A/N: Schizophrenia dot com was a very valuable resource when it came to writing this chapter, having not only the most up-to-date information about this condition, but member boards for schizophrenics and their families to share their experiences. Any errors here are my own.
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"…Your mother is schizophrenic."
That statement was like the moment when, after staring long and hard, in mounting frustration and annoyance, at an image which has an optical illusion hidden in it, the mental click finally occurs. Everything was revealed.
"Oh." was all I said. "Of course." I added, as an afterthought.
"The sense of smell is the sense most closely linked to the brain." Victor explained. "By some peculiarity, all schizophrenics and all sufferers of Alzheimer's, which is closely related to it, have defective senses of smell. The worse the sense of smell, the worse the mental condition. The areas of the brain which are involved are the frontal lobes, which govern not only the olfactory sense, but also judgment and planning."
Victor continued, "There are other reasons why an individual's sense of smell might be defective, but in combination with other indicators of your mother's condition—paranoia and delusion—as evidenced by her suspicions that you were attempting to poison her—inattention to self-care, increasing inability to perform goal-oriented tasks such as laundry, increasingly irrational behavior—."
"Learning that her sense of smell was off confirmed it." I finished. "I never suspected, never even considered that she might be schizophrenic—and I've studied psychology."
"Perhaps you might have been too closely and too emotionally involved to see it. Your instinct is to avoid your mother as much as possible—and a shrewd instinct it is, under the circumstances."
"Of course," I said again. Then I was seized by a chill. "There is a genetic factor involved." Had I inherited her schizophrenia as well as her skin and her hair?
"There is," he agreed, "but not only does it follow that you might not have inherited it, but there are developmental and environmental factors as well. Prenatal malnutrition is one component—the father's age at conception is another. Men who are over fifty sire schizophrenics far more often than younger men, suggesting that germ cells suffer chromosomal senescence just as ova do. Environmental factors include stresses such as brain damage and drug use. Heavy use of marijuana and other cannabis products before the age of eighteen, while still growing, in other words—seems to triple the chance of developing schizophrenia."
"There, at least, I can claim a clean slate. I never touched an illegal drug in my life." I said. "My father was twenty three when I was conceived, too. Actually—my mother was a late-life baby—not so much an afterthought as an 'Oops!' She was the youngest by eleven years. Grandmother and Grandfather McKenna were married—oh, I don't remember when, but she was about forty-five when my mother was born and he must have been over fifty. He was eight years older than she."
Victor tightened his arm around me reassuringly. "Three reasons to be less fearful, three factors that your mother had which you lack. Less than one percent of the earth's population is known to suffer from schizophrenia, and it is estimated that there are as many more who, like your mother, are undiagnosed. Your risk factor will be higher than the average—." He released me and sat up. I heard him reach for his mask. "Take off your mask and put on a robe. I am going to get my computer. There will undoubtedly be a wealth of information available on-line."
He was correct. There was. With the computer on the bed between us, we soon discovered that my risk factor was about thirteen percent. If, instead of my mother, it had been a sibling of mine who came down with schizophrenia, the risk factor jumped to seventeen percent—which suggested that, like hemophilia and sickle-cell anemia, schizophrenia was a condition for which one had to inherit bad genes from both parents.
"Do you recall if any of your mother's brothers suffered from mental illness?" Victor asked.
"My oldest uncle committed suicide, but he was in the Vietnam War, so schizophrenia may not have been involved." I replied.
"It is still an indicator of mental illness." he pointed out.
I found a support board for the caregivers and family members of schizophrenics, and began skimming through the biographies and blogs.
Most of the adult children of schizophrenics, like me, had schizophrenic mothers—not because there were more women with the condition, but because it showed a decade later in life for women than it did for men—in the late twenties to early thirties as opposed to the late teens and early twenties. Most male schizophrenics never married.
"This is—this is astonishing. All of these people—their stories are my story." I said. I began to tear up again.
I was not alone. I was not the only one who had seen her mother disintegrate. I was not the only one whose mother had killed her pet. I was not the only one whose mother screamed and swore at salespeople. I was not the only child who had become the mother to her mother. I was not the only one whose mother had tried to kill her…
"You speak of your father's mother as 'Grammie'" Victor observed as I read, "but you referred to your mother's parents as 'Grandmother and Grandfather McKenna.' I take it that you were not close to them."
"No. I didn't even meet them until I was seven, when my mother got married—and when she got divorced, that was the end of any friendly relationship they had with us…When it happened, and they were forced to get involved afterwards, that is, my grandmother and my uncles, since my grandfather had passed away by then—they were angry.
"They were angry at me. Grandmother McKenna said I brought it on myself, because if I hadn't insisted on moving out, my mother never would have done…what she did. She said that to me while I was still in the hospital."
"I like your relatives less and less the more I learn about them." Victor remarked. "Were they aware of your mother's mental and emotional difficulties?"
"In our community, it was impossible not to be. Even though there was little direct contact, there was plenty of communication. It was a small town, after all." I replied.
"Nor was your stepfather any prize." he said
Then Victor reached over, across the computer, and tipped my chin up with a finger, so I was looking him in the eyes. "Now. Listen to me. Fix what I am about to say in your memory. Repeat it to yourself, frequently, as you have recourse to it.
"Your mother's dementia was not your fault. You did not bring anything on yourself by wanting to leave her. You did not abandon her. You saved yourself—you saved your mind, your spirit, your very life by leaving.
"You were burdened with the supervision and care of a dangerous and insane woman at an age when you still needed supervision and care. Your stepfather forced that burden on you, and it was a grievous, a criminal wrong that he did you thereby.
"Your mother's family knew she was neither well nor normal, and they did nothing. They did not investigate or intervene. They did not care enough about either of you to be bothered. That, too, was a grievous and criminal wrong. They then compounded it by casting the blame on you when she tried to kill you.
"Be angry. Be filled with hatred.
"But direct it where it belongs—at them, and not at yourself."
It seemed to me as if I had been waiting at least half my life to hear those words, and when at last I did, I broke down. I shoved the computer aside, buried my head against his shoulder, and he held me in the strong circle of his arms as I cried and cried, until my entire being was wrung dry.
A/N: No more shout outs or review replies to be found here--it is now forbidden. We are to use the review reply system they have now set up. GothikStrawberry, Dreaming of Everything--I have sent you replies through it. Did you recieve them?
Also, --this is for all my readers--I am comsidering cutting the more mature material, restructuring and rewriting the story until it qualifies for a Teen rating, and so that it still makes coherent sense. If you would miss the mature stuff or the story structure as it exists, I can direct you to anothersite where it would still be as it was. What do you think of this notion?