La Toya Lewis ...
- speaks
with dignity and eloquence about her experience as the adult child of
a schizophrenic
- describes
the results of the stigma attached to mental illness and the cost of
family denial
- recommends
some books that can help with perspective, understanding and personal
healing
IN
HER OWN WORDS ... "As an adult child of a Schizophrenic mother, I
was heartbroken when the news of the Yates children and their mother was
made public. Immediately, I had a deep sense that this woman had a serious
mental illness that must have gone untreated. I also recalled my own childhood
where my mother - a single parent - often beat me mercilessly because
the voices in her head told her to. Several times after severe incidents
I would be rushed to Children's Hospital and watch as my mother told incredible
stories of people breaking into our house, beating and throwing me against
the walls. I often wondered if the doctors knew it was she who had done
these things to me.
"Our society still has not found a way to aid those who are mentally
ill or provide the needed support for their families. The stigma associated
with mental illness is still one that generates denial as opposed to appropriate
actions to secure the safety of little ones and the person with the illness.
We still have not accepted the reality that trauma often begets trauma
and those around someone so ill may in fact be emotionally scarred.
"I'll celebrate my 39th birthday this year, and it has only been
in the last few years that I've begun to understand the damage done to
my psyche, to my soul, to me at the hands of a mother who could not overcome
her illness. I don't hate or blame her, but I am forever filled with questions
about how my grandmother, cousins and my mother's aunts and uncles could
have stood idly by while one among them suffered so profoundly. My healing
has been slow, but I must do this for myself, for my son and for the child
that lives within me who has only begun to feel safe."
5 books La Toya recommends (please click on the book cover to see more about the book or to order it directly from amazon.com):
Jung to
Live By by Eugene Pascal, Ph.D.
Trauma
and Recovery by Judith Herman, M.D.
Too Scared
to Cry: Psychic Trauma in Childhood by Lenore Terr
Drama of
the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller
Soul Murder Revisited: Thoughts about Therapy, Hate, Love and Memory
by Leonard Shengold, M.D. [Yale University Press]
Here are some anonymous examples from my experience working with clients over the past 20 years.
- The father earns 7 figures and has a position in the hotel industry worldwide. The parents had a cocaine lifestyle while the 3 children were young. Both the father and the son molested one of the daughters for a period of 5 years. I feel that this girl will kill herself one day and I am very, very sad about this.
- 45 year old Xxx is 150 pounds overweight and wears ruffled sox and barettes. When her parents went out in the evening, she was left alone with her step-brothers who were 8 and 10 older. They molested her all during her childhood.
- When Xxx was a baby, her father, an electrician, tied her up in her high chair with electrical chord and beganmolesting her. Her mother told her if she talked (causing the family humiliation in the small town where they lived), she would be killed.
- Xxx requested to be sent to boarding school to escape emotional incest with his divorced mother. While there he was sexually abused and turned on to drugs. He died at 17 from an overdose.
- Xxx's step father asked her what doll she would like for Christmas. He bought the doll, took the little girl down in the basement and held it at arm's length in front of her. Guess what she was supposed to do to be a good little girl and "earn" this doll for Christmas?
Books Nancy recommends as well:
From the Christian perspective of a survivor and healer
and companion workbook 
for personal or group use by
Dr. Dan B. Allender
The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse (click
the book cover to go to the order page if you'd like the convenience of
buying the book from amazon.com)
Promise
You Won't Tell Nobody by
Kimberly T. Matthews
A reader
says, "It's a true example of how God can pull you out of the darkest
places."
Nancy R. Fenn
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