by Petrea King
At that time, the School was quite patriarchal. This suited Leo, who saw himself very much as the head of our household—and certainly of me. We didn’t socialise with anyone outside the School except family, and I fell into the role of wife and mother, being subservient to Leo’s needs. All the while, I was increasingly aware of the lack of heart and compassion in the way the School’s teachings were presented and lived. When a friend lost her full-term twins and was told to keep her focus in the present moment so she wouldn’t drown in grief, I was dismayed even though she wasn’t; she did her best to accommodate what they instructed her to do.
After his many years of attending the School, Leo too started becoming disillusioned, but his unhappiness stemmed from his inability to practise the prescribed disciplines—such as rising at 4 am—and he began to lose interest in attending the required classes. I could see he was destined to leave, and while I wasn’t yet ready to do so, I knew I would have to follow him. Going to the classes required coordination and cooperation between couples, especially when children were involved.
A lot of Leo’s angst came from a deep disappointment with himself: he lacked the discipline required for the various practices. We were arguing more often, and I think it was easier for him to blame me than to recognise that he’d lost interest in pursuing spiritual practice. I felt a sense of foreboding as our interests were diverging and Leo was unhappy within himself. While he held strict views about diet and any number of health-related topics, he was frustrated that he couldn’t live up to his own knowledge and expectations.
***
Brenden was still dealing with his depression, and we all lurched through his good times and bad. He would sometimes be discharged from the psychiatric hospital for a few hours so we could be together as a family. He might excuse himself from the table and, before we knew it, ingest every pill in the bathroom. He made several attempts on his life, but we always got him to hospital in time. It was so painful to see him struggling when we knew the funny, creative and brilliant person he could be.
Before I was married, Ross and I had moved into our parents’ home to watch over Brenden while they were overseas on one of their business trips. I was sitting on the floor arranging photographs in an album with the telephone beside me. Brenden walked past and kicked the phone 5 metres down the hallway with such quiet rage it horrified me. He was usually so placid when not depressed, and these moments of violence shocked and frightened me. Brenden was particularly manic that day, and Ross and I didn’t know how to help him other than not to let him leave the house.
Unbeknown to us, Brenden called the police on another phone extension—given the one he’d kicked was beyond repair—and told them we were keeping him hostage. When sirens heralded their arrival, Brenden climbed out a window and leaped down from the front terrace above the garage. With a smile as wide as our mouths had dropped, he casually walked towards the police officer with his hand outstretched. He couldn’t have been more charming as he shook the officer’s hand and reassured him there had been a misunderstanding and everything was just hunky-dory.
Like a pendulum, we all swung between wanting to throttle Brenden and gather him into our arms to keep him safe.
My father adored him but had no idea how to relate to him, especially when he was in the depths of his despair. Geoff finally forbade Brenden from entering my parents’ home, as the ravages of mental illness destroyed his ability to make choices and subsequently his behaviour and appearance. But there were many times when Rae let Brenden in through a window, bathed his wounds from heaven knows what, fed him and gave him some money, and he went out again through the same window, and all the while my father worked in his study, totally oblivious of his comings and goings.
I returned home one day from shopping with Ada and Simon to find Brenden sprawled across the pathway to our front door, almost unconscious from alcohol and whatever else he might have taken. I brought him in, cleaned him up, fed him and put him to bed, knowing I would have to make him leave before Leo arrived. My heart shrank as I encouraged Ada not to mention to Daddy that Brenden had been in our home. I knew I was grooming her to take on the same behaviours I practised in placating Leo—these are the sins, or fears, that we pass from one generation to another, yet I didn’t know a more courageous or skilful way of dealing with Leo’s temper.
The stress of balancing Brenden’s needs with the judgement and frustration of people like Leo was difficult to say the least. Rae and I found it hard to be the ham in the sandwich, stuck between loving Brenden and dealing with those who blamed him heartily for the results of his self-destructive decisions. They would have preferred to banish him rather than be confronted with someone they couldn’t fix or understand; it was easier to point the finger at him for his choices than to see that his torment drove him to make them. I couldn’t know the depths of Brenden’s darkness, as I’d barely plumbed my own, but I lived with the fear of that darkness and the dreadful helplessness I felt to protect him or myself.
Protecting Ada and Simon from the ravages of Brenden’s illness wasn’t easy either, given his unexpected visits. I felt torn between loving him and shielding the children from his behaviour. Leo’s strong disapproval of having Brenden anywhere near the house or our kids added another dimension of pressure—such control was beyond me.
Later, Rae wrote of Brenden at that time: ‘Between bouts he was a natural and happy person, his sense of humour being his saving grace. But underneath was the dread of the next “attack”. “Between bouts” became less and less and he’d spend endless months in hospital barely able to bear the pain of his despair and sense of inadequacy.’ It was an agony to see him reduced to a drugged zombie that bore no resemblance to the funny, happy, creative, loving, gorgeous man we knew.
My family split over our inability to deal with Brenden’s mental illness. Our constant anguish for him and fears of his next suicide attempt put an enormous strain on each of us, as we were all confronted with our failure to help, fix or change him. Each suicide attempt underlined the likelihood of his efforts eventually succeeding.
As time nudged towards his thirtieth birthday, I felt the awful weight of powerlessness, dread and failure. There was nothing I could do to stop him, regardless of having known about his intention for so long.
Frustrations spilled over into words better left unsaid. Driven by his own pain and distress, Geoff at times publicly blamed Rae’s parenting of Brenden for his mental health issues. I’m sure it was said many more times to Rae than the twice I heard Geoff tell her, ‘It’s your fault. You mollycoddled him as a boy!’ The agony this must have caused Rae I can only imagine; never was a mother more devoted to supporting her son in becoming the best version of himself. She constantly sought help for him, whereas Geoff simply didn’t know what to do except lash out from his own sense of inadequacy. Blaming Rae was an easier path than the pain of being laid bare through introspection. And blaming Brenden was to banish him from our hearts, which surely could only lead to further disintegration—as in, lack of integration and cohesion—within the family.
None of it was easy or simple. Each of us was doing the best we knew how, given who we were, what had happened to us in our lives and what we’d made of it. Geoff ’s anger became the bodyguard of his anguish; for Rae, it was an insulting and painful blow.
Some relationships only survive when things are running smoothly. Many a marriage or long-established relationship has been shattered by the strain of living with a mentally ill family member. I have the greatest respect for my parents who, though they each saw the situation so differently, weathered the storms more or less together.
We were all frustrated, exhausted and often isolated as individuals within our immediate family. Extended family saw the situation differently too, and while some were able to step forward, others couldn’t understand what was happening or preferred to look in another direction.
Living with a sense of impending doom wasn’t easy. Brenden’s words about ending h
is life clouded my heart, yet I still couldn’t share them with anyone. And I still felt responsible for him, although keeping him safe was way beyond my control.
***
I focused as much as I could on parenting my two small children and supporting Leo. I was blessed to be a full-time mother for the first few years of the children’s lives, only seeing the odd client in my practice. Ada and Simon were our delight and joy, and we bush-walked and picnicked our way through their early years. I was so grateful to be there to witness each developmental stage, and we had oceans of time to go to the beach or play in the garden.
There were odd flare-ups with Leo, so I continued to avoid touchy subjects—which, of course, isn’t a good way to conduct any relationship. He was a big man, and I feared the back of his hand. It could send me across the room or put my teeth through my lip. And when those rare moments of violence occurred, I always made excuses to explain my injuries. Looking good while feeling the opposite was my well-practised art, and I could see no alternative that wouldn’t bring pain to our children.
Leo was a devoted father who loved the company of his kids. They had fun together, and he was gentle and sweet with them. They came to know his fluctuating disposition as they grew older, but when they were very young they only experienced his love.
Still, there were many times when I wondered whether our marriage would survive Leo’s mercurial moods. Taking Ada and Simon from the constancy of their adoring father seemed cruel, so I persisted in training them to avoid behaviours or topics that would upset him—just as I’d been trained as a child. Was this the kind of relationship I wanted to demonstrate to my kids? I felt stuck in a trap of my own making; I couldn’t extricate myself without creating a great deal of heartache for our children.
For a time after he stopped working for my parents, Leo developed a business called Friendly Herbs that supplied potted herbs through greengrocers in our district. Our back garden became a nursery, and Leo and Ada spent hours working together to pot the plants. Ada could identify by smell and sight well over thirty different herbs, and it was beautiful to see her tottering among them with her towering dad nearby. Depriving the children of such special moments seemed impossible.
***
My legs were again becoming problematic as the right knee had swung back around while the left knee was also rotating inwards. I was limping badly, and the arthritic pain kept me awake at night and often made walking difficult. I’m sure the changes in my diet and my other health-related practices made a profound and positive difference, but my legs had still deteriorated. The frequent carrying of small children and groceries hadn’t helped. Neither, I imagine, had the running when I was pregnant with Ada.
By now I was often on crutches to relieve the pain. Taking the weight in my arms relieved the pressure on the arthritic joints, which was something I couldn’t achieve with a walking stick—and walking sticks always seemed more permanent to me than crutches. Of course, juggling small children and crutches was a challenge, so I often just struggled on. I was loath to take any medication for the arthritis, determined to use only a natural approach due to a deep suspicion of drugs and their side effects. As a nurse I’d witnessed adverse reactions among patients, and I was also aware of the statistics around some drugs’ side effects.
I returned to John McGlynn, who said there was no alternative but to repeat the surgeries for a third time, cutting my right femur and tibia then rotating each in opposite directions until my leg was realigned.
The thought of more surgery worried me, and it didn’t seem to be a permanent solution. I decided to try another approach and, through friends from my naturopathic studies, I heard about a skilled Chinese herbalist in Sydney’s Chinatown. He must have been a hundred, and his bent-over, smiling, toothless wife perhaps even older. They spoke no English, so I took an interpreter with me for our consultations.
The herbalist took my pulse for a long time. Finally, through the interpreter, he told me that all my problems were hormonal, that I’d never had a regular cycle—which was true—and he could straighten my leg by sorting out my hormones and giving me some exercises. I was happy to give anything a try to avoid more surgery.
I have since wondered, after gaining knowledge about the mind–body connection and the role of epigenetics, if I subconsciously altered my hormonal system as a child. Epigenetics refers to the expression of our genes being altered by the environment around our cells, which is affected by what we eat and drink, how much exercise we do, the toxins we’re exposed to, our hormones, our neurotransmitters and other factors; it influences whether a gene will be expressed, enhanced, diminished or negated. Is it possible that I redirected my hormones to ‘grow up quickly’ so I could look after Brenden at the expense of others? No doubt it will remain a mystery—though ‘mind over matter’ is a commonly asserted truism.
Every day for three months, I cooked up and drank the most revolting, gelatinous concoction of dried herbs and insects simmered for hours with the cracked shin bone of a pig. Once more a vegetarian, I found this difficult, and often it was evening before I could bring myself to drink the foul-smelling, now cool, wobbly goo.
The herbalist packed my knee in black sticky muck and brown paper, and I had to bend and straighten my leg 350 times a day over a stick with a golf ball on top, inserted behind my knee.
In two months, and for the first time ever, I had a regular cycle. And, in three, my knee and leg were straight as a die! The pain from the arthritis eased too, and when I returned to see John McGlynn, he shook his head in bewilderment and encouraged me to continue whatever I was doing, as surgery was no longer needed.
What has often struck me as unscientific and strange is the closed nature of many fine doctors. I believe that medicine should sit comfortably alongside mystery; we can keep expanding our scientific knowledge and developing better ways of assisting people, while we continue to trust in the mystery—in some power beyond our current understanding. Being open to ancient healing knowledge from other cultures seemed an obvious area to explore.
John was a skilled and dedicated surgeon, and he was happy that I avoided surgery, yet he wasn’t at all interested in my alternative approach. Surely doctors should be motivated to help their patients with minimally invasive treatments; unfortunately, the system isn’t set up to support or encourage such an eclectic approach. The study of medicine has divided the body into bits—it’s rare to find a physician who sees a patient as a whole person rather than through the lens of a single expertise. Some surgeons specialise in knees with little regard to a person’s back, and yet what they do with a knee may have a profound impact on what happens in the spine. As Abraham Maslow said, ‘If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’
CHAPTER 13
The roller-coaster of life and death
When a friend introduced Brenden to meditation, his mental state improved almost immediately. Of course, Rae and I had been at him for years to try meditation, as it was a treasure to us both, but these gifts are nearly always better given from someone outside the family.
We were so happy to see him clean up his life and stabilise his health. It seemed he’d found peace and joy in the slow rhythm of a simple life at an ashram in Adelaide.
Then, for a time, he lived in a friend’s shack on the banks of the Murray in far western New South Wales. I drove out to spend time with him there, surrounded by the gnarled gums that lined the river. I felt such relief to see him looking so content. There was an uncomplicated wisdom about him as he fished, meditated and collected wood. We sat by the river in companionable silence, listening to the whisperings of the ancient gums and watching egrets pick through the shallows. This remains a sacred memory.
I was too afraid of a relapse to mention his past anguish or the commitment he’d made as a child. And, of course, I was glad to enjoy the present rather than delve into what had gone before. I stayed long enough to fully relish the change in him.
As one year became two,
we breathed a collective sigh of relief when Brenden’s happiness and contentment seemed to consolidate. At last we could let go of our interminable worry about him. He was now beyond thirty years of age and, in my mind, he’d forgotten his commitment to take his life, even if I hadn’t. My relief was deep.
We happily bade him farewell as he travelled to India to deepen his meditation by living at an ashram in the presence of his teacher.
Two months after leaving for India, he died violently by his own hand.
***
Ross called me with the news. An unuttered shriek of horror formed in my mind and body. For a moment I felt angry at Ross for delivering this blow, with no regard for the awful responsibility he’d willingly taken on by alerting people to Brenden’s death.
We gathered at my parents’ home in stunned and aching silence. There would be no body, no goodbyes, no packing up of possessions, no funeral, no memorial and little information about what had happened.
The story—as best we know it, having pieced it together like some wretched jigsaw—is this. Some young British tourists had found Brenden in a state of acute despair. Not knowing what to do, they took him to the gate of the British Embassy in Kathmandu. He went in but was told they were closing for the day and to return in the morning when they would surely help him. But there was no tomorrow for Brenden. That night his life became too much of a painful burden and he destroyed himself.
Geoff told us that Brenden had been cremated on a traditional funeral pyre in the capital of Kathmandu.
