Image by Geek2Nurse

“What’s wrong?” I asked my mother when she told me that Lanny was coming home to stay. “I’m not sure,” she said. “They found him walking down the middle of the street in the cold with no shoes on.”

As I wrote in another post, my brother Lanny struggled with schizophrenia (see Saying Good-bye). His official diagnosis came in the mid-1970s, but putting a label on his state of mind didn’t help us to understand him or his illness. In those days, local libraries and bookstores carried little on the topic of mental illness, and most mental health professionals offered little or no information to the families. Forget finding support in the community; mental illness was locked in the closet with cancer – two illnesses kept within the privacy of home. It took people like Lance Armstrong and Susan Komen’s sister to break down the closet door for cancer; the door is still partially shut on mental illness.

Too often, caregivers to a loved one with mental illness feel isolated from their neighbors, friends, and even from their own family members who don’t understand the illness or who disagree on how to respond to the illness. Negative emotions abound: confusion, disbelief, fear, anger, frustration, embarrassment, sadness, despair, resignation, guilt, grief, regret, resentment, hopelessness… I don’t understand what his problem is. I can’t believe it happened to my daughter. What if he hurts himself? Why doesn’t he just get on with his life? What else can I do? I wish he wouldn’t act that way. I wish she could have a normal life. What will happen to him if something happens to me? I can’t do this any more. I should have done more for her. I shouldn’t have said that. My life is passing me by. He’s never going to get any better. Why her, why me?

Fortunately today, the Internet provides volumes of medical articles, scientific data and coping techniques to help families understand and interact with a loved one with major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or anxiety disorders. Support groups now also offer opportunities to discuss common concerns such as financial aid, housing possibilities, medication, treatment options, personal stories, and a sense of community. Despite these positive changes, the stigma of mental illness remains strong, and the road that family members travel is long and lonely.

Many people, so consumed by day-to-day care giving, find little time or energy to explore new information in books or on the Internet, to attend support group meetings, or to seek out other help. Do you know someone with a mentally ill loved one? If so, put aside your sense of uneasiness and discomfort, which is common, and do something positive! Read up on the illness. Ask them how their loved one is doing. Ask if they’d be interested in information you can gather about the illness. Offer to go to a support group meeting with them. Or, just lend a sympathetic ear to someone who doesn’t often find a willing listener.

You don’t need to become a mental illness expert to ease someone’s load. I’ve found over the years that people crave information and understanding. If you can offer either, you’ll help someone shift to a more positive outlook. You’ll be rewarded for your efforts…Now I understand why he acts that way. Wow, I didn’t know that organization could offer us help. It’s nice just to have someone to talk with about this; most people pretend there’s no problem. Maybe new drugs or treatment will be helpful. It’s good to hear that I’m not the only person who gets angry with this. Thanks for listening to my troubles; it makes me feel better.

As I wrote in the tribute for my brother: Very often, the little things that we do for others, out of love and compassion, not duty, are the very things that lighten our own spirits and refocus our lives. Let’s open that closet door on mental illness a little bit wider each day.

Image by Geek2Nurse

My brother died young. He struggled with schizophrenia, and after years of legal drugs, chain-smoking, and lack of exercise, his heart protested and he was gone at forty-six. Suddenly, I became an only child and the empty space around me felt overwhelming. Filling that space took a long time, but the journey began with my quest to understand the mental illness that claimed so many years of his life. I immersed myself in books, articles, and discussions about all mental illnesses (great source is NAMI), and with this knowledge came resolution of my conflicted emotions about his life.

Future posts will explore these emotions, which I think are quite common for family members and friends of people with mental illness. For now, I’d like to share this tribute to my brother that I wrote during my quest for answers.

It has been almost a year and a half now since Lanny died, but in many ways he actually left us back in the early 70s. For those of you who tend to remember Lanny with his illness and for those of you who didn’t know him in his early years, let’s go back in time for a little bit.

The brother I remember growing up with knew every symphony that Mozart wrote, but struggled with algebra. He could recall all of the significant historical events of Medieval Europe, but had no interest in how an internal combustion engine works. He had a great sense of humor, and had many good friends in high school, despite the fact that he had no abilities for, nor interest in sports.

Lanny loved cherry pie, played the cello, liked to play king on the mountain, but only played baseball because the rest of us kids did. He disliked hunting, had a crush on Claire Ann at least for a little while, and liked to stay up and watch midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

Lanny loved Donald Duck, sunburned easily, had beautiful handwriting, and saved me from drowning in the Camptown creek one hot summer day when he could still laugh easily. He liked to ride down hill on sleds, ate his Easter candy much too slowly, sang in Allegheny College’s choir, and spent much of his life dreaming of far off places.

Lanny also retained a phenomenal memory of important family dates and events. I’m sorry now that I didn’t sit down with him and map out a family history, since he could remember the year (and usually the day) of events, like the time that Uncle Ern and Aunt Claire’s barn burned, or when Aunt Marie tangled with the bull.

What we should remember about Lanny is that he began his life just like you and me, with likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, hopes and dreams. He didn’t choose to be ill, and suffered not only from the depths of the illness, but surely even more during the short, intermittent times of relative wellness, when he saw clearly that his life was not as it should be.

It’s easy now to look back and wonder what else we might have done for Lanny. I’m comforted somewhat by the fact that back when he was diagnosed, there was little known about mental illness, nor about how to treat it, so there was probably not much more that could have been done for him on a large scale.

However, what we might have done a little differently was to overcome our own sense of uneasiness, to ignore our own sense of discomfort, and to have taken time from our busy lives to reach out to Lanny with more calls, letters, and conversations. Very often, the little things that we do for others, out of love and compassion, not duty, are the very things that lighten our own spirits and refocus our lives.

So, let’s celebrate Lanny’s life and keep him in our hearts as a reminder to reach out to those who are struggling on this earth.

I’d like to quote from a short poem by an unknown author:
Through this toilsome world, alas!
Once and only once I pass;
If a kindness I may show,
If a good deed I might do
To a suffering fellow man,
Let me do it while I can.
No delay, for it is plain
I shall not pass this way again.

Rest in peace, Lanny. We always loved you; we just didn’t always know how to show it.

Lanny Joseph Potter   4/26/50 – 1/14/97