Author Laura Flynn appeared on MPR's Midmorning today. Mental illness, seen through the eyes of a child:
Author Laura Flynn writes of her at times luminous, at times agonizing experiences growing up with a mother going gradually insane. Her new book is called "Swallow the Ocean."
Flynn's mother suffered from schizophrenia at a time when the disease was not as well known, and authorities were reluctant to split children from their mothers.
This is a chat transcript. You can hear the archived audio of Laura Flynn's appearance on Midmorning here.
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Julia Schrenkler
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Comments: 42
Thanks!
how does your experience with your mother's illness and your childhood affect the way you think of yourself being a mother to your new twins
Laura's reply:
The way that my mother was when we were really young is the way I'd like to be as a mother - I carry that experience with me. I think the things that happened later... I can't imagine that my children would have to face that. But I guess that I know (because of my experience) that children are resilient and can face whatever comes, so maybe I'm a little less anxious than some parents.
Susan, St. Paul
I have been involved with NAMI for several years and have recently become active in Guild (Guild Inc. is a spinoff from the Catholic Guild of Women).
Where is the Science now for treating Severe Mental Illness?
Laura replied:
The primary treatment is medication - anti-psychotic medication - you know it does seem to help some people, but it is certainly not a cure in any sense. One psychologist described to me that each time anti-psychotic medication is prescribed it is kind of a "black-box experiment" meaning that you try it and see what happens. But the understanding of how it will affect each individual person or what it does isn't totally there but it is the best we have at this point and many of these medications do tone down the most florid symptoms like hallucinations and delusions enabling people to live a more normal life.
I just heard Kerri's last question to you (which happened to be the same question I asked you when you spoke at The Loft!) so will have to listen to a podcast of the program. In the meantime, many thanks for being here.
Do you expect to transition into fiction writing for your next book? And do you think it will be difficult? The memoir was really beautiful.
His book is "The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead" So good! (I loved your interview and am on my way to get the book)
When did you decide you had to tell your story? And what motivated you to do so? Were there times that the experience of writing your experience was too painful or awkward and if so, how did you keep going? Thanks!
Laura replied:
Well I always knew I was going to be a writer and in my early 30s I started another writing project - I lived overseas and I was going to write about that - and as I got started I found that I was really drawn back to some of my earliest memories of childhood. It was those more positive memories that drew me in to writing this story. I always thought it was too grim to write about but as these other kinds of memories that came back that evoke the enchantment of early childhood I started to want to tell the story. The second thing was I was strongly motivated to present a story of a family facing mental illness that was complex and multi-layered.
I also wanted to mark my mother's life.
Laura, have you ever read a book called "Welcome Silence." It is a by a psychiatrist, Carol North, who had schizophrenia, and her life's battle with it. She once did a benefit for the University of Minnesota, focused on researching mental illness. She had an unusual form of schizophrenia that was cured with kidney dialysis. Fascinating memoir also.
Laura replied:
I haven't read it, no.
I was raised with a similar Mother. My father was always depressed. My Mother threatened our lives frequently. And only when my Father was away on business trips. I knew that she was not really mad at us. I was like 3 or 5 and had the feeling she was mentally ill! I found out recently that my Father had seen her threaten my sister's life. When he described this I was shocked! He actually witnessed Mom hold a knife to my sister as she was pinned into a closet ! My Father did not call the police, did not seek any help for her, and sat down with my sister on the floor and comforted her. He told my Mom to put the knife away and calm down! Which I guess she did. I will be forever in question as to why after that event my Father continued to leave his girls alone with someone who was a threat to their lives. I decided that because of his non action he was just as off. Did your Mom ever try to kill you? I have read several books that women have written on Mothers like this. One of them is 'My Mother's Keeper' Have you heard of that one?
Laura replied:
I am familiar with "My Mother's Keeper." My mother never really turned directly on me, although I was often afraid that she would. I remember reading in a book written for families of the mentally ill that those families in which the mentally ill person is violent live in a special circle of hell because it becomes almost impossible to help the person who is ill and self-protection becomes the primary thing.
Do you expect to transition into fiction writing for your next book? And do you think it will be difficult? The memoir was really beautiful.
Laura replied:
I'm playing around with writing fiction or non-fiction, I'm sort of in-between right now. I do think fiction is a different process and I know the strength of my own writing (certainly in this book) comes from translating of a lived experience. When I write fiction I sometimes feels contrived, because of course it is. Fiction is contrived. So I think that's the main thing to overcome, this feeling of unnaturalness.
Do you know the author David Shields? He is writing (has written) a book about the matter of memory and memoirs, etc, which you spoke of so eloquently. I heard him at M and Q.
His book is "The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead" So good! (I loved your interview and am on my way to get the book)
Laura replied:
No, I don't know, I think the book was just published.
Well good, I hope you enjoy the memoir.
What role does Talk Therapy play in treating Severe Mental Illness? Are there any studies showing effectiveness? Thanks.
Laura replied:
I don't know of any studies. I know from the psychiatry side there's the belief that talk therapy doesn't really help. My own therapist said to me that any person facing some major life crisis - which severe mental illness is - can benefit from the support and companionship of talk therapy, so why shouldn't they be offered?
I'd be interested in signing up for a writing class with Laura at the U of M or Loft or wherever it is that she teaches. Could you provide more information? Thanks.
Laura replied:
I'm hoping to teach a class on memoir at the Loft in the fall. Contact the Loft for more information.
There is an A.A. saying that goes: "Not keeping secrets is the same as telling the truth." At some point in your life, you got the support to tell the truth, to tell your story. As you mentioned, telling your story was liberating. Has you mother ever had the chance or support to tell her "truth," her story, about her childhood? If you have run across the book "The Primal Scream," the author allows people who went through that treatment to share their journals and stories about how their childhood affected their lives. You may see some connections.
Laura replied:
My mother has never had that opportunity. Primarily because she's never trusted anyone enough. Maybe she shared the most with me when I was a child...unfortunately, paranoia is a pretty powerful block to communication with other people.
Is it possible for us who as children have had this experiance to write a childrens book about living with mom's and dad's that have these struggles? It seems that many other similar subjects are written to help young children. How about this subject? Possible?
Laura replied:
I think that's a great idea. Children need language to understand this experience and if they're living with it there's really no way to protect them from it anyway. NAMI does workshops for kids who have parents or siblings who are mentally ill led by adults who had the same experience as children. I would have loved to be able to do something like that as a child.
Laura replied:
So I started with the most vivid scenes, the ones that rise to the surface like the one that I read on the air when my father left. Sometimes it was just a few details, a scrap of dialogue. And I would think that's all I had but as I worked with it and closed my eyes and pushed further I could flesh out the scenes. Then I had to link all these scenes, put them together, shape them. Create some kind of narrative arc. And lastly to fill in what I didn't know or couldn't know so I talked to family and family friends for their memories, I did research about the times, about psychosis, etc. And then spent a long time revising!
Laura replied:
I think there is. Growing up the way I did, I didn't have an expectation that everyone would see the world in the same way because I was constantly navigating between the "real world" and my mother's world. I think that gave me the skills to navigate in another culture as well and to not expect that people in another culture would see the world in the way I did. I think my childhood made me flexible and it also gave me a high tolerance for chaos.
I lived in Haiti for five years, and during that whole time I think I was translating between this culture and that culture. I think a writer does the same thing, attempting to voice for those who can't voice for themselves. For my mother in the case of the memoir, for the people I knew and worked with in Haiti, in my political work, and hopefully in my next book.
I am so sorry, I did not know of this live chat.
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