Mental Illness Destroyed My Family
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Words by Eunice Brownlee // Image by Sarah Hartley
I grew up in what appeared to be a fairly normal middle-class family. We didn’t have everything we wanted, but we never lacked what we needed. Our home was filled with a lot of love—and a lot of otherwise picture-perfect family memories destroyed by a fight that would break out between our parents seemingly from nowhere. Even then, I thought our level of dysfunction was pretty normal. And then I watched the entire thing crumble into fractured bits on my 35th birthday.
I woke up that morning to the sounds of my parents screaming and yelling at each other and the smell of the eggs benedict breakfast I had requested starting to burn. My dad stormed off and my mom came into my room in tears, apologizing that they had ruined my birthday.
. . .
As my senior year of high school wound to a close, my dad had a horrible accident. He was supposed to be laid up for six weeks, but at the time, his income is what our family relied on to get by. He attempted to work just a few weeks later, plowing snow through a typical early spring snowstorm, and ended up contracting a horrible lung infection that had me questioning if he would live to see me graduate in a few weeks.
After he recovered from the broken bones and the lung infection, he spiraled into a very dark place. He was a challenge to be around, and those instantaneous spats with my mom that seemed pervasive throughout my younger years became more frequent. He would get irrationally upset over the smallest things and throw a huge fit. It was a few more years before he would be officially diagnosed with clinical depression. It was another ten years before he was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.
My dad struggled with receiving these diagnoses because his mother had been taken away and institutionalized when he was eight years old. This was in the sixties, when anyone who was mentally ill was basically locked up and they threw away the key. To hear that he might end up like his mother sent my dad into serious denial.
The drugs didn’t help, either. One of the things you should know about medications used to treat mental illness is how hard they are on the body and the brain. You have to be weaned on to them, and then be really patient to find out if they are working, and if not, then weaned off of them. While you’re in this trial-and-error process, you may experience excruciating side effects that make you want to quit. And possibly the worst thing is you know they are working when you feel fine.
Anti-psychotics are more like insulin than an antibiotic. You will need to take them for the rest of your life, making adjustments as things change. Sometimes, a drug that has worked for years will suddenly not be as effective as it once was, or you could get a bad batch of a generic that doesn’t work. Did you know that by law, generic drugs are only required to have an 80% efficacy rate? That is a huge gamble to take when every milligram counts.
Did I mention how expensive these drugs are? As a self-employed household, my dad could not qualify for health insurance due to this pre-existing condition. Aside from his psychiatrist bills that were $150/hour, his medications cost about $800/month. When business was down (periods of time that generally correlated to a depressive state), my parents were often faced with the choice to buy his meds or pay the mortgage. When business was up (periods of time that my dad was manic), my dad would get these crazy ideas, like suddenly deciding to go camping, then spending $2000 on all new equipment he didn’t need. My parents were at threat of foreclosure many times over the years.
Two things never changed: his detachment from reality and his temper. When my daughter and I were living with my parents when I was 30, my dad decided he wanted to catch a bear. He pulled several rolls of elk meat from the freezer and disappeared for almost three days. He was in an area with no cell signal (not that it mattered, because he always turned his phone off when he went into the woods) and we had no idea where he had gone, when he was coming back, or if he was alive or dead.
I’ve lost count of how many times my dad has absolutely exploded in anger–to the degree of screaming and throwing things–and being unsure of whether or not he was going to hit anyone, including me. I can still feel the energy of his wrath reverberating through the house when his anger took control.
. . .
My 35th birthday was the last birthday we celebrated as a family. Nothing has been the same since.
As my mom stood in my room crying to me that she couldn’t take it anymore, I told her that maybe she needed to leave. “I can’t,” she said, as she looked into my eyes, “I don’t believe in divorce.” I said that her safety was more important than holding onto a biblical belief that kept her hostage.
That summer, my dad completely changed. He still insists that he wasn’t manic and he’d never felt more alive. My mom finally summoned the courage to file for divorce, and that sent him in to a full rage. Although she had been granted primary use of the house they owned, she feared for her life and stayed with friends. For weeks, we had no idea where he was or if he would show up at any of our doorsteps seeking asylum.
Early one morning, he sent all three of us kids what was essentially a suicide text. My sister got the sheriff’s office to pick him up and take him to the hospital. He was put on a 72-hour mental health hold. He was released less than 24 hours later, and we still have no idea how. He went dark for a few days and we were all on eggshells. He threatened to kill my brother and my mom later that week.
That summer ended in his arrest and he spent eight months in jail. When he was first booked, I spent three full days trying to get him a psych evaluation and get him moved to the mental health ward, with no success. His psychiatrist refused to visit him in jail, and I was left to deal with everything on my own.
While he was incarcerated, my parents’ divorce was finalized, exactly two weeks before their 36th wedding anniversary. When he was released, the only place he could go was to my sister’s house, and that three months they lived together effectively ruined what little relationship they had left.
Through all of that, I remained close with my dad, recognizing that he still needed a mental health advocate. That fact caused my mom to withhold her decision to move across the country from me, which broke me when my sister accidentally spilled the beans. Because of that, I didn’t speak to my mom for nearly two years.
My sister and I both started therapy and we learned that all of this stuff we had been watching growing up had been there all along. It was eye opening and devastating. My brother has dealt with all of this in his own way. For the better part of five years, all of our conversations centered on our parents and our shattered realities of the life we had growing up. We came to an agreement recently that we would talk about everything but our parents to maintain our sanity.
Our parents, who never missed anything growing up, now have no choice in the matter. My siblings and I have lamented over never being able to have major life events without deciding which parent gets invited. Every time I find myself needing my family, the foundation of the woman I have become, I get sad. It doesn’t exist anymore. I can’t help but believe, if my dad had just been willing to accept his diagnosis and his treatment plan, things might have turned out differently.
About the Author:
Eunice Brownlee has spent her career finding the balance between her left and right brains. She is a passionate writer and writes regularly about mental health, trauma, and abuse. As a survivor of all three, she uses her experience to help others open up and tell their stories. She's also a single mother, striving to raise a daughter who is strong and outspoken. When she’s not doing any of the above, she can be found seeking her next passport stamp and drinking wine.
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