I have been a men’s mental health professional since November 21, 1969 when I held my newborn son and made a vow that I would be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and do everything I could to improve the mental, emotional, and relational lives of men and their families. Along the way I have earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) degree, a PhD in International Health, and written 17 books, including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions and The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression. These are the lessons I have learned along the way.
You can read Part 1, “Where I’m Coming From: My Own Origin Story” here.
Part 2
The Day My Uncle Drove Me to the Mental Hospital
I was five years old when my uncle drove me to the mental hospital. I was confused and afraid.
“Why do I have to go?” I asked Uncle Harry.
He looked at me with his round face and kind eyes. “Your father needs you.”
“What’s the matter with him?” I was beginning to cry and I clamped my throat tight to stop the tears.
He turned away and looked back at the road. In our family, we didn’t talk about difficult issues. I knew that my father was in a hospital and it was my duty to visit him. It never occurred to me to ask why my mother didn’t come to visit. I just knew I was being her “brave little man.”
In my five-year-old mind I thought my uncle was taking me to a hospital that dealt with accidents, cuts, and bruises. I had my blankie with me, which I brought everywhere. I rubbed my cheek against the soft cotton and repeated over and over again in my mind, you’re safe and sound. You’re safe and sound. I talked to monkey, my little hand puppet, as Uncle Harry drove. “Daddy’s going to be fine,” I told him. “He just has some cuts on his head, like I had when I fell down chasing my dog spotty.” Monkey agreed with me.
It was 1949 and the drive from our home in the San Fernando Valley to Camarillo State Hospital took more than two hours, though the distance was less than fifty miles. I looked out the window and imagined I was flying over citrus orchards that spread out for miles as we drove along Ventura boulevard. Harry called out the names of the towns as we drove through them–Encino, Tarzana, Calabasas. I loved the sound of the names and imagined them as kingdoms in far-away lands where I would slay dragons and rescue damsels in distress.
We passed through a tunnel of trees and I felt a chill run down my spine. Uncle Harry called out “Camarillo.” He seemed happy that we had arrived at our destination, but I began to shiver. I pulled my blanket over my head. I thought of my father and pictured his blue eyes dancing as he told stories of his adventures in New York when he was an actor.
As we drove up to the building, I felt calmer. Camarillo looked like one of the old California missions with palm trees in front and a big bell tower in the center with adobe buildings that had grassy lawns in front. But as we got closer, I saw the windows. They weren’t like our windows at home, but had thick bars over them and they were painted a puke pink, like Pepto-Bismol.
When we walked in, I immediately wanted to go home. I tried to pull away and leave, but my uncle held my hand tight and said we had to go in. “Your father wants to see you,” he said in his quiet, soothing voice. I liked Uncle Harry. He was married to my father’s older sister, Sophie. He was a round faced, roly-poly, man with glasses and a receding hairline. He was always smiling, happy, and upbeat.
People were everywhere and they were all in motion. A man in a white hospital gown walked around in circles, mumbling to himself as he made strange gestures with his fingers. A woman ran into the room yelling, “Don’t let them take me. Jesus, save me.” Two orderlies grabbed her by the arms and took her out of the room. A group of men walked back and forth, talking, but not to each other. A woman with grey hair dressed in a long dress that had once been blue, but was now faded nearly to white, twirled in circles and sang a sweet, sad song.
“Uncle Harry, please let’s go home.” This place wasn’t like anything I’d ever experienced in my life and I was terrified.
“It’s going to be O.K.,” Uncle Harry told me. But he looked scared himself.
I noticed my father at the back of the visiting room where we were told we could see him. He jumped to his feet when he saw us. I wanted to go to him, but I held back. He looked strange. His hair was messed up. His clothes hung on him and he had a wild look in his eyes I had never seen before. He walked our way, picked me up and hugged me, but quickly put me down. He suggested we go for a “stroll” on the grounds. I was glad to go outside and his words calmed me. We had often gone for strolls at a park near our home and he would often hoist me up on his shoulders.
My father took one hand and my uncle took the other and we walked outside. We found a bench in a grassy area outside on the hospital grounds. We sat side-by-side, my uncle, my father, and me. I looked up at the palm trees, but turned towards him when my father asked, “How’s your mother?”
“She’s O.K.” I told him. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to explain why she wasn’t here but I didn’t know. His attention shifted quickly to my uncle.
“You’ve got to get me out of here,” my father implored. He reached out and grabbed Uncle Harry’s shoulder. “It’s a crazy house. I don’t belong here.”
“Take it easy,” Uncle Harry tried to calm him with his soft words and kind smile. “The doctors say you just need some time to rest and recuperate. “I’ll talk to the doctors, I promise. Just calm down. I’m sure you’ll get out soon.”
My uncle came to visit my father every Sunday and I went with him. Being a dutiful son was something I learned early. Even at age five, I felt responsible for my parents. Though the story of why my father was in a mental hospital emerged slowly and was never talked about, I came to understand from overhearing my mother and uncle talking that my father had a “nervous breakdown.” He had become increasingly angry and depressed because he couldn’t support his family and took an overdose of sleeping pills.
In my child’s mind, I saw him as a failure because he couldn’t take care of his family and he even failed at ending his life. Since the newest family member on the scene was me, I reasoned that I must have been the cause of his breakdown and his suicide attempt. I felt it was my job to fix him.
I visited my father for fifty-two excruciating Sundays with Uncle Harry. I came to fear the tree tunnel as we approached Camarillo and I thought about the story of Alice in Wonderland.
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
My father’s condition grew increasingly worse. He was given more drugs and more shock treatments, until he didn’t seem to know who I was. The doctors told my mother he would need treatment for the rest of his life. In my first act of rebellion against my role of dutiful son, I told my mother I didn’t want to go on any more Sunday drives to Camarillo to see my father. She agreed that I could stop going.
Life Lesson #3: When you don’t have answers to life’s problems, asking questions can be lifesaving.
I think of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Life Lesson #4: Have the courage to ask questions even when you are afraid of the answers you might receive.
Here are the questions I wrestled with?
- Is my father crazy?
- Why did they lock him up?
- Will the same thing happen to me?
- Will I want to kill myself?
- How can I become a man without a father to guide me?
I look forward to your questions and comments. We never stop learning. I will write more articles exploring these and other issues. You can subscribe for free here: https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/
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