On Being Sane

Rex as teenager at top, Claudia and Ralph

 During a recent college lecture I was giving, a student asked if I have mental health problems. It was a valid question, considering I had just explained my mother's long-standing schizophrenia, and my father and brother's developmental delays* that kept them both at the level of 8 year-old boys.
 

I told the class that I have a sensitive stomach, but I don't have anxiety or depression. I've never needed medication for my moods. I made a joke about how it was obviously the universe's way of protecting my family - one of us has to be sane to keep things running properly. Last man standing and all.
 

When the state of Oregon decided in 1973 to take away my parent's (Ralph and Claudia Wade) rights to my brother and me, they did it on the grounds that we children were of normal intelligence (the courts were unaware of my brother's developmental delays) and our parents weren't, so the imbalance of power would be detrimental to us children as we grew. It was the 'foxes guarding the hen house' theory of parenting that worried the judge. What would happen to us as we realized we were smarter than our parents? The court decided that although injustice had been done in regards to a lack of legal representation for us children, the decision that we needed smarter, mentally fit parents should stand. 

After we were adopted into a horribly abusive new home, I realized at 7 years-old that my life goal was to get myself and my 9 year-old brother Rex, the hell away from our new family and somehow find our way back home to our real parents, the ones that didn't beat us with sticks or not feed us when we didn't get our chores done properly. They may not have bathed very often or behaved in socially appropriate ways in public, but they never hit us and I wasn't afraid of them.

My brother managed to accomplish my goal first. At 16 years old, our adoptive parents were done with him. They called Ralph and Claudia and told them to pick Rex up at the bus terminal. He was coming home. The photo above was taken after they were reunited.

 I didn't make it back to our parents for many years. I was busy figuring out my life and was content to let my brother and parents live their own lives. I knew my mother had schizophrenia. I knew they didn't clean house well or wear clean clothes. I knew my brother didn't understand social cues. I just wanted to be a normal person, with a normal family. Since I wasn't given a normal family by birthright and the state of Oregon's attempt at giving me one was an utter failure, I made my own.

I grew up, got married and had children. Then the universe decided it was time to get busy with what I was destined to do from birth. My now adult brother came back into my life. For five years I took on the role of being a bossy younger sister, helping him navigate an increasingly complicated world that he could not decipher on his own. After Rex was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, he moved into our house and became a full-time member of my family.

I learned so much from my brother during that intense time. I was forced to see the world from his childlike eyes and I lost my lifelong, pervasive embarrassment at having a weird brother. He was fine with who he was. I was the one with the problem, not him.

Rex's passing was devastating but it was not the end of life's insistence I was going to learn the lesson of unconditional love and acceptance. Within a couple of years of losing my brother, my parents knocked on my door and I let them in. Not much had changed with them.  Claudia still believed she was visiting from another planet and Ralph still didn't see the need for soap and water. They still hoarded treasures and acted in odd ways in public. They were also were innocent, friendly and eager to show their affection for their grandchildren. We became a family again. 

My now elderly parents, who just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, live less than 2 miles away from me at a nearby nursing home. Just like my brother, my parents constantly teach me to loosen up and not insist on controlling their every move. I have adopted a strategy with my parents that I first used when my children were young. Whenever they are doing something questionable, I ask myself:

1. Is it harmful to themselves or to others?
2. Is it illegal? 

3. Is is immoral?
4. Will it cause permanent damage to a possession or structure?
5. Does it cause them to smell bad or be offensive in some way?

If not, then I stay out of it. Just because I wouldn't wear a winter hat with three shirts on during the summer, if they are comfortable with it, more power to them. If they want to spend hours at the mall talking to whoever will speak to them, I will drive them there and pick them up. It makes them happy to socialize with the world and who am I to squash their right to have fun?

In some ways, I wish I was more like my brother and my parents. They aren't paralyzed by the fear of rejection or embarrassment  when they make a mistake. When they want to dance, they dance. When they are curious, they ask questions. They seek friendship and entertainment and enjoy every minute of both. When they screw up, they quickly apologize and then it is done. Living life without regrets is a miracle to behold.

 

I agree my parents need help, the world is just as complex for them as it was for my brother and the deck of cards is stacked against them. I have come to accept my place as their caretaker. For whatever reason, I was chosen to be here, fulfilling this need.

 

 Even when the courts of the land took me away, and then I chose to stay away, the pull of my heart towards my family never lessened. Like the prophet Jonah from the Old Testament who ran away from God's calling and spent three days in the belly of a whale while reconsidering his position, I have reconciled that my responsibility in this life is to help my family help themselves. It is a big job for one person to do, but someone has to do it and that person is me. God decreed it, the universe conspired it and I am at peace with it.

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*There is a distinction between mental illness and developmental disabilities that must be acknowledged. Mental illness does not imply lesser intelligence and lesser intelligence does not imply mental illness.

 

 On the other hand, if a mother with schizophrenia and a father with developmental disabilities both agree to never bathe or wear clean clothes, the result is the same regardless of how their individual brains worked to get there. Used in this context, sanity is the ability to understand the value of taking a bath and using soap in the process.