The oppression by our culture of our mentally ill continues to distress me. The repression of the basic human spirit by our culture, and by many of those practicing their “mental health” professions, sometimes borders on witchcraft. On that down side, there are those within our culture who misunderstand or ignore, over-medicate, ostracize and marginalize, Isolate and imprison, abuse and punish, degrade and dispose, and just plain “give up on” the mentally ill. On the up side, there are many family members, therapists, psychologists, spiritual advisors, and psychiatrists who have given their lives, hearts, and souls to the care and healing of our mentally ill, and my heart sometimes breaks FOR ALL OF US, as we struggle to manage both our own lives, while also being of service to these fallen fellow members of our family and society.
The psychiatric profession would do itself wonders to finally gain the necessary insight to understand the underlying message here, for we are all being impacted by our cultural INSANITY, and far too many American citizens will continue their own unconscious descent into darkness and mental illness. The mentally ill need better guidance, and our sick society needs better guidance, before it is too late for all of us. Chemicals can carry a disabled personality only so far, and then the river of spirit, with healing and insight, must carry the diseased human being the rest of the way to sanity. Yet, better than treatment is a plan for prevention, which a resistant society will not take the necessary measure to enact.
Early in my recovery from alcoholism, in April of 1987, I volunteered at the Lovejoy Care Unit for mental illness and alcoholic recovery. I had spent a month there in 1984, and I wanted to give back to the institution, as well as offer some of my own experience, strength, and hope to those who sought recovery from their problems. Tony D had a psychology degree, with a focus on recovery issues, and was a volunteer there as well., He had substantially longer term sobriety than my own. Tony was responsible for assessing incoming patients, to help determine if they should be channeled to the alcoholic recovery wing, or to the mental illness wing. My role was to assist with Tony, as requested, and also to facilitate in-house AA meetings.
One story that still stands out for me is Mary J., a young woman who passed through our office. Jane, the nurse, brought her in, needing a fast evaluation for Mary, to see where she could be helped best. Tony had his canned questions to determine drug/alcohol related illness, or non-addictive mental illness status. I noted that his questions appeared out-of-place, and irrelevant to this person, sensing there was a lot more to her “condition” than Tony’s superficial questions could address. Tony immediately judged her as “mentally ill”, without allowing for me to question Mary further. There was a part within me that had detected that Mary was hiding her addictions, and needed a little more time to reveal herself. I believed that I might help to protect her from the assault of unnecessary medications, if I was allowed to delve deeper into her history. Tony came down hard on me, and accused me of being more fucked up than the woman being evaluated, for even considering that he might be wrong in his assessment. My volunteer position immediately became vacant, and I did not wait for him to even say goodbye, as I headed for the door.
My first wife, Donelle Mae Flick Paullin, suffered from what psychiatric professionals labeled as paranoid schizophrenia. I struggled mightily to help, and to understand her, over the many years that I stayed in relationship with her. I gained insight not only into her “disease”, which also devolved into multiple personality disorder, but also into the very mind of mankind. Mankind suffers from aspects of this disease in a collective sense, and the oppressed and victimized, and most innocent and sensitive people in our society are most vulnerable to developing such mental illnesses.
I will now develop Donelle’s story of mental illness, by delineating four phases of her life. These phases are fairly arbitrary, and are useful only for breaking the her story into descriptive segments.
Phase 1:
Donelle was never able to speak out against the abuse that she experienced throughout her life. Being born into a socially diseased family, where the mother’s narcissism and selfishness, and neglect of her young children, and the mother’s poor relationship choices that resulted from her own brokenness, led to the conditions of sexual abuse and assault against Donelle when she was but 6 years old. Her mother Marlene was a young bride, who married Donald Flick, in 1954. Don owned 2 sections of land in North Dakota, which he managed and leased out, as well as being a full time worker at the Camas Washington Crown Zellerbach paper mill. Don would work so much at the mill, that time at home was quite limited. Marlene would have parties at their home while he was away, and she would invite single men. There was always alcohol being served, and Marlene tended to promiscuity during that period of time. While she would be taking leave to the back bedroom with her latest “friend”, she would leave her young children vulnerable to whoever was left without a partner. Donelle, being about 6 years old during this difficult period of time, was selected and abused by Bud Barr, who was a child predator, heavy drinker, and all around bad attitude man. Bud would repeatedly abuse Donelle, and it was also later learned that he abused his other daughter from his previous marriage.
Hell is For Children, Pat Benatar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxYsi5Y-xOQ
Marlene and Don’s marriage collapsed, and they were divorced. But Marlene married the abuser Bud, and they moved in together near Five Corners in Vancouver, Washington. Donelle lived with her mother the majority of the time, due to the conditions of the divorce decree. Donelle had to face the threat of sexual attack from this criminal for the next ten years of her life, though her brothers told me that Bud was not allowed to be alone with Donelle, after Marlene and Bud moved in with each other. Yet, the damage was already done, and the little girl knew trauma intimately.
Donelle’s mother divorced from Bud Barr in 1973, after she found a new boyfriend from her work at Parker Furniture in Vancouver. Tom was the new lover’s name, and he tolerated both Donelle, and me, for a little while. But after Donelle graduated, Marlene and Tom insisted that Donelle leave home, trying to foist her onto her father, who lived in Camas. Don Flick accepted Donelle conditionally for awhile. Don had remarried, to a woman named Alice, who also worked at the Camas Crown Zellerbach paper mill. Alice was kind of quiet, slow and dull, and was not too expressive, at least initially, of Donelle coming to live with them. But after eighteen months, Alice was ready to have children, and her patience with Donelle, and with me visiting them at their Camas home, ran out. Now, Donelle was still being treated for schizophrenia, and she remained quite brittle, psychologically. Donelle pleaded with her mother to let her stay at their home, and Marlene relented for a little while. But after three months, Marlene and Tom insisted that Donelle move out, and she had nowhere to go. Donelle’s family was ready to put her out on the street, literally, so in my need to protect Donelle, I was forced to move out of my parent’s home, and find residence in Vancouver, near where she still received psychiatric treatment at the Columbia River Mental Health Center. My parents were aghast, as was the rest of my family. How was I going to provide for myself, my wife, and continue with college?
(Note 1: there was a time when I was 24 years old that I wanted to hurt both Bud and Marlene very badly, for mistreating and abusing Donelle. Under the right set of conditions, I had the will, and the potential, to bring the greatest harm to Bud, but I never acted upon my disgust and hatred. I broke my collarbone fighting with her oldest brother Keith once, when I made confrontational statements against Marlene, and Keith felt obliged to defend her. Keith later apologized, and told me I had every right to be upset, but not until I wrestled with both him AND his wife, who jumped me too).
Phase 2:
Donelle and I got married in September of 1979, and she was doing quite well at the time. Her mental illness was being well-managed by the latest anti-psychotic ‘miracle drugs’ by all appearances, and she was studying to be a Sous Chef at PCC Sylvania campus.. She was getting good reviews and grades there, and because she had stabilized so well, I finally felt comfortable enough to marry her, having delayed marriage since 1973 because of our tumultuous experiences around her variable mental health.
By April of 1980, she collapsed once again into another ‘nervous breakdown’ which included “hearing voices”, talking to herself, and generally experiencing the ravages of her paranoid schizophrenia. I moved out of our shared apartment on Harrison St. in Milwaukie, and moved across the street into another apartment, so that I could stay in close contact with her. I needed to stay in other quarters because she was so disruptive because of her horrible disease. She would not sleep at night many times, and she would hear screams from the basement of the Milwaukie Police department, where she claimed they were torturing civilians, and she would cry out in anguish because of what she was “hearing”..
Dan Dietz was my best friend up to that point in time, and he was also the co-best man at our wedding. Dan had known Donelle almost as long as I did, and he knew all too well her limitations while she was in her “breakdown mode”. Dan was quite the drinker and party animal still, and Donelle, even in her diseased state, still liked to go out and listen to live music, and drink liberally. I demanded that Dan stay away from Donelle while she was in her breakdown phase, but he instead took her out one night, and they both drank to extreme drunkenness together. When I came over to Donelle’s place the next morning, I noted that her panties were on the floor, and that she was partially dressed, and still woozy on the couch. She told me that she awoke to Dan raping her after she had passed out. When I confronted Dan about it, He said that he did not remember anything, but I went ahead and broke my hand on a door that he stood in. I told him to leave, and i never saw Dan alive again.
Phase 3:
I visited Donelle several times at Ft. Steilacoom mental hospital near Tacoma, Washington over the years that she was committed to that horrible place (1988-1992). Donelle would tell me stories about the male attendants raping the patients, and the necessity of locking her door at night to prevent both the patients, and attendants, from raping or assaulting her during the night. I have written before about my visits here, and I will not comment further in this piece. (end)
Note 2: In 1987, I visited Donelle at her apartment near Camas Washington. We had been divorced since 1984, but I still kept in touch with her on occasion, because of my concern for her. I had just gotten sober, and I wanted to make amends to her, as part of the program of working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (total sobriety was to last for me for over 20 years, until I developed a pain killer addiction in 2007). This time, she was in the middle of a complete MPD (multiple personality disorder) type of nervous breakdown. She had candles lit throughout her apartment, and the setting was quite eerie. I sat down with her to talk, and I noted that she looked so young and innocent, and I was struck by the change in her appearance and countenance. As she spoke to me, I felt like I was witnessing a 6 or 7 year old girl, with the new persona that was now speaking through her. For some reason, I was inspired to give her feedback about her “six year old self” that I was witnessing. I told her that she was not responsible for the sexual abuse that she experienced from Bud (and perhaps one or two unnamed others during Marlene’s drunken soirees). I tried to be as forgiving and compassionate as my heart would allow to the naive, innocent child making its presentation before me. We both cried together, and my heart was broken, and I hurt like I had never before hurt as a human being. I can only imagine her own terror and fear around her own abuse at the hands of her elders. Later in this visit, another “personality” appeared. A calm, composed mature person then “incarnated” into Donelle. I asked who I was talking with. She told me that she was “God”, and proceeded to give me the wisest, most loving feedback that I had ever received as a human being up to that point in my life.
“You have reached the point of being able to accept my sacred beauty in your life. You have made peace with your past, but peace does not last forever. You have much work to do, but your work will have love guiding it, and protecting you.”
As I was open to “God” at that point in my life, it was a miracle that “God” could use the vehicle of a damaged human being to talk with me. That is how “God” works sometimes.
Looking at my history, I remained open to the revelations from the Mystery
Who can say with certainty what reality truly is? Those who cling too tightly to what they think that they know, can unintentionally exclude a “whisper from God” that might be experienced and revealed in the newness of each moment, no matter what or who the source may be.
Donelle’s reality was a most challenging one. I am distressed by the abuse that men over the course of her life heaped upon her. She was the most loving, kind person that I had every known, and she got bulldozed by our culture and community, and her diseased response to it. Nature, or nurture? Had Donelle been lovingly nurtured since birth through her adulthood, I would only hope that the disease would not have erupted. Traumatization of our most innocent cannot lead to happy outcomes.
Over the many years that i knew her, i tried to be the best support person that I could be, but I was damaged goods, as well, so I failed in my mission, too. She deserved better that what I could give her, because I suffered under my own limitations of selfishness, addiction, and sense of personal powerlessness. With mental illness, we all tend to fail together as a family, as a culture, and as a human race. Those who can bring forgiveness, insight, compassion, and a sense of the Spirit are the true blessings for the sick within our society. I am not so sure about the ones who distribute the medications, however. They may help in the short term, but they tend to deliver a mixed bag of goods, that is for sure. The great gift we can give is a non-judgmental listening ear, and to keep our hearts open to the stories that are told.
Phase 4
In 1992, I was still in communication with my ex-wife, Donelle. At this point, she was in the mental hospital at Fort Steilacoom, Washington. She was committed yet again in 1990, and was languishing in there when I visited her. This was the 3rd time I had visited her there. She always had a shopping list for me to fill, invariably with some types of makeup. She still liked to make herself look as pretty as possible, but the effects of the medication over the years on her had taken a horrible toll. She was twice her normal weight, and she could not keep her food down consistently.
The most beautiful woman I had ever met was no longer that, and I was quite saddened, once again, to have to connect with her while she was so diseased. The medication was quite the “double edged sword”, and had been for all of her adult life. I don’t know what drug cocktails they were giving her this time, but they had the same conflicted end results. (I now have little respect for the drug industry, or for a system that prescribes these drugs to people, rather than treating people in a more holistic manner).
This particular weekend, my wife Sharon was running in the annual Hood to Coast relay race. At this point in my life, I was not a runner, having hung up my running shoes in high school, and also having retired from recreational basketball in 1985 due to back problems. My only responsibility was to drive to Seaside to pick Sharon up at the end of her adventure, after my visit with Donelle. I was quite down after my visit, and the drive to Seaside from Ft. Steilacoom was very dark, and subdued.
When I started to enter the outskirts of Seaside, without even seeing one H2C (Hoot To Coast) participant, I picked up on a new energy that just started “vibrating in the ethers”. I came to name this energy “TEAMWORK” after the fact, not knowing what else to call it. It was the energy of collective support, love, companionship, and goal achieving, and I had never known that as a youth, as I had never experienced that on grade or high school sports teams, of which I never qualified for. It was like a beautiful “spell” had come over me, and I was totally captured by it!
Running through my life’s history, I seem to have stumbled over a greater Mystery.
Donelle, and the mentally ill in general, suffer from extreme isolation, and are insulated from emotionally satisfying and connecting relationships. Donelle desired such connections intensely, yet did not have the capacity to make them happen due to the chaos and distress that her mental illness brought to her. A person will never know a greater heartbreak, than to know and love a mentally ill human being who cannot or will not respond to therapy, medication, and treatment. Yet, there are some who are considered extremely mentally ill, who have actually connected with the higher truth of life, creativity, self-expression, and spiritual awareness. It is a dangerous road to travel, the one where insanity and mental illness is one of the fog lines, and spiritual enlightenment is the other. To bounce back and forth between those lines creates a turbulence unknown to ninety-eight percent of humanity.
Enlightenment does not come to the “fat and happy” people of our world. People who do not feel the pain of their own lives, and of their own poor choices, are not ripe for the experience of change. And, enlightenment is NOT a gentle process, merely attained through reading books, practicing affirmations, talking with our friendly therapists, and attending a few workshops and conferences. To find true enlightenment, a path through personal, and collective, insanity is REQUIRED. Watch out for the so-called ‘professionals’ of our culture, or those latest pseudo-spiritual gurus, who continue to try to oppress this movement, and repress those impulses within themselves, and others under their ‘spell’ or control.
Many of our children are destined to journeys through abuse, darkness, isolation, abandonment, and insanity, because those are the qualities that permeate the minds of our unconscious parents. We can all quote from the Bible, Koran, Talmud, Bhagavad Gita, or the sayings of the “enlightened masters” such as the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, or more recently Krishnamurti, the Dalai Lama, OR ALL OTHERS, for the rest of eternity, but until we face ourselves and our diseased minds directly and honestly, NO TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE WILL OCCUR. The same is true for our country, and for our world. I will see you, and be with you for as long as necessary, on the “Dark Side Of The Moon”, until Light is brought to our world, and our children cease to be the victims of our oppressive, abusive natures..
Our children deserve much better love, care, and concern than the vast majority of the parents with culturally conditioned insanity can attempt to give. While incarnated into human form, with our poorly illuminated human minds, we can only witness the projections of our minds. All that we will ever see, unto whatever eternity that we can possibly conceive of, is our self, so the most important question for each day is “how will I see myself today?” The answer to that question determines whether I can see through the eyes of the truth of this moment, or just the limited eyes of the past. Our children pay a horrible price for our dark, ignorant projections of our selves, and our unfulfilled needs. Each child deserves ultimate respect and love, or they eventually become just another dead illusion of our culture’s aging, decaying, conditioned mind. The insight gained through mindful self-examination can erase the blocks to Love’s awareness, and imbue all life with a new meaning. And our children can be seen for the Spirit that they really are, and be allowed to grow into the magnificent beings that they were meant to be, without the detours to greatness that poor parenting introduces.
The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
– Nelson Mandela
