kraepelin surmised, it plays on fear; and I have personally witnessed
what fear can do to the mind. The churning fears of a paranoid schizophrenic
never turns completely off, along with the constant running dialogue, the voices in their
heads are merely muted by the effects of medication, in many cases. The ‘voices’
are internal thought processes that work like daytime dreams, wherein many
different factions of what we think, believe, and fear, are mixed into an
irrational soup. Those who were conditioned by society and culture to fear the Devil and God, find the key players in their fears involve God and the Devil.
Those who believe government is against the people instead of for them, fear
political ‘conspiracies’, and those who fear large corporations, find those as
prominent themes in their delusions. The most compelling and disturbing among
the schizophrenics arsenal of fears are not the big fears, but the day to day
little ones, wherein the slightest cough or look from a loved one can provoke a
bout of paranoid reactions and at trip to the grocery store can become a
frightening thing.
The emergence of a schizophrenic crisis,
or episode, is usually provoked by a personal stressor that evokes a strong
negative emotional response, with a real fear being the strongest of the
antagonists. In a world wherein you fight to keep internal fears under control,
an external fear usually will push you over the edge, a truth that is universal
to everyone, not just the ill of mind.
In the case of my children, they carried the added load of the internalized trauma from their childhood, which often leads to distorted
perceptions of self and others, and before they could process this problem that
rocked the foundations of their being, they encountered another threat to their happiness, a Monster just as
fierce as the first one, that of Domestic Violence. The third of the ‘three headed
monsters’ was the issue of Addictions, of all types, with substances proving to be the most lethal. Alcoholism and Drug addiction is a
major monster in the theater of human dysfunctions, accounting for large
portions of the world population, and one that is especially rampant in prosperous America,
where everyone is encouraged to not just ‘be’ but to be better, and stronger, to
excel and chase the American dream. The reasons for addictions of every type is
usually buried within early childhood within a sea of either subtle emotional
neglect, or outright violence, in either case a void was created that the
individual sought to fill with some chemical. My children were not entirely
spared from this ugly monster either, so they faced the full brunt of the
Three-Headed-Monster.
In my case, I was fortunate to be what was
referred to as a ‘resilient’ child with strong coping skills and strong
personality, something learned from my aged relatives and cultivated on a country
farm. The resilience I was born with and can take no credit for, I am sure this was
one of the few gifts my mother gave me, as I am sure she was also born with an
inherent resilience herself, judging from her strong survival drive. I was never tempted
by drugs or alcohol, and shied away from any chemical, even when in pain. I
processed negatives quickly and latch onto the positives in life, as I know
there is only a limited amount of ‘psychic energy’ available per any given day.
Ariel’s psychic energy gave out in the
year 2013, when she was 33 years old, and after threatening to commit suicide,
to ‘kill myself’ so many times that we grew almost immune to the words, she
finally completed the act on February 17th, 2013. The coroner’s office
called to confirm the finality of the dark day, two days after her death: she
had consumed drugs that were later deemed “beyond
lethal”. At the time of her death, Ariel was two thousand miles from home,
chasing an impossible dream, although she was officially disabled, she was determined
to continue her university education, and to become an attorney. Ariel had been struggling to complete her
education for over twenty years; by that time, Ariel’s mind had become chaotic
under the added duress of heavy doses of prescription drugs, and a raging
addiction to opioids was in its formative stages. Ariel was determined to
succeed or die trying, and as the months passed, during our daily phone
conversations with her, we could hear despair in her voice that signaled she
inwardly knew she was unable to do the things in life she was driven to do; and
tragically her solution as always, was to “just
kill myself”. I had attempted to talk her into a positive state of mind the
same day she overdosed; but it was a failed attempt on both our parts. Ariel
locked us out, turned her phone off, and closed the door of life and possibilities forever, without even leaving a note. I suppose she felt she had already said all that needed saying.
My
heart broke into a thousand pieces as I negotiated the ‘what if's’ and
calculated the huge loss we all had suffered. Our little family was isolated
from extended family many decades preceding the loss of Ariel; therefore Ariel
had been a significant part of who we all were. We all lost a part of
ourselves, and each one of us individually loss a dear friend and comforter, an
ally, and a tireless cheerleader when it was what was needed. I lost my
Picayune Amazon forever.
Ariel was an
intense and passionate being whose ambition became a burden that she could no
longer carry; it had been an ambition born from trauma and turmoil during her youth.
Ariel’s exceptional intelligence and single purposed determination won her academic
scholarships that landed her at Howard University and Princeton, and would have
served her well in her life’s goals if only she had not suffered mental
illness. In the year 2001, When Ariel was twenty-one years old, she suffered a
complete mental breakdown while attending a prestigious university, one she
later wrote about in a published news article in which she recounted her scholarship
to a major university, followed by a mental breakdown:
“A few
years later, my 21st birthday passed as I lay trembling in a psychiatric
hospital, unable to comprehend the book that lay open before me. The insidious entity
lurking beneath the surface of my psyche had exploded into mental illness.”
(Ariel) Shenoa Thompson
Ariel
had longed to go to New York with an advanced degree one day to live the city
life full of excitement and possibilities while she wrote books and practiced
law. Those dreams would never come to fruition, but she never gave up trying, as
the old cowboys used to say “she died with her boots on”.
The
damage done by the life that Torn From the Inside Out, was based upon; virtually
destroyed us all, so that not all my children have survived. The Journey has
been a long arduous one, with casualties along the way. Many lessons were
learned that I share with you. No matter how hard our own life’s journey, we
must keep moving forward, leaving markers for the next travelers along Life’s
Way. We live in difficult times and the American dream is not easy to lasso for
some of us, we learn to accept what we can do, and let go of what we cannot
control, but I can only hope that my remaining children will never give up. I for one, will never give up on life and the
pursuit of happiness, not only for myself, but for my children, grandchildren,
and all who will ever stand to benefit from the stories of our lives. Being
human and being a good human are two of the greatest things life has to offer;
one is a gift that we receive at birth, and do nothing for,-the other is
hard-earned.
