mental illness

Happy Birthday, Brother

/ phillipamory / 2 Comments

Dear Mark,

How are things in the great beyond?

Did you celebrate your mortal birthday with mom?

I guess it’s silly to recognize a day on the calendar when you live outside of time.

I’ve thought about you a lot since that day you took matters into your own hands to opt out of your suffering. 

Believe it or not, I even started talking to a therapist.

I guess I just needed to run some things by an unbiased ear to check up on myself. 

Kind of poetic justice, since you were forced into therapy sessions so many times.

An endless army of well-meaning psychologists and psychiatrists who were either tweaking your mind or tweaking your meds.

Honestly, I’m still grappling with what to do with you. 

There is a piece of me that believes I killed you off long before you took your deadly potion. 

There was an emotional threshold that you crossed that I could not follow.

I froze a beautiful caricature of our youth that I still visit often. 

But your dark abyss of depression followed by manic annihilation were no-go zones for me.

My physical distance from you made it that much easier to simply memorialize what we once had.

As part of my journey into self discovery I’ve been studying the Enneagram. 

No shock to you I’m sure, that my personality type is a (9) – the peacemaker. 

Creating peace and resolving strife is my super power. Conflict is my kryptonite. 

However, when I’m emotionally unhealthy, I am actually in great conflict with myself.

This inner conflict manifested itself in so many subtle ways…

The two hour phone calls where I did nothing but listen to you rant.

The unanswered phone calls, when I saw your number pop up. 

The pleas from my siblings for me to hold you accountable for your actions.

The guilt of not being there for you –  not being there for mom and dad – not being there for our brother and sister. 

I could not reconcile you to the world so I sought to reconcile you to my mind. 

I failed you and I failed myself. 

I created an illusion of peace that simply masked the greater turmoil within me.

The cruel joke of this life is that often the greatest revelation of our true self comes too late.

I learned September 7th, 2020 that it was indeed too late to make it right with you.

As if needing to rub more salt in this gaping wound to force the healing, I discovered a letter I wrote you on January 30th, 2012. Fitting I guess, that I documented the day you truly left me – more truthfully, the day I left you.

In case you need reminding, I wrote in part:

“I guess one purpose of this letter is a confession of sorts… there is a part of me that feels guilty for being 120 miles away and not being able to offer physical support as Steve, Dad, Amy and others have done.  Yet, the biggest part of me is glad that I’m not there to witness your daily struggle. In our last phone conversation, prior to you leaving for Myrtle Beach you said that you really didn’t see me as family… I just breeze into town and breeze out…and in many ways, that’s true.   We have been in North Carolina for 19 years, our kids have grown up here, our friends and acquaintances are here. But the love of my family in Lynchburg has not changed. I do care, I am concerned, and I do worry and have anxiety over family issues. However, when it comes to you, I’m at a loss. You are the brother who shared a room with me. You are the brother who stayed awake with me on Christmas Eve. You are the brother who would sleep with me on the pull-out sofa downstairs. You are the brother who bought me my first pair of converse, my first album, my first Levis, my first flannel shirt. You are the brother that let me drive your car and let me tell dad that you “forced me”, when we got caught at the stoplight. You are the brother that invited Jackie and I over for steaks on the grill and frozen daiquiri’s. You are the brother who would come over to our house on Crestview to sit on the deck and look at the mountains. That’s the brother I want to hold on to. This other person that you sometimes become is not the brother of my memory… the brother I hold in my mind is not depressed, is not angry, is not belligerent, is not violent, is not disrespectful to his family. I can’t make these two images come together, so for me it’s easier to keep my distance and hope that one day you might be that person again. Of course that’s all silliness on my part, for this is indeed “you” – I’m merely holding on to the culmination of years of building on the you I choose to remember. 

Over the last few years, our conversations have been fewer in number and increasingly painful. I listen intently and do very little talking. Your internal pain and struggle are evident but the filter that you see the world through is skewed. The very people who have lived through the emotional pain with you are often the ones who are the brunt of your venting. I should correct you but I remain silent so as not to endure your rejection. My conscience is not silent though, and it tells me that I’m of no help to you in quiet affirmation. The scales have begun to lift from my eyes and I can now truly see that you are ill. There may be no cure but there is certainly treatment and management of the illness that you have often neglected at the peril of yourself and others. I used to think that you were your own worst enemy and would bring no harm to anyone but yourself…but now I know you have harmed others and given the right conditions, could do so again. So I remain at my safe distance… physically, and more significantly, emotionally. I remain steadfastly your brother, and I love you as I always have but I had the need to purge my own soul. Please get the medical help you need. Do whatever it takes to be a whole person again. There is no future in the past and no forgiveness there. Your life is ahead of you and forgiveness is now. That’s all for now… Much Love – Phil”

Brother, I now see clearly that my war was not with you, but with myself.

These words were my attempt to be at peace with the me I had become and didn’t like.

What I was attempting to purge with futility was my own ego.

Will you forgive me for my selfish lies?

Will you forgive me for the great sin of not being able to love you completely and without condition?

I’m still evolving into my full humanity and maybe a bit envious that you are now whole. Is it disgraceful to admit that I’m free now to love you completely again? 

Ah, how clever of you to call me out on this new lie I’m telling myself.

I do still miss the brother of our youth.

And my heart is overjoyed that I’ve reconnected with you in the spirit realm.

But help me love you and me in that messy middle!

I know now that my peace resides there in the darkness.

So, for your birthday, I give you a lifelong work in process – to one day love you in your totality.

And per usual, it’s actually the gift that you’re giving me.

I can hear your sarcastic humor cutting through as you shout in my ear – “Thanks a lot!” 

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. I Cor. 13:9-12

I’m not crazy, I’m just me.

/ phillipamory / Leave a comment

Monday September 7th, my brother Mark took his own life. He was bipolar and had struggled since he was a teenager with pendulum swings of out-of-control mania, to bottomless despair and depression.

More accurately, over the span of his life he had been labeled as having: Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Manic Depressive Disorder, Treatment Resistant Depression, and Bipolar Disorder. One random sampling of his medical records from 2004 showed he was on Wellbutrin for depression, Aripiprazole for schizophrenia, Lithium for mania, Temazepam for insomnia, Pantoprazole for ulcers, Benztropine for symptoms of Parkinson’s, and Propranolol for high blood pressure and chest pain. The psychiatric drugs of choice and dosages would change often, and Mark developed an encyclopedic knowledge of each, that would rival any pharmacist. At the time of his death, he was on 12 different prescription medications.

In the end, Mark administered a lethal dose of the pharmaceutical cocktail that had been prescribed to save him. Other than a brief note on the door that he left for his daughter to see, there was no goodbye.

The following is an excerpt from my comments at Mark’s memorial service. Maybe this notion will provide some inkling of insight and compassion for those in relationship with someone with mental illness – or perhaps this will allow you to be seen and heard.

In my own struggle to reconcile Mark’s life – I have resorted to using the crude metaphor of music to illustrate what I can only imagine must have been going on in his mind at times. Most “normal” people live their lives listening to their favorite music at the perfect volume level, which is dictated by their mood or how they want to feel.

I have an Amazon Echo in my kitchen and in my bedroom, and depending on my mood I may say: Alexa play James Taylor or Alexa play Led Zeppelin or Alexa play Miles Davis or play some Bob Marley.

I choose the music and the volume that I wish to experience it at.

Imagine if you will, walking into a room and a random song comes on – one you did not pick. But as it continues to play you start to enjoy it and maybe even get into it – maybe it starts to make you remember good times from the past, and maybe even inspire you.

But over time, the volume of this music just keeps getting louder and louder.

As the intensity steadily increases to near deafening levels, you clasp your hands over your ears to try and muffle the driving bass and screeching guitars, but it won’t let up – it. just. gets. louder! Others say the volume is perfect and that you just need to calm down and enjoy it – but what once drove the passion is now driving you mad.

What would you do to make it stop?

Imagine another time you’re at a party and everyone is having a great time listening to the music and singing along – and maybe even dancing to the rhythm.

As you’re tapping your foot to the beat something happens and you begin to notice that the volume of the music is slowly starting to fade.

The volume continues to incrementally drop until eventually you can’t hear the music any longer…

You look around but everyone is still singing and dancing… they hear the music, but you can’t!

You’re confused and disoriented, and someone asks what’s wrong with you, and you tell them that you can’t hear the music.

They assure you it’s playing, and everyone is having a good time, and you just need to try harder, listen better, just move your body like everyone else is and it will come to you again…

You try and try and try – and you strain your ears, but there is nothing but silence.

 What would you do just to be able to hear the music again?

Now: Imagine you’ve lived the horror of these two extremes time and time again, for as long as you can remember – and you can feel it with every fiber of your being when it begins to happen again…

Barely perceptible at first but then you notice – The music is a little louder than it was yesterday or maybe the music is a little softer than it was before…

You know it’s coming, and you know how it will end, and you fear it!

 What would you do to alleviate the pain of this dread before the actual suffering even hits you?

Finally, imagine that a trained doctor tells you that if you take this pill for this and that pill for that, you will be able to hear the music as normal people do… 

So you take the pills with guarded optimism and to your surprise the pills do indeed help you.

But there is one side effect that you hadn’t counted on….

Now you can only hear the same music on a loop, and at a balanced monotone cadence.

And there are days that you get sick of listening to the same song over and over, at the same volume level.

You long for the days when the music was loud and you could jump in the truck, roll the windows down, and feel alive.

And there are moments when you need a sad song because, life is hard and you want to cry but the tears just refuse to come! And you only wish you could feel deeply again.

You wonder if you are really even human at all – so you stop taking the “normal pill”. 

And the cycle begins again...

THIS was my brother’s life – And why he would say, I’m not crazy, I’m just me. This is indeed who he was / the mind that he was born with that evolved into something he fought valiantly to control, until he just couldn’t bear to face another song.

In one final attempt to control something in his life, he reached over and turned the volume all the way to the left – until it clicked, Off….

His life, and his experiences are a microcosm of each and every one of us – We all experience this on some level –

Only, the mirror that Mark looked within to see himself was amplified a million-fold.

I went into Mark’s home after the Medical Examiner had left and was struck by the pictures that were prominently displayed. Pictures of those he loved the most: his son Cody, his daughter Brooke, his grandson Bowen, his mom, and Jesus.

 I took note that the picture of Jesus was hanging on the wall behind his bed – It wasn’t hanging in the middle of the wall over his bed, but just to the right of his headboard. So, Jesus could watch over him while he slept, but you know… not look directly down on him because… well, that would just asking too much…

In this particular picture, Jesus has a thick chain around his neck and what hangs from the chain is called the “Sacred Heart of Jesus” – A Heart with a Crown of Thorns encircling it. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is known as a symbol of “God’s boundless and passionate love for mankind”.

As Mark closed his eyes for the last time in that bed – Jesus was there watching, ready to escort him into the full reality of boundless love.

However, Brooke shared with me later, that Mark’s absolute favorite picture, was a print called “Smiling Jesus”.

It’s a Pen and Ink reproduction of Jesus as a man who looks like he would be very comfortable on a Harley. Jesus is captured in the midst of a full-on belly laugh, as if someone just told him the best joke ever…

It occured to me that somehow, we’ve turned Jesus into a frowning, judgmental, condemning caricature that is nowhere to be found in the pages of scripture.

Smiling Jesus had this to say:

By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.

 “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’

 “So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.

“That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father.

 “When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’

“But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.

“All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, ‘Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’

“The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’

 “His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’”

It’s easy to see Mark in the story of the lost son… but we are all in the story, and we are found in every character portrayed. 

You and I are the prodigal who thinks we know best only to realize our mistakes and walk toward home in shame.

You and I are the older brother who resents the attention the troublemaker gets.

You and I are called to be the loving father who restores his son and celebrates his homecoming – for once he was lost but now he’s found!

 Doesn’t the world need a Smiling Jesus right now…

Mark did… I do, and I’m guessing you do too.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails