1973 Evergreen High School Photograph
Mental health has become an issue of national concern. I share in that concern at the deepest level. Throughout my life I have witnessed the oppression of our citizenry, and our collective mental illness, and to this day it continues to distress me. The repression of powerful aspects of the basic human spirit is encouraged by our culture. Our political, religious, and economic enforcers, and those whose practice resides within the domain shared by all mental health professions, have found that they have limited options for dealing with the disease, resulting in feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and even institutionalized indifference. 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 measures 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.
I mention this story only because it points to a problem with professional bias. Each patient is trying to tell the world a secret, yet presently cannot reveal it. The mentally ill, like all semi-conscious human beings, do not yet have a safe container for their troubled feelings around whatever has traumatized their lives. It takes each patient a unique period of time to connect with the willingness to access the source of their pain and suffering. And it takes a specially trained listening ear to hear the broken person’s deepest meaning, as it can be buried among ancient pain relics from far distant places and times, and, in the extreme, disassociated personalities. Many patients in need of healing may well head for the door, figuratively or literally speaking, if there is a perception that they are not being listened to with compassion and empathy. That is the primary reason many never even reach a professional’s doorstep, for the isolation and fear informs the broken person that there is nobody alive who will understand them, and embrace them with love anyway.
My first wife, Donelle Mae Flick Paullin, suffered from what psychiatric professionals labeled as paranoid schizophrenia. She developed this disease near the end of her senior year in high school. We had known each other for two years at this point, having dated for the last eighteen months. I struggled mightily to both help and 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. ALWAYS REMEMBER, our mentally ill population, including the addicts and the alcoholics, are society’s “canaries in the mine”. We will all die of spiritual asphyxiation, should we neglect to listen to the stories being told by our most vulnerable, and damaged, family members.
I will now develop Donelle’s story of mental illness, by delineating five phases of her life. These phases are fairly arbitrary, and are useful only for breaking the her story into descriptive segments. I have made references to other friends from my youth, I have editorialized in places, and I have revealed some dark secrets from within my own life, as well.
“We are only as sick as our secrets”
is an aphorisms frequently heard in recovery meetings. My present understanding is that
We are as sick as our secrets, while being victimized by society’s secrets, as well.
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.
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, Marlene, 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?
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. My relationship with her family was usually civil, but I had serious issues with the poor family support Donelle had always been the recipient of. There was a time several months before our marriage 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 had jumped me too.
Our marriage started off well. Yet, one weekend near New Years, 1980 our step sister (Keith’s wife) had promised that Donelle could baby sit their two children over the weekend. Donelle loved their children, and felt honored and really looked forward to caring for her niece and nephew. One of her challenges was that she could not be a mother right now, and it hurt her knowing that we could not have any children until she showed at least two years of good mental health. Her sister-in-law reneged on the baby-sitting offer, making horribly erroneous judgements against Donelle, and broke her heart. Donelle had the most devastating nervous breakdown of her life three days later.
By January of 1980, she had collapsed once again into another ‘nervous breakdown’ which included “hearing voices”, talking to herself, and generally experiencing the ravages of her paranoid schizophrenia. She would repeatedly exclaim:
“I am controlled! I am controlled!”
yet be incapable of communicating with me who or what was controlling her inside.
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. Donelle was to eventually receive new medications, which stabilized her enough for us to resume our marriage, which lasted for just two more years until early 1984. We divorced, and Donelle eventually became a frequently victimized homeless street person in Portland, Oregon
Phase 3:
I first met Sean Tucker in 1972, when he moved into our area from his mother’s home in Colorado. His father was estranged from his mother. His father was a manager with the Bureau Of Indian Affairs, and Sean had chosen to live with him. He drove a perfect four door baby blue 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, which was his distinctive chariot for most of the time that I knew him as a youth. Sean had long hair, and always wore it in a pony tail. We met at the Owen Sabin Occupational Skills Center, where I was learning Electrical Construction, and he was learning Printing. Sean was a handsome young man, and he really had an easy time with dating women.
We both liked to smoke pot and to drink. But Sean’s favorite drink was wine, which I did not develop a real love for. We used to visit the Henry Endre’s Winery along Clackamas River Drive, and purchase half gallons of Mead, Rhubard, or whatever the seasonal wine choice was. The winery did not ask for age identification, so we took advantage of that laxity frequently.
Sean became my best, best friend. We did so much together, and I looked forward to having adventures with him, all the way until he joined the Air Force in 1978. We took long drives out into the country, we played pinball at all of the local bowling alleys and arcades, we partied with all of the other local party animals on weekends, and we shared many family events and meals at my parents’ home. Sean did not include me in his family events, however. I had many drinking and using friends, but Sean seemed to exist in another realm for me, where spirit joined with love and friendship and shared values and meaning. We would listen to Alan Watts on Saturday night, and while “high” sometimes laugh and giggle together at Alan’s wisdom and insight, though we might catch an occasional AHA! from our listening efforts.
We talked a lot about what God might be, and how we might encounter it in our journeys. Sean was not a church goer, nor was I, so we were not limited by structured understandings at that time. We would play with meditation sometimes, after hearing that a more prolonged “high” could be experienced through meditation than could be obtained through the use of drugs and alcohol. One time I was meditating in a full lotus position on the pool table in my parents’ home basement, and my mother saw me, and was surprised and shocked by what she witnessed. I was embarrassed by her discomfort with me, and shortly after that, ceased all attempts at meditation.
Late in 1977, when Donelle was in the middle of another relapse into schizophrenia, Sean, Donelle, and I undertook a road trip through much of Oregon in my 1962 Buick Skylark. We traveled through much of the Oregon Coast, into Crater Lake, where we illegally camped along the lake rim, and Eastern Oregon around the Bend area. Sean and I had our normal complement of pot and alcohol, as well as a couple of doses of powerful psychedelics, and Donelle had her mental illness, and all of the sometimes bizarre manifestations of it. Sean had known my wife almost since the beginning of my relationship with her, and he was always a kind, supportive presence for her. But, Donelle’s symptoms were hard to understand, and we were both quite helpless and felt out of control in the face of her disease of the mind.
One evening, we all sat around the campfire, and Donelle continued her sometimes bizarre behavior. She was hearing some sort of collection of voices, and she would talk to herself, and sometimes confuse what we were talking about with what was going on in the secrecy of her own mind. Sean and I would cast uncomfortable facial expressions to each other, and try to engage in conversation with each other solely, especially in the moments when Donelle became overly detached and unresponsive. In a moment of insight, I spoke of my helplessness in the face of managing Donelle’s disease and treatment, and the futility of all of my attempts at understanding her mental illness.
I remembered that I had a form of LSD with me, which was a powerful mind expanding drug, also known for creating temporary symptoms resembling a form of mental illness. It was then that I wanted to take the drug, and see if it would provide any insights into Donelle’s mindset, as well as how I might manage my relationship with Donelle. Sean thought that I should give up on that thought, and stick to the pot and alcohol. But I insisted, and I took the psychedelic. I did not receive the desired illumination, but it showed that my deepest desire was to be of help to Donelle, as well as to try to understand the nature of mental illness, and how to bring a measure of healing to a most difficult life situation.
Sean went into the Air Force in 1978, and married a woman named Natty who owned a bar in the Philippines. She was of Christian orientation, and Sean adopted the fundamentalist mentality through the course of his relationship with that woman. A deep, spiritual brotherhood was to be gradually, over many years fade into nothing but memories, as his work, family, and Christian orientation took him far, far away from the possibility of a shared heart and friendship. When I got married in 1979, my first choice for best man would have been Sean, had he been available. I settled on Dan Dietz and Randy Olson, my other best friends, but these two just did not share quite the same spirit with me as Sean did during this era of my life.
Phase 4:
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.
“I have many faces, but you have recognized mine, and you have reached the point of being able to accept 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 5
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.
Not everybody appears to have equal access to our infinite spiritual potentials.
Had my first wife Donelle, a most beautiful human being, not been severely traumatized as a youth, a much different life experience might have occurred, and many, many people would have benefited by Donelle’s conscious presence in her own unique, spiritual experience of life, healing, and humanity.
Traumatic experiences keep us chained to our launching pads. Healing is not so certain for those whose psychological damage is so profound. I have both witnessed and experienced great benefit from many people who have meditated upon their own unique illness and suffering, and we have had, literally, our trauma points reveal themselves to us, sometimes taking the form of actual ‘beings” who have taken residence within the body/mind of the sufferer.
Most mentally ill people would benefit greatly from trauma therapy. I remain hopeful that all mentally ill people will find a measure of healing for themselves, once the conditions for the application of that miracle are better supported within our society, or are mastered by individual healers within consciousness, and integrated within our collective experience…
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
