Jan
In Passing
I ask that you read this entire thing before you think I am speaking ill of the dead.
Tonight ends on a somber note. Early evening Sunday, my wife’s mother passed. She was in her 80s in poor health. Audrey had spoken to her earlier in the day. The passing was not unexpected. In fact, we wondered that she had lived this long.
Arnhild had been born in Norway. She came here on the next to last boat before the Germans invaded. Her family was from the southern part of Norway, a few miles from Lindesness. The woman was a trip! How she ended up with my father-in-law is a mystery, as he was a no-nonsense kind of man. Thick Norseman that he was, he loved her. Last night we watched a movie called “Taking Woodstock.” There is a scene where the son asks his father why he stays with his mother. The old man replies, “I love her.” That could have been Harry.
Arnhild was difficult. She had a mental problem that surfaced all too frequently. I remember the first time we visited her in the hospital. “I’m in the loony bin,” she said, quite amused with herself. Usually her outbreaks caused trouble. Once, she called all of our friends and told some spiteful stories. Most of them knew that it was just Arnhild on a wing-ding, but some distanced themselves from us. Her excuse was that we should understand she has a “problem.” We understood, all right. Aaagh!
We have a saying around home that sounds like a joke, but is not. “Who was talking: Arnhild or her disease?”
Her disease progressed and she became more and more difficult the last few years. Arnhild moved to North Carolina to assisted living near my brother-in-law. She gave him a lot of grief, what with being cantankerous, spiteful and impossible to please. Arnhild was rather mean toward me sometimes, and she was also mean to her son’s wife.
Before you think I am taking my chance to speak ill of the dead, read a little further.
I understand something of mental diseases. I was s substance abuse counselor. Dealing with alcoholics and addicts was easy compared to dealing with the mentally ill. Two people who had been close to me in the early 80s turned out to have mental illnesses. They did crazy things when their diseases took control. So began my education about mental illness.
Over the years I have dealt with more than my share of them. They seem to find me sometimes. They think I am a doctor or a minister or whatever they think will cure them. Once when I was a counselor, I was sent to pick up a patient at a psychiatric hospital and escort them to the rehab. While waiting for the nurse to finish the paperwork, I heard the patients talking. The patients asked the other nurse, “Who is that doctor?” They meant me. They wanted to talk to me. Somehow they can spot folks of a magickal nature.
I had more than a few adventures with the mentally ill. You would find some of the stories amusing. Some of them are sad. For instance, there were some of them whose disease erupted so powerfully that they committed suicide. The illness is that serious and tragic.
There is a reason I would never work mental health. I just do not have the heart for it.
Doctors and nurses and therapists can say what they want about the diseases. All I can tell you is about my experiences dealing with mentally ill people. Give the professionals their due. They are wonderful people who devote themselves to working with some of the most exasperating ailments on the planet. As for me, I am pretty certain that nobody comes into this life wanting to be a wingnut. Even the bravest of those so afflicted carry a degree of embarrassment about their ailments. It is not like hearing people say, “That guy has a broken arm” or “That girl has pneumonia.” No stigma there! No, for these people it is “Look at the kookoo!” or “There is the crazy lady.” They never get used to it, even if they try to act like it’s no problem. It hurts them.
Before psychiatry got a better handle on these ailments, mental illness was as much a lifestyle as a disease. It became so tangled that it could not be undone. That was a consequence of the old psychiatric system. Even worse, most of them did not mean any of what happened when their disease was in control. They were powerless.
Arnhild was powerless over her disease. It had been with her most of her adult life. She did not mean the things she did. The cantankerousness and spite were symptoms of the problem. That doesn’t mean that things were easy for my wife or her brother. They had more than their share of exasperation and frustration. That is just part of dealing with a loved one who has a mental illness.
Arnhild will find peace tonight. Mental illness, like physical woes, does not carry over into the next realm. She had both. Like many Scandinavians, both her and Harry had diabetes. As if having just one problem is not enough for a person to bear. There is a sense of relief here because we know that Arnhild was not happy ever since Harry died. Fortunately, I had understanding of the malady before I met Arnhild. That made things a bit easier for everyone.
Mental illness is a difficult thing. I feel genuinely sorry for those afflicted with that burden. Though my wish had been to distance myself from them, my lot in life has been to deal with them in one capacity or another. Understanding does not make it any easier. All any of us can do is help when we can, and at other times stay out of the way.
