Safe, Wanted, and Loved: A Family Memoir of Mental Illness, Heartbreak, and Hope

by Patrick Dylan

  In addition, the defenses I had constructed against being hurt again remained fully in place, and I still treated Mia like a friend rather than a spouse. I kept telling myself that time would mend the wounds of the past; if I just gave things enough time, the intimacy between us would reestablish itself.

  Except that it didn’t. Finally, after nearly four years, Mia came to me one night in our room.

  “Pat, we need to talk,” she said, not with malice but with sincere empathy in her voice. I knew immediately what it was about.

  “Okay.” I was unsure how to react.

  “What are we doing? Who are we anymore?”

  I sat looking at her without the ability to respond.

  “I know things were really hard on you when I was sick, and I can’t thank you enough for everything you did for me.” Her eyes began to water. “Without you, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”

  I was becoming emotional, too. We didn’t talk much about her illness. It was too hard on both of us.

  “And so, I’ll be forever grateful to you.” She sniffed a bit, and then laughed, her breath releasing in a small gasp. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve someone like you.”

  I still hadn’t spoken. I knew what she was going to say, and I wasn’t ready for it.

  “But I don’t know what we are doing. Are we just friends now? Is that all we’re going to be?”

  “I don’t know. No, that’s not what I meant,” I quickly corrected myself. “That’s not all we’re going to be.”

  “Are you waiting for the kids to graduate, and then you’ll ask for a divorce?”

  “No, Mia, no. That’s not what I want at all!” At that moment, I realized the dire consequences of my neglect. I had fought with all my strength for this woman, for our future, and I had won. But here I was, on the brink of losing everything.

  My brain wasn’t capable of reacting. It was like I was standing behind those defenses, trying to peer over them to see Mia again—the Mia I had fallen in love with. But I couldn’t get myself to jump over the barrier.

  Her expression softened. “Pat, you need to get help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled gently and put her hand on mine. “You made sure everyone had support when I was sick—everyone except for you.”

  “I had Luke, he was there with me.”

  “Yeah, Luke was great, but that’s not what I’m talking about. You need to see a therapist. You have real issues, and you need to deal with them.”

  My first reaction was denial. I was the strong one, the one who had saved the family. I had dealt with the illness; I could deal with anything. “I just need more time,” I said.

  “You’ve had almost four years. That’s a lot of time.”

  Her words hit home. “You’re right,” I said. And that was how we left it. I didn’t commit to anything, but she had made a strong argument. More importantly, she had planted the thought in my head. And the more I pondered it, the more obvious it became. It was hard to believe that I hadn’t seen it for myself.

  The next day, I began reviewing profiles of psychologists. I had to be selective; our story was an agonizing one, and I didn’t want to revisit it more than once. The search process took several days; investing a lot up front would hopefully improve my chances of finding a good match.

  I kept coming back to one candidate. His name was Dr. Tomasz Nowak. He had a doctorate in clinical psychology and several other degrees, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. What fascinated me were all the newspaper articles about him. He had been a Catholic priest in California but had relocated to Florida to establish his counseling practice after some kind of scandal. The Church claimed that he had misappropriated funds. They defrocked him, dragging his name through the papers while doing so.

  But that stood in stark contrast to what his parishioners thought of him. I read one testimonial after another in which people claimed that Dr. Nowak was the most honest, most thoughtful person in the world. In fact, his congregation held a public rally as a last-ditch effort to keep him from being ousted. The more I read, the more it appeared that he had been the target of a jealous and vindictive bishop.

  His ordeal mimicked my own. He had dedicated his life to a relationship, one with the Catholic Church, and then it had suddenly been stripped away. I wondered how he had dealt with that.

  Soon, I was checking in at Dr. Nowak’s office for my introductory session. I smiled inwardly as I walked into his lobby. The white noise was playing in the background, and the elegant couch sat under soothing pictures of tranquil landscapes. It felt strangely familiar but also very different. This time, I would be the one answering the questions.

  When he greeted me, I knew immediately that he was not the villain the Church had made him out to be. He had a warm smile and kind eyes, and his Polish accent embellished a voice that was at once generous and trustworthy. My gut told me that he was the correct choice. Dr. Nowak, or “Dr. Tom” as he insisted, was the right person to help me pick through the rubble of the past.

  Most of the first session was a steady stream of storytelling. Dr. Tom posed questions now and again, but he mostly listened. Near the end of our time together, he asked, “You have focused a lot of the story on how it impacted Mia and your children, but have you thought about its effect on you?”

  “Yes, I have, more since Mia and I talked about it.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t think that I’ll ever feel as close to anyone as I felt with Mia before she got sick. But that was a kind of naïve closeness, the closeness of someone too young to understand that life can be so harsh. You can’t let yourself feel that connected to anybody. You can’t really ever know what someone else is thinking, that has become obvious to me. And then, if you do have a relationship like that, and you lose it, it’s just too painful. It’s like losing a loved one.”

  “Do you feel like you lost Mia?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t feel like I lost Mia. She’s the same person she was before.” I realized that he had made his point. “But I lost her for a while,” I added quickly, “and I didn’t know if I would ever get her back.”

  Dr. Tom ended our appointment saying he thought he could help. For me, the experience was surprisingly cathartic. Up to that point, I hadn’t spoken much about Mia’s illness to anyone. Our family members and close friends knew it had been difficult, but they didn’t know the details. Luke knew some of them; he had lived through the worst with me. But just talking to Dr. Tom about what had happened helped me feel better.

  Although we didn’t discuss his background, he knew the reason I had chosen him. We felt a kinship, and it made it easier for me to open up. I agreed that we should work together, and we scheduled a set of recurring weekly meetings.

  My first appointment with Dr. Tom was right around the holidays, and I prepared a special card for Mia. After the Christmas Day festivities were concluded, I pulled her aside in our bedroom.

  “This is my actual present to you, babe,” I said, handing her the envelope. Inside, I had included Dr. Tom’s business card, with a note that I was taking her recommendation seriously.

  “Pat,” she replied, those familiar eyes pulling me in, “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.” She wrapped me in a hug, resting her head against my shoulder. “It might be hard, but I’ll support you any way I can.”

  I quickly discovered that Mia was right, the next steps were not going to be easy. In subsequent meetings, Dr. Tom began probing into the worst parts of our ordeal. Several times, he made me relive the actual experience, describing to him in detail a specific scene and how it made me feel. I told him about the terror of the first day and the exhaustion of the first week. I recounted the Plan and the Devil and the battles of the crisis center.

  Every time we met, my body’s fight-or-flight response would trigger
, with my heartbeat soaring and my palms sweating, even though we were sitting in the peaceful serenity of Dr. Tom’s office. The worst session was when we replayed the night of the 911 call.

  Several weeks into our relationship, he made a startling announcement. “Pat, I believe that you suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is typically referred to as PTSD.”

  I laughed. “I’ve heard of PTSD, but that affects soldiers coming home from war. What we went through was tough, and sometimes I refer to it as a battle, but it was nothing like that.”

  “It’s true that many soldiers suffer PTSD,” Dr. Tom explained, “but you don’t need to have experienced a combat situation. Any traumatic event or experience can lead to PTSD, and you fit that description.”

  “Look, I agree that we went through some difficult times, but it didn’t lead to my own mental illness.” I was the rock, the solid foundation for our family. Sure, I needed some help, but I wasn’t in the midst of a crisis. “It isn’t affecting my life,” I said.

  “Really?” Dr. Tom asked. “‘I don’t think that I’ll ever feel as close to anyone as I felt with Mia before she got sick,’” he said, quoting me. “One of the revealing characteristics of PTSD is an inability to develop and maintain close relationships, a loss of hope about returning to a normal life.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And another symptom: trying to avoid thinking or talking about the event that caused the trauma. If Mia hadn’t prodded you, and we hadn’t met, would you have ever revisited what happened?”

  “Well, maybe not, but—”

  “And another one: recurring nightmares related to the event. Sound familiar?”

  “Right, but—”

  “Pat, listen to yourself. You and I both know that mental illness is real. Why are you pushing back so hard on this?”

  I stopped protesting. He was right. The experience had impacted me more than I was willing to admit. I admired Mia for recognizing her challenge and rising to it, adopting the behaviors that would lead to recovery. It was time for me to step up, for her sake and mine.

  We spent the rest of our session talking about PTSD, including its symptoms and the prognosis. I was fortunate; treatment didn’t always require strong medications. In some cases, simply talking could provide tremendous benefits, as I had already found.

  “Dr. Tom, is there anything I can do on my own, when I’m not here with you?”

  “I do have one suggestion, Pat,” he said, “but it won’t be easy.”

  “What is it?”

  “Write,” he replied. “Write it all down. Everything.”

  “You mean, write it down like in a book or something?”

  “In whatever way you want. By writing it down you’ll relive it, and in reliving it you’ll continue your process of healing. You’ll take control of what happened.”

  It was an interesting concept, one that I wouldn’t have considered on my own, but I remained skeptical. Talking with Dr. Tom about the illness was hard enough; I didn’t welcome the thought of revisiting the details again.

  But I kept coming back to the idea. It wouldn’t cost me anything, and if it didn’t help, I could always stop. Plus, I could do it in secret; no one else would need to know. If I truly wanted to heal—to recoup what Mia and I had lost—I should be open to anything. I owed it to us; I owed it to our family.

  Thinking about the family led me back to my mom’s advice to make sure the kids felt safe, wanted, and loved. Suddenly, I realized how accurately it applied to our experience with mental illness.

  In the beginning, my focus was on keeping Mia safe. Although she didn’t like the crisis center, I knew it would protect her. And Luke, with his warm and wild personality, kept everyone feeling more secure, especially Mia. Then, during the long periods of recovery, I struggled to make her feel wanted, even though, with her changed personality, life was easier when she wasn’t in the room.

  Now, over six years later, we were beyond all of that. It was time for the final step. I never stopped loving Mia, but she couldn’t feel it anymore. And no wonder: the closeness that had defined our relationship was gone. My own illness was blocking the final phase of our healing.

  I had to accept my disease and recognize its challenges. I had to feel safe, wanted, and loved, too. Deep down, do I even feel safe? I wondered. I can’t even walk through the house without thinking about what happened.

  That weekend, when I found myself alone for a few hours, I pulled out my laptop. I was sitting in the back room, gathering my strength to face the ghosts of prior years. Looking around, I could hear the echoes of a fierce struggle and the faint sirens of a night long past.

  Turning on my computer, I imagined the guest bedroom of my parents’ house on a Sunday morning in late September. Pitch black. Too quiet. An ominous feeling builds.

  I hear my wife’s voice in the darkness.

  “Pat, I am going to prison,” I typed, tears forming with the weight of the memory. I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and kept writing.

  Epilogue

  Queen and David Bowie

  “Under Pressure”

  2:37–3:32

  Thankfully, Mia and I remain happily married. Dr. Tom helped me recognize and then overcome my own mental illness; writing this book was a crucial part of my recovery. The kids have since gone off to college, but that gives Mia and me more time to concentrate on each other. We are as close now as we have ever been.

  But that’s not her real name, and Patrick Dylan is not mine. I wanted to tell our story, but not everyone involved was supportive. Rather than disrupt relationships, I changed details—names, locations, et cetera. But events, dialogue, and emotions have been preserved. This is our story, even if you don’t know who we are.

  Shielding Mia from the stigma of mental illness was at the forefront of my mind when the ordeal began. It governed my actions and contributed greatly to my own stress during an already traumatic time. But a funny thing happened when people finally heard about her sickness: they began sharing their own experiences with us.

  I was amazed by the number of friends who came forward. Anxiety and depression were common, and many admitted to taking medication either regularly or at some point in the past. Other serious conditions were also prevalent. One relative shared the story of her son’s challenges with mental illness. One colleague revealed that his daughter suffered from bipolar disorder; another had a teen who was in and out of treatment centers. Still another close friend confided that for years he had struggled periodically with the very same symptoms that Mia had faced, including acute psychosis.

  We never knew how many friends suffered in secret, but it shouldn’t have been surprising; nearly 20 percent of Americans struggle with a mental illness. That means if you have ten friends, two of them are dealing with it right now. Do you know who they are? Probably not. Mental illness is something that we have been taught to hide.

  The stigma has thousands of years behind it, built on a foundation of ignorance and fear. If someone started acting psychotic hundreds of years ago, people attributed it to demons, sorcery, or some other supernatural power. That person would have been locked away or put to death. No one understood that chemical imbalances in the brain were the root cause. Even something less extreme than psychosis would have been punished or ridiculed. And so, as a community, we learned to hide mental illness at all costs.

  But now we know more. Psychiatrists have a better understanding of the neurotransmitters that control thought. We have plenty more to learn, but we know for certain that mental illness isn’t “all in someone’s head” or the result of evil spirits. Those concepts are foolish, but they still govern how we act toward it. As a result, too many people agonize in isolation, afraid to seek the help they so desperately need.

  It doesn’t have to be this way. As a society, we choose not to break the taboo around mental illness.
We go along with the ridicule. We condone the behaviors that enforce the stigma. We hide our troubles away, hoping no one will learn the truth about the challenges we face.

  We need to stop.

  Every person in our family has been affected by mental illness. Why are we so ashamed to admit it? We wouldn’t be embarrassed if heart disease lay at the center of this story; a disease of the brain shouldn’t be any different. I look forward to a day when people can share their experiences with mental illness openly and honestly, without worrying about how the world will define them or upsetting the ones they love.

  This is a story of strength, resilience, and hope. I wrote it as a dedication to the members of a special family, each of whom was crucial to our ultimate recovery. And I wrote it for my wife, who will always be the most special person in my life.

  This is my story. I couldn’t be prouder to tell it.

  A Note from the Author

  Music has supported me through many difficult times, but it was never more important than during the events shared within these pages. I had intended that each chapter of this book begin with lyrics from the songs that formed the backdrop of this experience. I then learned that doing so would break dozens of copyright laws. Still, I felt an obligation to these artists. I listened to their songs nonstop during my struggle: in the car, on a run, in a dark room trying to find strength.

  Although I couldn’t include the lyrics, I have included the artist and title, as these are legal to print. If you’d like to know the particular words that were important to me, I’ve provided markers for those as well. Here’s an example:

  Talking Heads

  “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)”

  2:49–3:22