The Dark Side Of The Moon

The things I have written are true.
I hope this will at least helped one person.
It has helped me greatly just putting it down finally, on paper.

Not too long go mental illness and addiction were things that were not discussed.
They existed, but they were not subjects to be brought out into the open or were talked about.

This is the story of my marriage to a doctor, who could not find a way to live in this world, a world he never made and of his day by day defeat until finally, his death.
It is also my story – the story of my return from the living hell of drug addiction and
mental illness to productive living and the love and respect of my children.

I have often thought, ‘If there was only some way to reach the people like us, if only they could believe that life could be better; that there is a great big wonderful world out there for them to conquer, if only they wanted it bad enough.
There is a secret that is so simple and nearly foolproof, “live just one day at a time”, and God in his goodness and wisdom can help you do this.
Nothing is so bad it can’t be faced one day at a time, well almost nothing.
The way from mental illness to good mental health is long and full of roadblocks but I believe anything
is possible.
What once seemed impossible to me are things I now take for granted.

The way from mental illness to good mental health is long and full of roadblocks but
anything is possible.
What once seemed impossible to me are things I now no longer take for granted.

A long time ago, I heard someone say, ”the sins we commit two by two – we pay for one for one.”
I was quite young then and not only did it not have any special meaning for me, it also didn’t
make much sense.
I have long since grown older and I pray much wiser.
If each day we can learn one new thing, then that day is not really wasted.
I remember people always saying that marriage is a very important step and so it is, but
unfortunately saying some words in front of relatives ad friends doesn’t always guarantee
a lifetime of happiness.

But this, however was one of the things I believed in with all of my heart.
I was neither young or old when I married my husband – at least not particularly young in years,
but so very young in the art of living.
When I looked at my soon to be husband on the golden day in September and promised to honor
and cherish him through sickness and health, it was as though Heaven had give me all the blessings I
had any right to ask for.

My husband began his sophomore year in medical school the year we were married and though there wasn’t much money, it wasn’t noticed because none of the other medical students had any money either.
I wasn’t an ideal wife – there was almost nothing I could do in housekeeping or cooking, but Henry
was gentle, patient and loved me and despite his heavy work schedule, he always found time to help me.

How can I tell of the joy we felt when our first son came eighteen months after our marriage?
He was very special and daily life became even better.
When Michael was seventeen months old, Henry graduated from medical school and we went to live in Pensacola, Fla for his Navy internship.
Eight months later, our daughter Rebecca came.
Those were the golden years – I look back and realize that now.

In 1953, we moved back to Texas to begin a medical practice and within a week after we got there,
our third baby came, a boy we named Henry, after his father and grandfather and whose nickname
became Bucky.
I thought to myself, “How do I deserve such happiness?”

The practice went well, perhaps too well.
I went back to work in the office when Bucky was six months old and for awhile, things went well.
The clinic prospered, we had two new cars, a new home and three wonderful children.
There were always so many sick people to see and often so little sleep.

One day, I looked up across an examining table and saw something strange on Henry’s face,
like a shadow flitting across the surface.
Something that very much frightened me – yet is was something I did not understand and not understanding it, I put it away in the back of my mind to take out and examine another day.

Unpleasant things you don’t want to face, you can keep hidden in your subconscious a long time
before you admit their existence.

But there came a day when I could no longer pretend that things were right.
A day where I looked up and saw the walls of my bright, shiny world come tumbling down.
It didn’t tumble all at once – inch by inch it fell until there was only chaos, misery and hell.

First there were the pills.
All kinds and all colors, sizes and for all kinds of reasons and needs.
Then there were the narcotics and the lies to patients.
Not once, I don’t think, did I realize where it was all leading.
I knew he was seeing less and less patients and that he was lost most of the time somewhere off
in a world of his own making, a world I could not enter.

Finally the day came when Henry told told me the medical board had ordered his hospitalization.
I remember, even now, after all these many years, the panic I felt – not for him, God help me,
but for me and the children.
My only thought at that moment was, “Damn you, you can go away and be safe, while the children
and I fight our way out of this hell.”

I am years wiser now and I know that ours was the easiest way.
After a while, it isn’t hard to go on living and little by little, some of the pain and misery fade away.
His was the hell, indescribable hell; pain, suffering and withdrawal and finally, facing the person that he was.

His hospitalization lasted six months that time and the day he was discharged, the psychiatrist told
me simply and clearly, “If you plan to live with any degree of sanity for yourself and your children,
divorce him … he will never be well.”
I looked at him in absolute shock.
I loved Henry and sometimes when I saw him in quiet, unguarded moments, he was the same boy
I had seen with such love and faith on that golden September day.

We moved to another town and started a new medical practice.
I knew it was going to be good after all.
The doctors had to wrong.
Henry loved us.

But the doctors weren’t wrong – this time it was alcohol.
It was safer it seemed and he said he could control this and believing him, I joined him.
Before long, we weren't controlling it and many days the effort was almost too great for work.
His superintendent was a patient man, who tried to cover it up and give him time.
My job at the time was Church Secretary and I know there is a special place in Heaven for
Rector who was my boss.
His patience and understanding with me has earned him that special place.
There were many hospitalizations in private hospitals to get him back on his feet again.
Temporary treatment that never lasted and was always repeated within a few weeks or months.
Finally, even the hospital staff could take it no more and had him admitted to a private hospital two hundred miles
from where we lived, again for psychiatric treatments.
He stayed three weeks and was discharged and again, we moved to another town.
This time, his job was in psychiatric residency at a state hospital.
It was hoped that he would find some insight into his own problems working for the mentally ill.

For a few months, things went well and we were happy.
This time we drank wine.
Soon enough it was pills and narcotics and then the beginning of the very end.
In November 1964, he was again sent away to another State Hospital for yet more therapy.
He was discharged in March 1965.

I believed that day, so many years before, when I stood quietly and heard the doctor tell me
that I should divorce him if I ever wanted happiness, I began to become insidiously to become
mentally ill myself.
I didn’t realize it, your conception of your own mental illness is almost non-existent.

In April 1965, we went to practice in a very small town in west Texas, a town that welcomed us with open arms.
I had to simply believe that it was going to be good again.
It wasn’t – within a month, there were pills hidden throughout the house and he was using more and more often.
I became acutely depressed and rationalized that if I could keep well enough emotionally
to work with Henry, he would be alright, so I began using, with his permission, a tranquilizer.

He became sicker and I increased my intake until finally on July 5th, 1965, I looked in the mirror
as I started to the clinic and said to myself, “ I’ve had it … I can’t take anymore.
I remember almost nothing of that month.
I awoke July 30th in a psychiatric ward of a private hospital to withdraw me from drugs and alcohol.
I was discharged ten days later, depressed and immobilized from panic.
Henry was no better but it seemed the townspeople were trying to close their eyes to
the horror that had become our lives.

In August 27th 1965, I was admitted to a State Hospital for treatment.
I look back to that day and the thing that I always remembered was the Alcoholic Counselor
saying to me, “Let us help you Katherine, this may be the only chance you have.”
Thirty days after I was admitted, Henry was admitted.
It would serve no purpose to go into all the details of the next few months.
Most of the time, I fought my therapy with tooth and nail.

In December, my children refused to spend Christmas with us and for the first time, I knew that
some way, somehow I had to find a path back to living.
I finally faced myself and the fact that I was tragically ill.
I needed help.
It was a long step by step by step.
I felt I was just beginning to make progress with my psychotherapy when Henry and I decided
to separate – or rather Henry did.
My depression was so acute when he left the hospital that life had no point or reason and I wanted
no part of it.
But the doctors, nurses and the psychologist at the hospital led me slowly back to believing in
the goodness of life and my worth as a person.
Finally, eight months after I was admitted to the hospital, I was discharged.
I left determined to stay well.
Perhaps I might have, but life had one more roadblock for me.

My husband committed suicide two months after I was discharged.
We were still separated but even so, the pain was so acute and unbearable, I could only sit numb and dry-eyed through the funeral service.
My children were shocked and inconsolable .
It was as though I was no longer a person.
I could look at nothing without thinking of the guilt that I believed was mine, so I reached for the bottle.
Within my subconscious, a voice cried out, “Call the hospital, they are the answer, not this.”
So I did and I went back for more therapy.
Oh, I drank before I went back.
It took time to make the arrangements for the care of my children and I could only face this when I was numb with alcohol.

I stayed some three months this time for therapy and I learned more about me, the person that I
am; the way I thought felt and believed. even more so than the last time I was hospitalized
eight months ago.
I learned I wasn’t really guilty of Henry’s suicide and I learned to answer simply when my children
asked why their father had killed himself, “he wanted to die more than he wanted to live.”
I learned to answer their questions with honesty and love.

Life play such funny tricks on us; how the universe must sit back and laugh.
You take for granted that all things are yours; the brightness of the sunshine, the smile of the
person you love and the good things in your life.
And then one morning, you wake up and the sun is gone and replaced with dark, thunderous clouds.
Not only is the smile gone, but the person you loved with all of your heart is suddenly and shockingly
gone and suddenly you realize that there is no warmth in your life and maybe not in the whole of life.