Mental Illness Runs in My Dad's Family

Dilusions, Hallucinations, and Psychosis

I remember as a small child that my dad had an aunt Dot. I remember hearing stories that she had delusions that she was being followed by the FBI or CIA.

My paternal grandma, who was also Dot's sister, and my dad's mom, also suffered from this psychosis in a milder form. I remember that she planted a hedge on the one side of her property because she thought the Dutch family across the gully were spying on her. Other than this one delusion she seemed quite normal. My grandma also had a brother who visited at times named Alfred. I remember that he often visited us and helped my dad build a house. He was a quiet man who never married. I don't know whether he suffered from any psychoses or delusions during these times but I remember once, when he was much older, that he was hallucinating that there were little people amongst the bean plants while we were out picking beans one day.  I also remember a time when he told my dad that the people above him were sneaking into his apartment in the middle of the night and spilling glue all over his floor. He would scrub and scrub but, according to him, the glue would keep coming back each morning.

My grandma had another brother named Arnold who I never met. He had been alienated from the family long before I was born due to the theft of a family business or some such thing. Neither brother ever married. She also had 2 sisters. I met Dot on a few occasions during family dinners. Dot never married. There was another sister named Eleanor that I met once.  She lived a few hundred miles away and was married with a family of her own. As far as I know she was fairly normal.

Kissing Cousins

I heard stories that my grandmother's parents use to beat their children or, at least the boys, with a 2x4 as punishment for the smallest things, or even for no reason at all, if they felt so inclined.  It was my understanding that there was a marrying of cousins but I am not sure if the marriage was between my great grandparents or my great great grandparents. I don't know anything else about these 2 previous generations but something tells me that if they were beating their children with 2x4's just for the heck of it, they obviously suffered from some sort of mental illness, as well, that they ultimately passed down to the younger generations.

My grandmother had 3 children, Elmer (my dad), Lawrence and Leona Shirley. I don't know if there were any mental illnesses in this generation. They all appeared fairly normal to the outside world and none were diagnosed with any type of mental illness. My dad and Lawrence both married and had families but Shirley has remained single.

I know that Shirley had issues but I am not sure if they were caused by mental illness or just personality flaws. I remember that she and my dad were close and they often had heated discussions that made me believe she was bigoted.  I believe she did suffer from frequent episodes of depression so she may have had a form of bipolar (again undiagnosed).

I know nothing about Lawrence but he appeared normal to me and the outside world. Perhaps my cousin can elaborate because she lived with him and saw the side of him that the rest of the world doesn't see.

I know from personal experience that my dad was very immature and was jealous of the love my mother had for her children. I also know that my parents argued constantly over the smallest thing. I remember my dad being a perfectionist while building our home and I remember tools and swear word flying when things didn't go the way he wanted.

My dad was one of those guys that was the life of the party, singing, playing the harmonica, telling jokes and making everyone laugh. Everyone seemed to love him.

Did he suffer from bipolar disorder?

Nobody knows, but the side he showed to his family was completely different. To his family (us) he was sullen and verbally abusive. He provoked my mother into arguments, was jealous of any friendships she formed with women in the neighbourhood till she just stopped socializing altogether, was jealous of the love she had for her children, showed very little, if any, affection to us. One particular thing that stands out in my mind from my childhood, was my dad's unwillingness to share with us.  He would go to the store and buy a bag of candy, come home and show us the candy he had bought, put it in the cupboard, and proceed to tell us that he was going out for the evening. He would tell us that we had better not eat any of the candy and, that if any were missing, we would all get the belt.  To me now, I think of this as a type of emotional abuse that was inflicted on us, as what children can resist a bag of candy, especially for a whole evening?  Of course we would try to resist but would eventually sneak a few.  The person that didn't lie, and actually admitted to taking a candy or two, got the strap. (To this day I cannot buy a bag of candy without eating the whole thing in one sitting).

All the goodness in him was given to friends, co-workers, and other relatives like one nephew in particular, and later to his grandchildren  He saved his negative side for us. I remember once at the age of about 15, a young man that worked with my dad came up to me and said, "You're Elmer's daughter.Your dad is so great. He's such a nice man. All the guys love him". And I remember thinking he must be talking about someone else because that was not the man I saw every day.

So perhaps he suffered from some type of mental disorder like bipolar but was never diagnosed.  When he was in a good mood I remember long drives, camping trips, lots of parties with friends and family & drive in movies. So life at home wasn't all bad. The bad stuff just sticks out in my mind and was the beginning of my own mental problems and all the insecurities and stigma that come with it.