March 12, 13, 14: Fear and Loathing and Saints

Friday night, I finished my weekly household chores late. It was nearly 10 p.m. by the time the toilet and shower were scrubbed; tables, chairs, and shelves were dusted; and rugs were vacuumed. I sat down on the couch, grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV for a little channel surfing.

I enjoy the time immediately post-cleaning because, for a few short hours, everything is in order and I feel like I've gained control of my life. It lasts until Saturday morning when my 17-month-old son wakes up and starts dragging toys out of toy bins and clothes out of laundry baskets. But, on Friday nights, I can sit and revel in the tracks left by the vacuum cleaner on the freshly vacuumed carpets and the heavy scent of lemon Pledge in the air.

I started flipping through the channels, not really expecting to find anything more satisfying than the deep blue water of my clean toilet bowl. I stopped on a station that featured a ten- or eleven-year-old girl in what seemed to be in the throws of demonic possession. She was pounding the kitchen table with her fists, screaming at her parents. The camera cut to the girl's siblings huddled on the stairs, listening to their sister's threats of violence and murder. A voice-over said something like, "As soon as Jamie returned home, she started hearing the voices and seeing the evil spirits again." I stopped and continued to watch, thinking it was some news program that was going to show a ritual exorcism.

The girl's behavior was absolutely terrifying, and the mother and father just sat and listened to her rant and growl. At one point, the youngest sibling, who couldn't have been more than seven or eight, became so upset and scared that she started pulling her own hair out in clumps. The mother held the little girl and rocked her, crying and saying, "Please don't hurt yourself like that."

I waited for a priest or minister to enter the scene and start unpacking Bibles and holy water and crucifixes. It turns out, however, that I had stumbled upon 20/20, and the story was on young children with schizophrenia. Now, little Linda Blairs puking pea soup I can handle; children with mental illnesses, that's something totally different.

You see, when my wife was diagnosed with bipolar, I did a lot of reading about the disease. I read memoirs and textbooks and Websites. I pored over pamphlets given to us by doctors. I suppose it was my way of trying to gain a little control over a situation in which I felt helpless, like running the vacuum cleaner over a bed of hot coals so I wouldn't burn my feet. Futile, but a least I was doing something.

One of the things that frightened me the most was the question about relatives. All of the psychiatrists and therapists, all of the literature, pointed to the genetic link. Beth had an uncle and great aunt with bipolar. Therefore, she was probably suffering from the same disease. It runs in the family, like red hair or being a fan of Michael Bolton.

Ever since that time, I've watched my daughter, who, at nine, resembles my wife's childhood photographs so much it's hard to tell them apart. I've read stories and articles about children with bipolar, about the wild moods, the depressions and manias. One little boy I read about was so tired of being unstable that he wrote his parents a suicide note when he was eight. Eight years old. Instead of playing Pokemon and watching Harry Potter movies, he was jumping out of second story bedroom windows.

I watch my daughter for signs that the helix of her DNA has shifted. When she pulls her hair because she can't play a chord for her piano lesson correctly, when she throws herself on the floor screaming because she doesn't want to take a bath, when she sits in her closet to give herself time to control her anger, I wonder if I'm witnessing normal, nine-year-old hormones or symptoms of something more serious. I have learned to deal with and accept my wife's illness. I don't know if I could do the same for my daughter.

I often wonder how the parents of saints managed their children's holiness. I'm here to tell you that if my daughter told me she was talking to the Virgin Mary, holding an actual conversation with a glowing woman in blue robes, I'd have that child in the ER within the hour. As I watched 20/20, I thought that schizophrenia in a child could easily disguise itself as saintliness or demonic possession. As a father, I wouldn't want any of those options for a child of mine.

At the end of 20/20, one of the children became so dangerous to herself and her family that her parents had to commit her to a long-term treatment facility. I watched the mother cling to her daughter, weeping, saying over and over, "Mommy will call you. Mommy will call you." She wouldn't let go.

I wish I could stop being on the look-out all the time with my daughter. I wish I could somehow lock my fear in a safe and hide it far under my bed, among the dust bunnies and shoe boxes full of my daughter's kindergarten paintings. I wish I could look into her eyes and not wonder if I'll ever see a stranger looking back at me. I wish and hope I never have to let go.