Yes, I'm actually taking it easy today. I went for a four mile run a little while ago, and that is the most energy I will expend for the rest of this Sunday.
I'm going to bring you another classic Saint Marty this afternoon. This particular post ran on March 16, 2010. It was one of the first posts I wrote, back when this blog was called Feasts and Famines.
Saint Marty hopes you enjoy this rerun, titled...
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.
Confessions of Saint Marty
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