After coming back from visiting my mother and sister for the umpteenth time — after another round of me convincing Mom not to make a fifth dish, after another round of my sister asking if my glasses were new (no, it’s the same pair I’ve worn for three years) what color my jacket was (black fleece, a reluctant gift from Dad from Mainland China) or why my shoes look like golf shoes (“they just do, okay? They don’t have the spikey things at the bottom, though”) I’ve always tried to explain to my friends — actually, no, fuck my friends, I’ve always been trying to explain it to myself — what the situation was with Angela. My sister, she who can start with the most basic of small talk to members of the family before watching an infomercial on TV and quietly muttering to herself, trying to read between the secret definitions and profound subtexts that lie behind things like “carbonate steel Bo-Flexes” or “CODs.”
On the train ride back home, I came to the following conclusion: Angela has chosen to interact in the space around her in her rules of reality. At some point, there was our side, the side of my family and of the television and the newspapers and the world around us, and on the other side, the safe comforting world of the voices in her head, her skitzophrenic reality of Jesus and Satan and Barbara Bush and Princess Diana all telling her the same thing at the same time. Being a sibling of someone mentally ill you grow up reading a shit-ton of material on people who have schizophrenia, and they all have this weird pattern of how they all feel like their “double agents” — like they have one foot in our world and one foot in their own, but they’ll be more than happy to stay in their world forever if you fuck it up for them enough.
Honestly, I think this is where we fucked it up for her: between the stress and the lousy home life and the unattainable expectations — and yes, from my lack of support as a sibling, because how the fuck was I supposed to act when someone breaks down when you’re a teenager? — she gave in. Not because she’s weak, but because she is human with a mental illness. Everyone in my family learned the hard way that while all the Zyprexia can take away the voices in her head, the medication can’t fix the fact that all this is all she has known, and will know.
And there it is. That “with proper treatment, your sister will be a normal person again” mantra my father spouted to me for thirty years? Bullshit. There’s nothing to fix. Plenty to control, perhaps, but nothing to fix. This is how my sister will be when my parents eventually pass, this is how my sister will be when I become her default guardian, even though I am ten years younger than her.
We’ve known that reality for a while, and we’re all dealing with the repercussions in our own ways: My father has started his new life, trips around the world with his girlfriend. My mother plays Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony at deafening levels, partly to drown out my sister, the C-SPAN she watches, and maybe her own loneliness. As for me, well, I’m writing this blog entry. But we’ll deal.
That said, if there was a God, He done fucked up this one bad. Or maybe we did. Or maybe everyone did.
Do NOT blame yourself. For years I blamed myself for my dad’s episodes. NOTHING that you (or your family) did pushed her over the edge.
I don’t have any answers for dealing with her, but I do know ONE thing. It’s not our fault that our loved ones are the way that they are.
In the argument of Nature VS. Nurture, this one falls squarely into the category of Nature.
I love reading your posts on this subject because of how honest you are about your family and yourself.
I hope your sister, during her brief moments of clarity, appreciates your level of love and understanding of her condition.
Hang in there.
Man, you have guts to publish this. May you find your own peace of mind in your writing about this.
Sometimes life sucks, and as simple as that sounds, it is true. This is the hand that you were dealt, and there may be some peace in concluding that it can’t be fixed. (No reason to hold out hope for expectations that can’t be met.)
Ernie, In your own way, I hope that you, and your family have a safe Christmas, and that 2010 is a little kinder to you than maybe 2009 was. Take care, man.
I empathize with your feelings concerning your sister. Hopefully 2010 treats you better.
I think you just described my family. Aside from not having a mentally-ill siser part – my family just disintegrated by itself anyway.
Now my Dad spends his days chatting up women online (although he’s in no fit state to, y’know, actually *do* anything with them) and my Mum vacantly watches Chinese TV…
You’re not alone. Sad as it sounds.
it hit me tonight, reading this–what underlies all your writing, gives it its flavor, is this sword of damocles that’s been hanging over your head from the day you first realized your sister would be your cross to bear forever, a life sentence for a crime you didn’t commit.
not being able to rise above looking at it that way doesn’t make you a bad person–i hope at some point you get that.
Ernie,
As someone who’s in a very similar situation, if you ever want to talk with someone directly, I’d be happy to listen.
One thing I’ve decided is that in my experience sometimes it’s okay to be selfish and put yourself first. You have to take care of yourself first before you can truly have the ability take care of anyone else.
I like to think I’m someone who really helps my friends, family, and girlfriend through difficult times. But the only reason I can do this is because I take care of myself first, so that I have the energy stored for when other people need me.
So far this year on top of everything else, both of my parents have become incredibly ill, and then after deciding to take a break last night with my friends, my bag was stolen here in London, with my laptop which had my Macbook Pro and iPhone in it.
Life does suck sometimes and just when you think it can’t get worse, it’ll find some beautiful way of kicking you square in the nuts.
You’ve got to forget about the bad things sometimes, realise the good things you have and take care of yourself.
Happy New Year and good luck in 2010!
I gotta agree with Laura. Don’t blame yourself. That’s the classic Chinese thing to do. It ain’t your fault because you didn’t know/couldn’t have known at that age.
One of the things we need to do as humans is reach for a *reason* for why certain things happen. Sometimes they just do. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t condemn yourself to the squalor of your own mind. Reach for the happiness and stick to it. Otherwise, it’s Hell on earth for you, and that ain’t any way to live.
Have they tried Clozaril? The son of my SO has severe schizophrenia. Zyprexa helped some, but Clozaril has made a huge difference. Now, I doubt if you’d even guess he has schizophrenia. It truly has been a wonder drug in his case.
I just came across this post… To some degree, I can identify with you completely…