 The artwork illustrating this article was produced by students working with Visiting Assistant Professor of Fine Arts Betsey Garand. The above illustration is by Jonathan Schneider '03. |
Grappling With Demons
One of the panel discussions during Reunion 2004 was focused on the special emotional difficulties that people face in dealing with a family member’s mental illness. Whatever social and medical advances American society has made in the past few decades, we still tend to think of mental illness as a shameful secret, keeping families’ struggles out of the spotlight and largely unaddressed. The Reunion presentation shed light on the issue not only from a medical perspective, but also in a personal way; while all of the panelists are involved in the field of mental health, several of them have dealt with mental illness in their own families. The articles below are adapted from those panelists’ talks.
- Surviving a Family Suicide, by Jeffrey L. Sternlieb ’69
- Music, Stigma and Carrying a Voice, by Robert Simpson ’69
- Nipping Madness in the Bud, by James Maier ’69
- Striving for Hope, by Richard Aronson '69
Surviving a Family Suicide
By Jeffrey L. Sternlieb ’69, organizational consultant, behavioral sciences teacher
It has been five years since it happened, and I still can’t believe what I heard. I had just returned home from the funeral of my 44-year-old younger brother. It hadn’t even begun to sink in that he took his own life, and some guy from the newspaper’s obituary department told me I had to put in the cause of death. My choices, he said, were natural causes, homicide or suicide. I wasn’t ready to put “suicide” in the paper. When I questioned the policy, I was met with a mini-lecture about how this is 1999, there’s no shame in a suicide death in the family, and on and on in a politically correct way of rationalizing a policy designed to meet the paper’s needs. It did not meet my needs.
 Lydia Okrent (Hampshire '06) |
I wasn’t ready to face my brother’s suicide in black and white. I don’t think it was shame. I do know a big part of it was pain. I felt like saying, “Do you know who you are talking to? You don’t have to tell me about shame or embarrassment or how things appear to the public—I’m a psychologist!” But it became clear that although The Atlanta Journal-Constitution could print an obituary without a cause of death, the Reading, Pa., Eagle could not and would not. I never had the obituary printed in the paper—and it felt like insult added to injury.
Mike’s suicide created an interesting (I’m not sure what the right word is here) turn of the tables for me: doctor becomes patient. I had spent years conducting teen suicide prevention programs, I had spoken to Survivors of Suicide support groups and I had treated numerous depressed and suicidal people. Now I was a member of a club no one wants to join, and I had to hear my own words of advice with a very different ear.
My challenge wasn’t so much “walking the talk.” I had long ago been clear with myself about not asking others to do anything I wouldn’t do, and it was a good rule of thumb. My challenge had to do with my role in my family of origin. I am not only the psychologist in the family; I am the family’s psychologist. It’s not that I analyzed everything that everyone did. I couldn’t live that way. I was just able to listen to and understand everyone who needed an ear. I could add a new perspective. It’s not even that I did this all the time, but when things got heavy, I was often available.
When Mike died, I became much more aware of my role in our family, only now I was as hurting and needy as the rest of them. I am the oldest of three—my sister, Susan, is one year younger, and Mike was six years younger. They both struggled with depression as adults (maybe as adolescents, too), but they did it in very different ways. I sometimes wonder how I escaped. Susan is the vulnerable one, the more naïve one growing up, who never seemed to be heard, supported or validated. She was often very emotional and frustrated.
Mike learned to not be vulnerable. He got into drugs as a teenager, somehow ended up traveling with the Grateful Dead instead of attending college classes, and he still had enough brain cells left to finish medical school, an orthopedic-surgery residency and a joint-replacement fellowship. He lived big, and he lived fast: several Harley-Davidsons, a Porsche, horses on a 50-acre farm outside of Atlanta and tickets to everything—the Super Bowl, World Series, Masters Tournament, the Olympics, March Madness. But there was also gambling, major marital problems and, I suspect, still drugs. I always sensed that Mike was running from something, and I tried on numerous occasions to get him to talk, but he would never go deeper than the surface. I guess his demons were too scary.
A suicide leaves so many questions unanswered, so much pain, anger and unfinished business. At one point after the funeral, I answered one of Dad’s questions by rationalizing that Mike fit two years of living into each chronological year. There was a certain truth to it, but it wasn’t satisfying. My mother said what we all thought at some subconscious level: It was the phone call we all expected and dreaded at the same time. On occasion, when I saw Mike struggle, I wondered if he could take his own life. The moments always passed, but when I could let myself think about it, I thought he might die in a motorcycle accident—at least it would look like an accident. He seemed like a high-speed train accelerating and about to wreck, but no one could stop him. I didn’t and couldn’t imagine a bullet in the heart—his literally and mine figuratively.
Obviously we were and still are devastated, and while there are parts of my life that are better now than they ever were, Mike’s death permeates everything. I, of course, went through a lot of second-guessing about what I could have or should have done or said to prevent it. After all, I am the family psychologist. Mike is sorely and sadly missed at every family gathering, holiday and celebration, and I sometimes have to work at celebrating. As adults, he and I were true buddies; we shared a powerful brotherly camaraderie. He was the first person I would share a politically incorrect joke with. I can’t tell one of the funniest redneck jokes I know without thinking of him, and so I rarely tell it. And I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t there three years ago when our mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I sometimes wonder if he couldn’t take the pain of those he cared about the most. It’s another unanswered question.
Fortunately or unfortunately—I don’t know which—Mike’s death is not the only lens I look through. You would think that this is enough drama for one family. I certainly did, but I have learned about the limits of our power and control: Six months after Mom’s diagnosis, I had to be flown by helicopter to the University of Pennsylvania hospital in Philadelphia for emergency open-heart surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm that was about to burst. My physician told me afterward that with aortic aneurysms, your first symptom is your last, and that if I had arrived a couple of hours later, he might not have been able to help me. Although I had tremendous support and very good fortune, I missed Mike here, too. Among the many thoughts and feelings that went through my head after surgery was the idea that my parents couldn’t take losing another son. I can’t help but wonder if Mike’s death hasn’t had an impact on my survival, in some strange way.
One last observation I’ll share with you is the impact of Mike’s suicide on me professionally. I found that I could no longer listen to other people’s struggles with life’s problems. Despite my success and my satisfaction in being a psychologist, it became clear that my ability to help others was compromised by my own emotional needs. What I once thought I could do and would do for the rest of my working life—psychotherapy with children, adolescents and families—I could no longer do responsibly and ethically. I was too emotionally wounded myself to help others with their vulnerabilities. This is a loss that is hard to measure. It was my identity, my livelihood and a huge source of personal satisfaction.
Coincidentally, just before Mike’s death I had been asked by three colleagues to join them in exploring another direction: developing a corporate consulting practice. Soon after the suicide, I jumped in with both feet. I also had the good fortune of finding an opportunity to teach behavioral sciences to family-practice residents at a nearby hospital. What became crystal clear to me (with the perspective of time) is that I had a wealth of experience, a number of skills and an interest in people that all translated incredibly well to my new direction.
I have always needed my work to be meaningful to me. When I saw the explanation of benefits from the medical insurance company after my surgery, not only did I feel like I was given bonus time to live, but I also felt like the cost of saving my life created in me a debt to society. I feel more of an urgency to find ways to have an impact in the areas about which I am most passionate. Bottom line: I can’t bring back my brother, any more than I could give meaning to his life. But I can give meaning to my life.