Tag Archives: schizophrenia

The Passport Office part 2

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To say there has been “clamoring” for the second part of the Passport Office would be an overstatement. However, I am very gratified that several folks said they would prefer to see part 2 sooner rather than later. I’m not completely sure, but the day described in this chapter may be the most surreal of my life. Also, it was the first time I was faced directly, full-frontal, with Lee’s not-to-be-denied state of delusional mental illness. This day unfolded just a few months before her first arrest and hospitalization. Thank you for reading.

The scene: Boar’s Head Inn, Charlottesville, VA. (This picture is the right era, circa early 1980s.)

The Passport Office Part 2

Scene VI

In car heading south on Rt. 29.

LEE has her eyes closed and is leaning back against the headrest. Vanessa reaches for the stereo to turn the music back on.

STEREO (loud)

Love from the bottom to the top
Turn like a—

Vanessa quickly reduces volume

STEREO (faint)

 …wheel—(he’s alright)
See for yourself (the Lord won’t mind)
We’re gonna move (right now)
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel

Scene VII

The car is pulled over on the side of the highway along with seven or eight other vehicles. Several State Troopers are issuing tickets. VANESSA has shut off the music again.

VANESSA

(Looking around.)

I don’t get it. Why did they stop us?

LEE

(Looks horrorstruck—her eyes are huge, mouth opening and closing around words she cannot muster. It looks as if she’s gasping for air. Suddenly, she pulls herself together. Making a decision, she opens her car door.)

VANESSA

(Reaching for her mother’s arm to pull her back)

No! Mother, you absolutely cannot get out of the car at a traffic stop!

LEE

(Looks at VANESSA over her shoulder and hisses)

We’ve done nothing wrong!

VANESSA

Don’t get out of this car! It’s totally not okay!

LEE

(Gets out of car) 

Excuse me! (Imperiously, gesturing at nearby trooper)

Cars speed by on the highway just feet from the pulled-over cars and troopers. The neckline of LEE’s beige silk blouse flaps in the wind. She holds it closed with one hand and slants the other hand over her eyes to shield them from the lowering sun. The trooper sees her and walks briskly to her.

TROOPER

Ma’am, please, get back in your vehicle.

LEE

(Talking over him)

You need to let us go. We can’t be late.

TROOPER

Ma’am, get back in the car.

LEE

Why have you stopped us? And all these people?

TROOPER

We will get to you as soon as possible.


LEE

But we did nothing wrong!

TROOPER

(clearly exasperated)

You were driving in an HOV lane.

LEE

What is that?

TROOPER

Ma’am, please get back in your vehicle.

LEE

How can you pull us over for driving in a lane we don’t know about?

TROOPER

The HOV lanes are well marked, Ma’am. High occupancy lanes are for carpoolers during rush hour. A driver and at least two passengers to utilize this lane.

LEE

(Flicking her hand in the general direction of the highway)

That’s ridiculous.

TROOPER

Ma’am…

LEE

(Talking over him, voice pitched a bit high. VANESSA, in the car, hears the panic in her mother’s voice.)

If you don’t let us leave, it could well create an international incident. That is all I am permitted to say due to extremely intricate matters of state.

VANESSA

(In the car, slouches lower in her seat, exuding pure devastation.

TROOPER

Ma’am (he reaches for her arm to guide her back to the car)

LEE

(Flinches away from him and takes a step backwards)

No! Don’t touch me. (Pauses. The trooper looks briefly paralyzed.) You do not understand what is at stake. We cannot be late. My future husband—that’s all I can tell you at this moment—will be most displeased with you. He wants everything to go smoothly. Time is of the essence.

VANESSA

(Murmuring under her breath)

“Time is of the essence?” Oh God.

LEE

I don’t mean to be rude, but my daughter and I are leaving. You can’t stop us.

TROOPER

Ma’am, please do not do that. Of course we can stop you. A traffic ticket is not worth becoming a fugitive and having one of these officers go after you. (He bends to look into the car at VANESSA behind the wheel and addresses her) Young lady, do not drive away. Do you understand?

VANESSA

(Nods vigorously)

LEE glares at VANESSA and then at the TROOPER. She returns to the car, walking stiffly, her body reflecting equal parts rage and fear. VANESSA turns the music back on.

STEREO

God help us, help us to surmise

These slippery people help us understand

VANESSA and LEE sit in silence.

Scene VIII

VANESSA pulls the car gingerly into traffic. LEE holds the paper given to her by the trooper.

VANESSA

You know, I saw those signs saying HOV but I didn’t really pay attention. They must be new. At least we just got a warning.

LEE

(Looking anxiously out her window. Bites at a cuticle.)

Mm-hmm.

STEREO

No one here can recognize you
Here is everything that you like

Feelings without explanations

Some things are hard to describe

The sound of a cigarette burning

A place where everything spins

And the sound inside your mind is playing all the time

You’re playing with a heart of steel…

LEE

(Softly)

Let’s turn the music off, shall we, Darling?

VANESSA snaps the off button and ejects the tape. She lifts one butt cheek and stuffs the tape into her back pocket.

Scene IX

VANESSA is pulling off Rt. X onto X. LEE has pulled her lipstick out of her purse. She applies a fresh coat of some tawny beige-pink color. Drops the tube into her bag and removes her new passport. In the light of the dash, VANESSA sees her mother run her fingers over it, riffle the pages, lift it to her nose.

VANESSA

Does it have a smell? The brand-new smell of government issue vinyl?

LEE

(Still muted)

Yes, it does, in fact. (After a pause, she goes on, in a much stronger voice, giving instructions.) I’ve been receiving last-minute information. (Turns to look at her daughter.) This is what we are to do. When we pull in at the Boar’s Head, drive directly to the pond. On that road there will be three sedans waiting. You are not to get out of the car. I’m to tell you quite specifically that only I am to get out, and only after the security guards have reached my door. You and I are to say our goodbyes in the car. Once I’m out, you must drive away. I asked when I can contact you and was told that within 48 hours you will receive a message. A phone call, I believe.

VANESSA is silent, staring ahead into the yellow path of the headlights.

LEE

Do you understand, Vanessa?

VANESSA

Yes.

LEE

Darling, don’t worry. It will be perfectly fine. You must trust me.

VANESSA glances at her mother. Golden halo of soft hair around a strong face, lit by orange dash lights. LEE does not turn her head to her daughter until VANESSA has returned her eyes to the road.

LEE

You have always trusted me, haven’t you. (This was not a question but a statement.) I am your momma after all.

VANESSA cannot speak.

Scene X

VANESSA drives, according to instructions, through the darkened campus of the Boar’s Head Inn towards the pond. As they get close, it is evident in the light from the headlamps that there are no cars waiting. VANESSA drives along the pond road and turns right at the next intersection, heading in the direction of the exit. She pulls over and stops. VANESSA gets out of the car and walks a few feet onto the grass. She bends in half, her head dangling lower than her knees, her hands touching the grass. After a minute she rights herself. She opens the car door and sits on the seat, feet still on the ground. She feels her mother’s touch, briefly, in the middle of her back. A few fingertips, there and gone in an instant. VANESSA turns, closes the door, puts the car in gear and starts to drive.

VANESSA

Sorry about that.

VANESSA glances at her mother who is looking out her window, hands folded in her lap. Nothing makes sense. There is nothing LEE could possibly do now that would seem like a logical response to everything that has happened. As she pulls out onto 250, VANESSA sees LEE put her fingers into her purse and lay them atop the new passport lying innocently on top of her wallet.

In a few minutes, VANESSA turns left, toward home. Neither woman speaks. VANESSA pulls into the semi-circular front driveway. She had remembered to turn the front light on this morning, so very long ago, before they left on their errand. When LEE gets out, she has just enough light to see clearly as she unlocks the front door. VANESSA reaches into the backseat for her sweater and follows her mother, who has already begun turning on the lights.

The Passport Office part 1

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Welcome to the second post in SpiralWoman’s newly purposed blog. This installment is chronologically in approximately 1983, about 11 years before the Pick Up and Drop Off I last posted. It is the first part of a longer chapter that is written in script form. It came to me to write the scene this way, and I tried it. Thus far, reviews are mixed. Two people have read it. One was not sure and the other gave a thumbs up. Wait until the second installment next week before deciding what you think. For now, part 1, The Passport Office.

CAPTION: After a certain age, Lee was always conscious of how she was seen. Photos were hard for her because she could not help posing. It mattered so much to her to control perception of her. This became increasingly challenging as her mental illness worsened through from the late 1970s on. Descriptions of all photos can be found at bottom of this post.

THE PASSPORT OFFICE part 1

Scene I

The living room, early morning.

Vanessa enters, rubbing her eyes, and passes through to the kitchen. When she comes back in, her mother is emerging from the room she calls “The Study.”

LEE

There is something important we have to do today. Get dressed. I need you to go with me to DC. If you drive, I can run into the Passport Office and not have to worry about parking.

VANESSA

Why are you going to the Passport Office? (Gulps hot coffee. Spits it back into cup.)

LEE

I need an expedited passport. I had not realized that mine expired. Okay, time is short. Let’s go! (Stalks elegantly out of the room, towards the hallway leading to bedrooms.)

VANESSA stands still in her red and white striped PJs gazing after her mother.

LEE

(calling from offstage)

TIME IS SHORT.

VANESSA follows the sound of LEE’s voice.

Scene II

Northbound on 29 towards Washington DC.

VANESSA is driving her mother’s Honda.

LEE

(half turned toward her daughter)

I believe you know a little bit about the communication channel that has opened up in my brain. The last few weeks I’ve been receiving truly life altering, loving, and inspiring messages from the King of Burma. It seems he is a compassionate forward-thinking ruler who needs a strong, loving woman by his side to rule. He has chosen me.

VANESSA

(trying to quell rising panic)

Is this real?

LEE

(face animated with shock)

Darling, of course it’s real! I would never lie to you! What do you mean is it real?

VANESSA

You realize most people do not have direct brain-to-brain channels of communication. Why doesn’t he call you? Or write a letter?

LEE

(looking patient as she tries to explain)

Of course, most people don’t. But these last years I’ve been evolving to a higher plane, as I thought you knew and understood. We have not spoken directly about it much because I sense it upsets you. And you are busy with work, and DAN, and still getting healthy… (Takes a skinny brown cigarette out of her bag and lights up.)

VANESSA

Window please, Mother.

LEE

(opens window, blows out a plume of smoke)

And he can’t call or write. Security reasons. There’s danger if the wrong people get wind of the plan. That’s why we have to be so careful. Why we can’t tell a soul. He’s sending emissaries to pick me up this evening at the Boar’s Head Inn. When you get back to the house after, you may find press there. He warned me that might happen, though we hope not.

VANESSA

You didn’t pack anything.

LEE

I’m not to worry about any of that. Everything I need will be waiting for me when we land.

LEE gazes at the scenery, mostly more lanes of highway and the occasional massive building behind soundproofed walls. VANESSA drives, her mind gradually shutting down. She thinks about her boyfriend, DAN, and how she had to cancel their plans for the day. She thinks what an absurd way to spend her day off. She’d rather be sitting by a lake with DAN and a cooler.

Scene III

Honda Accord, VANESSA behind the wheel, LEE gone

VANESSA is driving in circles around the Washington DC neighborhood of the Passport Agency. It’s a chilly day in late March, too early for the cherry blossoms.  

STEREO

(blasting song from Talking Heads “Speaking in Tongues” cassette)

Hold tight, wait till the party’s over
Hold tight, we’re in for nasty weather…

VANESSA tries to turn onto 19th St. NW and three cars converge at the intersection, blocking her. Horns blare. She circles the block again and tries again, making it this time. Leans toward the windshield to check if her mother is standing out on the steps as arranged.

VANESSA

(singing along)

Burning down the house! (drums fingers on steering wheel in time to the music as she pulls away to circle again)

Scene IV

VANESSA pulls up in front of the Passport Agency and double parks.

STEREO

Ha! Takes over slowly
But doesn’t last very long
Ha ha ha ha no need to worry
Everything’s under control

LEE descends the steps of the Passport Agency, already a queen, moving only her legs, upper body motionless. She could carry a book on her head and it would not budge. A car honks somewhere behind VANESSA, and another passing to her left.

VANESSA

(to herself)

Mother, is hurrying not an option now that you are the queen on deck?

LEE

(opens passenger door and flows into the seat like molten gold)

We need to be back at 1:00. (Checks her bracelet watch.)

VANESSA

What now?

LEE

Let’s find a park.

VANESSA

The Mall is nearby if we can find parking. I hope it’s not as jammed as this neighborhood.

All practicality now, LEE opens a map from her glove box and directs VANESSA. As if already a monarch with power over things not yet imagined, LEE manifests a parking place one block from the Mall.

VANESSA

(laughing as she parallel parks)

I drive around for an hour and a half and you get in the car and find a parking place in five minutes.

LEE

(grinning)

What can I say?

VANESSA

(laughing)

Take a bow.

LEE gestures broadly with her arms, accepting the imaginary applause of her audience, then laughs with genuine mirth. VANESSA spontaneously leans over and kisses her mother’s temple. They get out of the car and start walking.  

Scene V

LEE and VANESSA approach an empty bench facing the reflecting pool. Each of them holds a paper-wrapped hot dog and a bottle of water. VANESSA sits. LEE puts her water bottle on the bench and eats standing up, leaning out at a 45-degree angle.

VANESSA

(biting her hotdog)

I never came to DC till I was in college.

LEE

You know better than talk with your mouth full.

VANESSA

(Grinning, mouth still full)

Sure do.

LEE

I wish we had come down here when you were a child. We could have taken the train and spent a weekend. I don’t know why we never did things like that.

VANESSA

You were working all the time.

LEE

Yes. My career was very important to me. And it will be again—when I’ve cleared my name.

VANESSA

What about the King of Burma? I thought queen was your next career.

LEE

Oh well that’s true. (Looks down at the top of VANESSA’s head.) I’ll miss you, you know. In time I hope we can arrange for you to come for a nice long visit.

VANESSA

(silent for several beats then…)

Mother, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s just sit here and enjoy the fresh air. I’ll take you back to the passport office. You can do your thing. Then we’ll go home.

LEE

(Tosses her wrapper into a bin and wets her napkin from the water bottle. Wipes her mouth delicately and then her fingers.)

Whatever you want, Darling. I know this is hard. It’s a lot to take in.

To be continued …

The photos in this blog: posing in her majorette gear (1940s), posing in her bathing suit (1940s/50s?), posing with a riding helmet (1960s) performing at work in costume and posing on the deck of her home (1970s). Grandiosity was always part of her personality, but schizophrenia simply amplified that. After reading today’s post, you’ll understand that even her delusions were grandiose.

Gun-shy: Firearms and the Mentally Ill

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I opened the door when she knocked. Given our last exchange–during which I had to haul her by the hand out of my place of work while she shouted about how my new boyfriend was part of The Conspiracy (corporate, federal, state, personal) against her–I was wary. But she was my mother after all. At 24, I’d been on my own for 7 years and a few months before she had moved 1800 miles to be near me. Not my idea. But she showed up just in time for me to realize something that I suspected was wrong really was seriously wrong.

The details are hazy. She pushed her way into the apartment, talking inhumanly fast—I don’t remember what she said, or what I said. I just know that within two minutes of her being there, she was so enraged at me that she had me flat on the floor and was pummeling me with her fists. My mother was about five inches shorter than I, but she was strong, and the element of surprise is a powerful strategy. But in her case this was no strategy. It was craziness, erupting, as it does. Willy-nilly.

Her inability to control what I was saying, convince me of what she was saying, or create a truth that I would be convinced by—well, the frustration was too much. She attacked the one person in the world she might actually love—in whatever way that happened for her—and the one person she could not afford to lose.

There was also the time she tried to grab the gun off the police officer’s holster. That one got her thrown in jail, and then transferred to the nearest mental hospital for an evaluation.

I’ve written about her on this blog before, but here my point is: mentally ill people cannot be held accountable for what they do. They are sick. Let’s take care of them. Let’s not throw them out on the street with no resources and no insurance.

And let’s not make it easy for them to buy guns. Can’t we all agree not to arm them with the firepower to kill themselves or someone else in an outburst of—often fleeting—rage or despair?

Fast forward thirty years to a few weeks ago. The suggestion on the table is this: “Shall we put something on our website that urges families to remove guns from the house if a mother is suffering from depression?”

I sit on the board of a remarkable organization that supports women and families dealing with maternal mental health issues, as well as educating medical practitioners and legal professionals about PMDs. When the suggestion is made, heads immediately start to nod. It makes sense. We should come out with a statement about that.

Then someone says, “We need to be careful. There are people out there who might be very offended by that. Red cape to the bull.”

Wait—REALLY?

I  live in a remarkably insular world because I don’t know anyone who would think it a bad idea for a concerned family member to remove a gun from a sick woman who regularly thinks about suicide and whose death would leave a child motherless.

gun image

I believe that people don’t have the whole picture. I mean, who has the whole picture? I definitely do not have the whole picture. I could not possess it even if I read every book, blog, and bullshit tabloid 24 / 7 for the rest of my life. So let’s all agree: no one has the whole picture. I know some stuff and you know some stuff. I’ll ask you what you know about and you can ask me, if you want.

What I do know a teensy bit more than some people about is mental illness. I was highly motivated to read everything I could get my hands on about the topic and then there was my front row seat.

My schizophrenic mother never attacked me again physically after that day. (Research has shown that most psychotic people show less tendencies towards violence than the average population.) The things she did on a regular basis that made my life a hell of tormented guilt, love, and anger just took other forms from then on. But what if she’d had an elegant little pistol in her pocket that day?

Would her rage and despair at the horribleness of it all at that moment have led her to start blazing away?

She didn’t have so much as a set of brass knuckles, fortunately, and my friend Michael woke from his nap to drag my mom off me and escort her firmly, but gently, from the apartment.

I’ve read recent studies about suicide. There is strong evidence that the majority of suicide attempts are one offs. I’m not sure how they do that study since many of the study cases are dead. But it involved many many interviews with people who have survived a suicide attempt. Some have tried multiple times. Some think about suicide often. But apparently most people who have attempted suicide, according to this study, did so only once. They lived to tell the story, and never tried again. Those people did not have guns.

Okay so a background check would not pick up on the random dude whose girlfriend is going to trash his heart and he’s going to try to end it all. But the patient with a history of hospitalization for depression, or schizophrenia, or whatever it is, will be a red flag and maybe the decision to provide this person with a firearm will be tabled for the indefinite future. I would really like that.

The 2nd Amendment was written when muskets were the extent of a citizen’s firepower. Now semi-automatic weapons and guns with exploding bullets (I’ll defer to you people out there who know about guns—I don’t) have been cleverly invented, manufactured, and put in the hands of regular people. The meek, the bold. The sane, the not-sane. The angry, the mollified. The upstanding, the ignominious. We don’t care. It’s our right to own a gun. It’s our right to protect ourselves. But it’s our right—and duty—to protect innocent people too.

Is anyone suggesting we take all guns away? I mean anyone credible? Most of the suggested legislation is about slowing things down. Background checks.

My friend Frank might have killed himself anyway. They found his body in his car with a hole in his head blown out by the shotgun he had purchased at K-Mart earlier that day. The receipt was in the bag, which was in the back seat. After that, we realized he’d been planning his exit for a while. He’d managed to say goodbye to most of us the night before, without telling us what he was doing.

But if the impulse of that moment—if his horrible confusion and sorrow about his uncertain identity, his troubling (to him) desire to wear my clothes on Halloween, and any woman’s panty-hose under his work pants on any other day of the year, his uninterested family, the homelessness he did not confide in us till someone found his sleeping bag in the storeroom at the restaurant where we both worked—if that impulse had passed in the time it took for him to be able to buy that gun, he may have lived until now. He may have been at the forefront of the LGBTQ movement, wearing green tights and flowing skirts with pride at all the parades and making drawling, sarcastic speeches that made everyone laugh. He may have come back the next night, the night after his goodbyes, flicked his hair, grinned his sad, sly grin, and picked up where he’d left off.

Frank as me for Halloween, 1981.

Frank as me for Halloween, 1981.