Warped Perception

Growing up "normal" in a family full of mental illness sucks.  Maybe not as much as it sucks to have those mental illnesses, but it still sucks.  My mom's family is riddled with illnesses- I have two bipolar uncles and one schizophrenic uncle.  My brother has schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression.  My maternal grandmother had multiple psychotic episodes throughout her life.  By this point in her life, my mother has been completely broken trying to deal/take care of all these needy family members.  I gave up trying to "get" anything maternal from her a long time ago, because she really has nothing left to give me. 

My brother and I have an interesting relationship.  When we were little, we fought viciously, often physically, until one of us (usually me) ran away crying.   Then when we were teenagers, we bonded over music and movies and a shared disaffection for our small town surroundings.  Then when he was 19, he had a psychotic break and entered the mental hospital for the first time. 

I was 15 at the time, and had no idea what was going on.  Everything was really scary.  We visited him in the hospital, where we got pat downs like we were criminals, and patients wandered aimlessly down the antiseptic hallways.  For my 16th birthday, we checked him out of the hospital and ate at a McDonald's a few blocks away.  When he came home six weeks later, he was like a totally different person.  The drugs knocked him out and he stared at the walls like a zombie.  It was really, really frightening. 

What happened in the next few years is both natural and incredibly fucked up.  Natural in that I grew up, graduated high school, moved out, went to college, moved three hours away, and started a career.  Fucked up in that my brother doesn't remember much from those years, mainly because of the drugs.  He lived with our grandma, worked on the farm, got a job washing dishes, and generally did well (for a person with his diagnosis). 

A couple years ago, they found some better drugs for my brother, and it's like he "woke up."  He's no longer sleepy all the time, and he can be a lot more productive.  Waking up was hard for him too- one of the hardest thing for him is that he is no longer 19 and I am no longer 15.  He is incredibly angry with life and resentful toward me.  It's really sad for me that he feels the way he does about me- that I abandoned him in the hospital, that I moved out, that I told him on the phone, "I'm too busy to talk right now."  But he doesn't understand!  I couldn't freeze in time for him when he got sick. I had to live too. 

Having a brother with schizophrenia is like trying to live in a room with all the air sucked out of it.  Everything is consumed in his illness.