These are my memories about my mom’s mental illness secret that became unmanageable after my father’s sudden passing. I find a protective numbness takes over when extreme trauma invades your life. My mind will only accept deep grief in tiny pieces; in hindsight, my mother’s mind too.
From the back seat on the way to the Viewing and Visitation at the funeral home, I remember saying to a friend: “Look at all those people passing by. Don’t they know my dad just died?” I was a quarter present, two-thirds missing in shock and sorrow. I still have the leather maroon-colored Register of Friends of family and friends that attended. You do not realize their attendance will be the first and last time they show up as support. Their lives continue sanely on; your life insanely discontinues.
The two things I remember most about my father’s death are: Mom never shed a tear and Henry.
Henry was an older Afro-American gentleman who my dad hired as an assistant to maintain the Goldblatt’s fleet of delivery trucks. They worked together for many years. Deb and I got to know Henry when we went to work with Dad. I remember Henry’s blue jean bibs, warm smile, and infectious laugh. He wore a head covering made of a nylon stocking tied in a knot.
Most of all, I remember the day Henry saved my father’s life.
My dad fired an employee for drinking on the job and non-performance. That angry man snuck into the maintenance garage one day with a knife. Thank God Henry saw him and courageously stopped the man from literally stabbing my father in the back. I never forgot the day Dad told us that story.
Henry arrived, looking quite different in a suit and dress cap, to show his respect and love for our father. Deb and I immediately walked over to him. Hand in hand, the three of us went up to the casket. We felt Henry’s heavy sadness as he silently said goodbye to a long-time friend. Deb and I realized we were also saying goodbye to our hero Henry. There are so many levels to final goodbyes.
My father was a Sergeant in the United States Army serving in the Philippines during World War II. He was a Squad Leader, Rifleman, and Auto Mechanic. His service to our country was honored with Taps and the Three-volley Salute at the cemetery. The salute consisted of a rifle party firing blank cartridges into the air three times. Both were performed by the Honor Guard, representing duty, honor, and country.
My mother was presented with the folded flag that had been draped over her husband’s casket. I still have it on display in my home. Daily, his framed flag reminds me how short life can be and how precious time is.
How each of us moves forward after unexpected, tragic loss is uniquely our own grieving process. For those of us, like my mom, whose mental state was always chaotic, reality and psychosis were on a crash course. Which would win the battle?
Once again, behind closed doors, my sister and I (also in deep grief) had to figure things out.
No tears at the wake or the cemetery were drowning Mom from within. She wasn’t sleeping. Within a few days of my father’s passing, my mother would not let us make phone calls or receive any calls. No one was allowed to check on us, nor could we leave the house. She was insistent that Goldblatt’s (where her husband worked for decades) was spying on her. My sister recalls overhearing Mom’s phone call with a Goldblatt’s representative following our father’s death. The representative called to express condolences regarding Dad and provide her with a year’s salary. Our mom said, “I don’t want your money. No amount of money can bring my husband back. You killed my husband!”
I was working full-time, and Deb was still a student at Proviso West High School. We couldn’t just disappear from our lives and responsibilities. So, I called my older brother, the executor regarding her legal matters.
Common Warning Signs
According to the national Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), my mom showed eight of the common warning signs of a mental health condition after her husband died:
- Changes in sleeping habits
- Difficulty perceiving reality (delusions or hallucinations, in which a person experiences and senses things that don’t exist in objective reality)
- Prolonged or strong feelings of irritability or anger
- Extreme mood changes
- Inability to perceive changes in one’s own feelings, behavior, or personality
- Excessive worrying or fear
- Avoiding friends and social activities
- Inability to carry out daily activities or handle daily problems and stress.
Psychosis
Psychosis won the battle. She was admitted to the Psychiatric Unit of Loretto Hospital in Chicago. The hallucinations continued. What a depressing place depressed people have to try and get healthy in.
Psychosis includes a range of symptoms but typically involves seeing, hearing, or feeling things that aren’t there. Specific to my mom’s condition, one of the triggering factors is a traumatic event like a loved one’s death; the other is depression. I believe her relentless depression went undiagnosed her entire adult life because she concealed it. In public, she was an attractive, happy person. In private, she was angry and miserable.
Neither of my parents thought they had a problem.
At the Psychiatric Unit, Sis remembered a large lobby area where patients and visitors could be. Mom told my sister that she started writing in a journal while in the hospital. They told her to write her thoughts down, name and address. If she didn’t know the answer to their questions, she said they punished her. We never got to see the journal.
In that same lobby area, my mom would point out people (total strangers) and talk about them like they were the real people from her real life. She was sure one guy she pointed out was Wayne’s father. She also told us that her roommate was a young girl who played the violin. We never saw her roommate the times we visited.
Treatment According To The American Psychiatric Association
“Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is a medical treatment most commonly used in patients with severe major depression. The procedure involves a brief electrical stimulation of the brain at precise locations while the patient is under anesthesia. It is administered by a team of trained medical professionals that includes a psychiatrist, an anesthesiologist, a nurse or a physician assistant.
A patient typically receives ECT two or three times a week for a total of six to twelve treatments, depending on the severity of symptoms and how quickly the symptoms respond to the treatment.
Although ECT can be very effective for many individuals with serious mental illness, it is not a cure. To prevent a return of the illness, most people treated with ECT need to continue with some type of maintenance treatment. This typically means psychotherapy and/or medication or, in some circumstances, ongoing ECT treatments.”
During the last office visit with the psychiatrist in charge of her care and treatment, Wayne, Deb, and I were told: “Your mother is better, but she will never be well. Something simple could trigger her at any time.”
Deb and I grew up in that scare and knew it better than anyone else. The psychiatrist never mentioned any resources to help the three of us, however. Being survivors of emotional and physical abuse, my sister and I decided we would never let what happened to our mother happen to us.
Tough Cookie Tip:
EXCELLENT MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) https://www.nami.org
SAMSHA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) https://www.samhsa.gov
Copyright © 2022-2025 Marilyn K Fuller. All Rights Reserved.
Wow! This was a difficult read for me as many points hit a little too close to home. The part about friends making their last goodbyes, the numbness at the services, the warning signs… I still remember the ride in the limo from the church to the cemetery, in slow motion. As in death, sudden disability causes friends to disappear also. My heart aches for my husband who lost many friends after his stroke. I think we all feel your warning signs of mental illness during extreme grief. Most of us find our way out of the darkness, but some never do. On a comical note, as I was reading the signs, I thought, “Oh, I know what this is! MENOPAUSE!!” Again, thank you for sharing your experiences and your insight.
I think your writing helped you deal with this insanity and still does today. Carry on!
Marilyn, every time I read your blog posts I am amazed at how little I knew of your life, and how many parallels there were between our formative experiences. I suppose nobody is proud of their dysfunctional family, but I spent most of my youth thinking I was the only one with horrible parents and impossible turmoil. I was over fifty when I read a book entitled Toxic Parents and discovered that my feelings were common and predictable- it was like reading a clinical biography. I chose to buy each of my kids a copy, I just felt it might help them understand my own shortcomings.