I'm a "Shrink" Whose Family Got "Shrunk."

I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology. I chose research over clinical practice, but my dad still teases me about being a “shrink.” Trust he means well. He always means well.

Rewind to my adolescence when I told my mom that I wanted to study psychology. She expressed concern about what my dad would think. I knew she was right. When I worked up the nerve to tell him, he jokingly asked, “So you wanna be a shrink, huh?” I mentally edited my response before simply replying, “Yup!” You see, I knew how my dad was, and that this was the best I was gonna get. I had a moment of trepidation as I heard him use of the term “shrink”. He hated shrinks, but at that moment he was only “joking around” about what he really thinks of psychologists. I love him despite the “good intentions” thinly veiling what could have turned out…worse.

Truth be told, my dad was my inspiration. We grew up understanding he had an illness. We learned this with compassion. It gave us a way to understand his angry outbursts. His verbal and sometimes physical abuse. Sound like domestic violence or child maltreatment? You’re right. My mom engaged mental health professionals, as we tried to understand the basis for his abusive words and actions…and his paranoia.

You see, my dad is often sure people are out to get him, including my mom. For example, while they were married, my mom offered him Motrin for his back pain. He angrily accused her of trying to poison him. Sometimes, when he was angry, it was more than “just” words. My mom knew very well how to call the cops when he became violent. I’m not sure she knew the compassion she was showing when framing his actions in terms of an unnamed illness.

Understanding that my dad had an illness motivated me to study psychology. I always maintained an awareness that I would never be able to treat him; ethical boundaries and all.

When I later learned my sister had also fallen ill, I really struggled with those ethical boundaries…and the timing of her illness. While my family needed to understand what was happening, I understood a great deal. However, I could ethically neither diagnose nor treat my sister. Even if she had been a stranger, I was only halfway through my graduate training and had chosen to focus on a different type of illness – one that was far more familiar than either her illness or my dad’s.

You see, while my dad was my inspiration to study psychology, I really wasn’t interested in studying his type of condition. I was more interested in studying my own. Around age 15, after my parents had been divorced for a number of years, my mom brought me to the mental health clinic with concerns about my mood. They asked if I wanted to talk to a psychiatrist about possible medication. I accepted, met with the doctor, who put me on an antidepressant because he thought I “might be a little depressed” (treatment of children’s mental health was just emerging in those days).

I knew my home life was involved in what was being called depression. The psychiatrist seemed oblivious. Either way, I wanted to understand the connection between adversity and mental health, as it wasn’t just me. I had been seeing the connection in so many kids at school, too. The psychiatrist said I had depression, so that’s what I decided I would study – how depression relates to early exposure to adversity.

While I focused on studying my own kind of illness, my brothers and I all worried we might turn out like our dad. My sister? Not so much. She was sure she was somehow immune, and yet she developed an illness that was hauntingly familiar.

I was so grateful for the support of classmates and professors, as I struggled to understand and respond to what was happening to my sister, but after years of struggle, she cut off contact. We were in constant angst over where she was and whether she was okay.

About 5 years after losing contact, I finally reconnected with her. A month later, I learned she had terminal cancer. Devastation.

Around the same time, I was learning about this initiative in Minnesota called the 10 by 10. It’s a project responding to evidence that people with serious mental illnesses like my sister’s die on average about 25 years earlier than people in the general population. The project’s goal: to increase life expectancy for people like my sister by 10 years in 10 years.

Lose her at 48 instead of 38? I would have taken that in a heartbeat. While I grieve that this work didn’t come to fruition in time for my sister, I’m so grateful to be able to raise awareness about the added adversity we face when our family members fall prey to these awful diseases. While losing my sister to cancer (after losing her to mental illness) has been excruciatingly painful, learning and acting is how I cope. I’m learning more about the 10 by 10 project. I’m thinking about how I can contribute, using my own training AND lived experience. While I know it won’t bring her back, I know she’s still with me in spirit. Acting as my guiding light.

The 10 by 10 has fallen severely short of its goals, and yet progress has been had. Fearful of the stigma, I have yet to fully engage. Following the guiding light that is my sister’s life and death, may my engagement be fruitful. May we collectively lessen the agony of illnesses that steal our loved ones before their time.