Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston
Globe
June 6, 1999, Sunday ,City Edition
SECTION: NORTH WEEKLY; Pg. 11
LENGTH: 774 words
HEADLINE:
Isolation time for mentally ill;
NORTH WEEKLY / ANNE DRISCOLL / PEOPLE &
PLACES / OPINION;
Anne Driscoll is a regular contributor to North Weekly.
Her e-mail address is: driscoll(at sign)globe.com.
BYLINE: By Anne Driscoll
BODY:
It was uncanny the way her
uncle resembled Ernest Hemingway. They both had snowy white beards and heads of
hair. They both were barrel-chested and strong. They both had outsized
personalities and told larger-than-life tales. They both fished on the open
ocean until their skin turned dark and they had exhausted themselves.
Her uncle once told a story about a time he was fishing alone from his
small outboard boat and a long shark kept circling the boat. He never admitted
to any fear and it didn't seem to matter whether or not the story was true. She
found the joy was in listening to him. Her uncle is now 61, the same age
Hemingway was when the writer decided his best option was at the end of a
shotgun. In a surprisingly casual moment, she had occasion to speak with
Hemingway's son, Patrick, at the recent Hemingway Centennial at the JFK Library.
Against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean under a sunny sky, Patrick told her
he never understood his father's suicide, although he thought it justified.
Justified, she wondered. Perhaps. Although she couldn't help but think
that suicide might be less likely, less justified if this country didn't
stigmatize mental illness, thwarting those who are depressed, delusional,
paranoid, anxious, and isolated from receiving the help they need.
There
is now one other way her uncle reminds her of Hemingway. It is that lost look he
has adopted, the same look she imagines Hemingway to have had when he could no
longer find a way out of his own despairing place. Her uncle's eyes see out, but
when she looks at him she cannot see him. He is gone somewhere. She is not sure
where.
Physically, her uncle is in a locked ward on a hospital
psychiatric unit. Her aunt took him there after he stopped sleeping and stopped
eating for days on end. He lost 40 pounds. It is as if he supposed that whatever
anguish was weighing him down might be shed by losing body mass. He grew quiet,
extremely quiet. There were no stories. There was no joy. Like an untethered
boat, he was drifting away.
She does not pretend to know what pains him.
She does not understand what rope loosened and let him drift off. She only knows
he spends his days talking to doctors whose names he cannot remember and making
a tile trivet.
It is hard for her family having her uncle this way.
Depression is what the doctors are calling it. Her aunt thinks it stems from
some sort of insecurity. Whatever has happened to her uncle will have to be
sorted out like the untangling of a fishing net.
There are so many
others who suffer as he does. Recently, Gary and Pamela Goodwin of Saugus laid
to rest their 16-year-old daughter Lauren, a one-time basketball and softball
player who had been trying to keep depression at bay for the past few years. One
morning last month, after Lauren had made her father breakfast, her mother found
her daughter unconscious and not breathing. Although the girl had many friends,
there were some at Saugus High who teased her about her illness, which only made
her more despondent, more isolated. Just before her death, her parents had asked
school officials to allow Lauren to be tutored at home, so she could finish high
school. The authorities have not officially ruled on the cause of Lauren's
death, although her father said it was not a drug overdose.
There is no
parity in mental health coverage and treatment
when compared to physical illness, perhaps because it is misunderstood, perhaps
because it scares us, or perhaps because it seems more expedient to ignore or
belittle those with mental illness than to create the resources to deal
adequately and humanely with them. Therapists, child psychologists,
psychiatrists, social workers, and child welfare workers across the North Shore
and throughout the state are frustrated by lack of the most basic interventions
for effective treatment. At a time when hospitals are closing because of excess
beds, it is nearly impossible to find an available cot in an adolescent
psychiatric unit anywhere in this state.
Why? Why is there such
difficulty in accepting mental illness? Why do we continue to stigmatize those
who suffer from it? Why do they not get the help they need?
Her uncle,
mute and lost, cannot speak up for himself and she doesn't know the answer,
either. She only knows that parity seems far off when even
mental health providers seem to further stigmatize their own
field.
When she called the hospital to check on her uncle's status, she
asked, "Can you tell me if he is still there?"
"No, I can't. That is
confidential information," the nurse replied, isolating a lost man even more.
LOAD-DATE: June 11, 1999 
