The Early Years

Especially in the early years of my Dad’s diagnosis it would be unlikely that one could pick him out of a lineup as being Schizophrenic or even mentally ill of any variety.  He was handsome and well-kept with hair combed, teeth brushed, clean clothing, and a fit athletic build.  The remnants of his athletic days as a marathon runner, boxer and rock climber still visible in his build.  He was a husband.  He was a father.  However, keeping up this facade of normalcy was extremely trying in social situations and at work.  It took all he could muster to appear “normal”.  It was in these years that I did not see my father much, I wasn't able to.  He was too sick.  Mom took me with her one time to visit him in the hospital, but the crying and screaming that ensued as she left with me was more than she thought I could handle, more than she could bear and perhaps more than he should have to endure as well.  She would never take me to the hospital to visit him after that.  Luckily, I have no recollection of his despair and the heartbreak my exit caused.  

My grandmother, in what I assume was an effort to describe my father’s love for me, would tell me about times early in his diagnosis when he was living at home with his mom and dad.   She described listening to him scream and cry my name over and over as he tried to fall asleep at night.  This was a ritual that continued for some time and tore my grandmother’s heart into pieces.  She didn't tell me this until I was in my teenage years and I would suppose some might feel she shouldn't have shared it.  I, on the other hand, am very glad she did.  Long after my Dad’s affect had become flat and his show of emotion few and far between, I had this to cling to.  This knowledge that he loved me deeply before his illness stripped him of the depth of emotion he once possessed.  I clang to this.  My Daddy loved me, loved me so deeply he hurt.  Not yet understanding the love between a parent and their child I had questioned his love for me often.  This story of my grandmother’s played in my head, illuminating the depths of his love when I was in doubt.

I reluctantly agreed to commit myself.  Naturally I hated being locked up, and wanted out, but I did not attempt to sign myself out because I didn’t want to risk being committed involuntarily.  I was hospitalized for three weeks and miraculously went into spontaneous remission without medication.  But when I got out, I will tell you, I was sore and feeling abused.  It was to be another year before my second commitment, this time to a welfare hospital.  Slowly but surely my resistance was being eroded.  My second commitment was not as traumatic as the first.  I still procrastinated about going in, but eventually did go.  This time I was stabilized on Navane and released in three weeks, which is what they figure it takes for the medication to work.  While I was in, being completely miserable, I did try to sign myself out. As a result the doctor’s got a hold order and I was committed involuntarily at a hearing before a judge. I had visions of being warehoused in a back ward somewhere.  I was as scared as I was mad.  I questioned whether I would ever get out.  Fortunately, the medication worked like a charm, and like I said, I was out in three weeks.  If I had kept taking my meds once I got out, I probably would have never seen the inside of another psyche hospital.  Unfortunately, this was not my fate.  Within a year, this time far from home, I was hospitalized a third time.  My condition was chronic and the symptoms were more intense than ever.  I despaired I would never recover.  While I was in Austin State Hospital I got my hands on a piece of broken glass and proceeded to lacerate my feet in five or six places.  This succeeded in getting me off the ward for a few hours in medical, but I was put right back in stir, only now with an attendant with me at all times on suicide watch.  This lasted for a day and provided me with ample reason not to make a second attempt.  I became a model patient after that in order to get discharged.  About the same time I started to stabilize on Mellaril this time, so I was not so desperately ill.  I was released like clockwork in three weeks.  As bad as this hospitalization had been, and as much as I didn’t want to repeat the experience in the future, feeling fine within a month, I again quit taking the Mellaril.  Just about a year later I was again whacko, this time there was a different approach to my recovery.  I was put in a residential facility in the community where I was put back on Navane, and here I stayed for three months.  This was 1984 and I have been taking medication ever since.  Interestingly, after three years, I was still in denial.  I still thought my life was being monitored, but now I was convinced that what I was supposed to do, what this was all about, was taking the medication.  My resolve to take the medicine was not a rational decision on my part.  Instead, still paranoid, my delusions led me to believe that taking the Navane was the key that would deliver me.  And I would have stayed out of the hospital if it had not been for my drinking and drugging.