Fathers, Children, and the Courage to Stay Alive

The week leading up to Father’s Day (June 15, 2008) has been designated Men’s Health Week. According to the Men’s Health Network the purpose of Men’s Health Week is to heighten the awareness of preventable health problems and encourage early detection and treatment of disease among men and boys. On a very practical level, this is a time to appreciate our own fathers and children and commit to our own health and well-being. My father almost died, but in the process helped save my life.

Throughout his life my father suffered from what we now know is bipolar illness or manic-depressive illness. He had radical mood swings. One day he’d be euphoric writing in his journal and making plans for exciting and fun trips that he would take at the drop of the hat. At other times he would be irritable, angry, and morose. At those times he was frightening and I learned to stay away from him.

When I was five years old in 1948, my father tried to commit suicide. I came home from school one day and was told he was in the hospital. The reasons given by my mother and uncle were vague, something about a nervous breakdown. He went from the local hospital to the State Mental Hospital in Camarillo, north of Los Angeles.

My uncle took me to visit him on Sundays. The experience was traumatic and frightening. Although we saw him in a visitor’s room and later on the grounds, I can still hear and feel the anguish of the patients who were locked up there. I knew my father was in "the loony bin" and I feared I would end up in there as well. Although I hated going on these Sunday outings, my mother felt I should see my father, and being a dutiful son I went along.

After many months, it was clear that my father wasn’t getting better. Each Sunday he seemed to become more withdrawn. Eventually he didn’t seem to know who I was and I finally was able to stop going. The doctors told my mother and uncle that my father would likely never leave the hospital. He was diagnosed as being Schizophrenic. After 5 years, my mother got a divorce.

Over the years my father’s memory began to fade, though the fear that I would end up committing suicide or be locked up was a constant terror for me. However, unlike most people who were locked up in State Mental Hospitals in the 1940s and 1950s, my father did not give up. After 8 years he escaped and made his way back to Los Angeles.

The story of his journey and our subsequent meetings will have to wait for another time to tell. What I give thanks for today is that he never gave up even when the "experts" said he was a hopeless case. Not only did he escape from the hospital, but he was able to keep his mental illness from killing him. He fought his illness with the resources he had available, his wit, his talent as an actor, and his belief in the inherent goodness of humanity.

He lived until he was almost 90. One of his poems that expressed who he was, he called Resiliency:

Resiliency—One of Humankind’s finest graces—

Time and time and time

Without end—
life bends us, twists us, knots us, stretches us,

Out-out-out-out

Till we’re positive, we’re going to break—

But out of our pains, our agonies, our heartaches,

We snap back and go on.

That power and strength to be stretched and stretched

And stretched—And then to snap back

Again and again and again

And go on

And live on—

Of all human Kind’s

Finest graces—one of the finest

Is

Resiliency

Tom Roberts Diamond, 1906-1996

Happy Father’s Day!

His willingness to fight for his health in the face of serious mental illness has stayed with me. I’ve had to draw on his strength many times over the years in my own struggles with Manic-Depressive Illness. For his courage, I give thanks.
What are the strengths you have learned from your father that have enabled you to deal with life’s challenges? Please share your own experiences with your father.