Mom’s mental illness came to a head when I was about 11. She was at a dinner function with my father when she just got up and left the restaurant. My dad was frantic because he had no idea where she’d gone.
Mom wandered the streets aimlessly until she found a church. Finally, the priest called my father. Shortly after, a police car pulled up to our house with Mom in the back seat. My grandparents were there, and everyone whispered, “Don’t worry, Kathe. Your mom will be okay.” But Mom just walked through the door of our house and didn’t come out of her bedroom for days. Only my dad was allowed in. I pressed my ear up against the wall, trying desperately to hear something that would prove to me she was all right.
Eventually, I was allowed to go into her room. She was sitting in a rocking chair, looking out the window. She put me on her lap and held me. “It’s okay, but I’m sick,” she said. “You won’t see me for a while. I need to be alone to get better.” I was used to seeing her sick, so I took it to mean that she was physically ill again. But now I realize she was talking about her mental illness.
I cried and said, “It’s okay. I understand you, Mom.” I didn’t really, but I felt it was my job to help her feel better.
It wasn’t until I reached my early 20s that I found out my father was also mentally ill. After years of not understanding what was wrong with him, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
A few years before that, however, when I was in my late teens, I found out that mental illness ran in his family. Dad and I were having a conversation and he said, as if he were reading a benign sports headline, “You know, my father hung himself.”
“What?! My grandfather committed suicide?” I had never met my grandfather, but the image in my mind was horrific.
“Oh, sorry. I never told you that? I thought I did.”
My mind whirled with this information. Would I become mentally ill too? If it ran on both sides of my family, what were the odds that I’d be okay? And would Dad try to kill himself like his father had?
One Sunday outing, we were all in the car together and Dad’s arguing with Mom escalated until he stopped the car on some railroad tracks, refusing to move. I cried in the back seat while my mother and brother screamed, “You’ve got to get off the railroad tracks! Hurry! Move!”
“I don’t give a shit!” was his answer. It was a power struggle, with the kids caught in the middle. Obviously he moved before a train came, but we were all terribly frightened. Maybe it was his suicidal impulses coming out in that moment.
I truly thought I was going to die that day, and as the tears streamed down my face, I vowed that if I lived, I would get far away from my parents as soon as possible.
These fights between Mom and Dad were terrifying to us children. Mom would put Dad down in front of us. “You’re never home, and you leave me with these kids! Thanks for my miserable life!” So much for Cadillac Joe’s ability to satisfy Chickie.
The shouting would escalate until the original reason for the argument was anybody’s guess. Mom would lock herself in the bathroom or their bedroom.
“Okay, goddamn it!” he’d shout. “Do you want me to break down the fucking door? Is that what you want me to do? Is exploding the only way I can calm you down and shut you up?”
She would keep yelling until he’d actually put his fist through the door. My brother and I were always afraid he’d kill her—so much so that my brother often jumped between them and yelled, “Please stop! Don’t hurt Mommy!”
It wasn’t uncommon at this point for Mom to stop screaming and turn into a vulnerable little girl: “Please don’t hurt me.”
Once Dad walked right through the bathroom door like Herman Munster on that old TV series The Munsters. It was so absurd that they both started laughing. Then they kissed and made up, suddenly romantic with each other.
All of this was surreal and horrifying for my brother and me to witness. We couldn’t possibly understand the nuances of a tumultuous adult relationship. While other kids were doing their homework or studying for a test, we were worrying that our father was going to murder our mother.
It’s surprising, really, that Dad never hit Mom. But he often took it out on my brother, Joe. It wasn’t in Dad’s upbringing to hit a woman or a girl, but in his old-school thinking, it was something he could justify doing to his son. It started with Dad just smacking Joe on the butt, but it got worse over time.
Dad would back Joe up against a wall and shake him until his head was banging against the hard surface. It’s amazing that Joe survived the abuse.
And when Dad was finished hitting my brother, he would look at me and shout, “Are you next?”
Luckily, he never hit me, but as much as I adored my father, that look traumatized me and haunts me to this day. I trembled with fear and begged for my life. “Daddy, I know. Daddy, I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please!” Often I would run into the closet, hide under the bed, or lock myself in the bathroom until his rage was spent. If I could avoid doing or saying the “wrong” thing, maybe I’d stay safe, I thought. I had to quickly learn how to become what my parents needed me to be at any particular time. I had to gauge their mood and try to mold myself into the person they wanted me to be in that moment.
Still, as scary as my dad could be, this was love to me—sweet one minute and violent the next. I didn’t know anything else.
And when Dad calmed down, he would always ask for forgiveness. He would cry with shame as he told me how much he loved me. He begged me to help him, but what could I do? I knew I couldn’t turn to my grandmother or any other relative for help. That would have been violating the family secrecy.
Despite my father’s sometimes-violent nature, my relationship with him was so different from my relationship with Mom. I was a daddy’s girl. He doted on me whenever he could get away with it. Unfortunately, this set me up as a target of Mom’s jealousy.
Because she wanted him all to herself, she attempted to keep us apart and we had to sneak time for long talks when she was asleep or not around. We talked openly about how crazy and demanding she was. Mom sensed that we were talking about her and feared that we were conspiring against her. Therefore, these talks were yet another secret I had to keep.
During our moments alone, Dad inspired me and gave me hope. “You can do anything you put your mind to,” he’d say. When I was a little older, he drove me to rock concerts and waited in the car for me until the show was over. He would get up at midnight to pick me up when I was out with friends, and sometimes he’d slip me 50 bucks. “Don’t tell your mother,” he’d say. I didn’t realize at the time that these seemingly sweet gestures of my dad’s were yet another lesson in how to keep secrets for the people I loved. I believed that if you really loved someone, you’d do anything to protect that love, no matter how much you had to withhold from the outside world. No matter how much you had to hide yourself and the truth.
The biggest secret I kept, though, was the trauma and pain I experienced throughout my childhood. I hid that even from myself, and I closed the door to my heart in order to survive.
CHAPTER 3
SEARCHING FOR LOVE AND STABILITY
When I reached my preteen years, it was the time of Woodstock. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the self-help years, women’s liberation, and Masters and Johnson. My mother read I’m OK—You’re OK, the popular self-help book by Thomas Harris. The problem was that it gave her license to be as wacky as she wanted to be. Whatever she did was now “OK.”
Luckily both Mom and Dad were a bit more stable by this time. Dad’s business was doing well, and Mom’s depression had eased somewhat with the help of prescriptions and therapy. They went into a kind of hippie phase—a culture that was magical to me. I loved the freedom and excitement of change all around me. Even today, I’d still wear long skirts and flowers in my hair if I could get away with it. But at the time, it became clearer than ever that my mom and dad made better friends than parents.
I knew they loved me in their way,
but I felt invisible in their house. I just didn’t feel that they were particularly interested in me. It was always so easy to get away with teenage behavior like staying out late or even all night. No one ever checked on me or enforced a curfew.
I would walk in the house in the morning as Dad headed off to work, saying I’d slept at my friend Nancy’s house. He’d just smile and ask if I’d had a good time. Of course, little did they know that I was partying my ass off.
Lying to him made me feel empty inside, but when given free rein, a teenager is likely to push the limits. At the time, all I cared about was my freedom. So I started smoking cigarettes and pot and hanging out in the park after dark.
I could move seamlessly in and out of every group—the drug users, the jocks, the hippies, the nerds, the parents, and the teachers—and be friends with everyone. I had learned well in my bipolar household how to be a chameleon, molding myself into the person everyone needed me to be. This gift made me popular, but the real Kathe stayed hidden somewhere deep inside.
When I turned 18, I kept the promise I’d made to myself and left that house. It felt like making a prison break. I was finally free from the insanity and drama. But I was also completely lost and utterly unprepared for life as an adult. I had watched my “smart” friends applying for colleges and figuring out their majors. But Mom and Dad didn’t offer much guidance when it came to planning my future, so what was I going to do to make my own way?
I wanted to go to college, but Mom and Dad couldn’t afford the tuition. They also wouldn’t fill out the necessary financial aid forms. “I’m not giving the government any info about our finances!” was my mother’s response. Her secrecy habit was getting in the way of my plans.
One of my teachers had taken an interest in me and pushed me, but there wasn’t much he could do without my parents’ permission. If they didn’t help me apply to schools, I couldn’t go.
I wanted to be a nurse or an attorney—some profession that would allow me to help people—but my mother discouraged me from it. “Do something you enjoy,” she said. “You’re drawn to fashion, and you have a great sense of style. Why don’t you become a buyer for a store?” So rather than going to a traditional four-year college, I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City.
In the beginning, I was a fish out of water. I had been to the city for concerts and evenings out, but I was naïve about the world of fashion. I did have a sense of style, but I didn’t know the top designers and didn’t have the money to buy clothes with those kinds of labels. It was simply a different world, and I felt overwhelmed and inferior to the “princesses” from Long Island who felt everything from your makeup to your shoes had to be perfect. I sure wanted “in” with that group, though, and I was willing to do whatever it took to have what I perceived would be a better life.
After I’d spent about a year studying fashion, my friend Nancy decided to move to California, and I didn’t want to be left behind. It was an opportunity to go to a real college, since state schools there were free. It also gave me a convenient excuse to break up with my boyfriend at the time, who I wasn’t happy with.
But I didn’t love California, and after being injured in a car accident there, I needed to fly back home to recover. I had no one to take care of me but my family. All of a sudden, they didn’t seem so bad. I was 19, and all I wanted was my old life back.
But Mom had different plans. “You decided to go out on your own. Once you leave the house, you can’t just come and go whenever you please. It’s not a revolving door. I guess you’ll just have to figure it out.”
“Why can’t I stay?” I pleaded with her. “My bedroom isn’t even being used.”
“Your father’s business is going bankrupt, and our marriage is in trouble,” she answered.
I thought she was being unfair. She allowed my brother, Joe, to come and go as he pleased, and to stay in the house periodically. It didn’t seem to dawn on her that she should treat us equally. She played by her own set of rules.
Once again, I felt rejected and abandoned. How could she refuse to help her own daughter, especially after I’d taken care of her so often during my childhood? Why couldn’t she extend herself for a short time until I could get back on my feet?
“Does Dad know I need to come back?”
She wouldn’t answer. In retrospect, I realize that I should have defied her and spoken to him myself. But I was terrified of starting trouble. I began to wonder if maybe Mom was right—I was a problem. I had no direction, and I was wreaking havoc on their lives. I was filled with guilt and self-doubt.
Meanwhile, Mom led Dad to believe it was my choice not to move back in with them. “You know your daughter,” Mom told him. “She’s a free spirit, a wild child. She wants to be on her own.”
It was another example of a secret that my mom kept to serve her own ends, even if it meant hurting me. There I was, 19 years old, battered and bruised from a car accident, with no job and no place to live. The only other person I could turn to was the boyfriend I’d left when I fled to California. So I went back to him. It seemed as though every choice I’d made up to that point had been the wrong one, so I figured it was best to just give up and settle for less.
He took me back, but reluctantly. He was angry that I’d left and was borderline abusive. I felt that by taking his abuse, I was paying for my sins, but I was also determined to find a way out.
Until I could get a job, I applied for welfare and food stamps. I had worked since I was 15 years old and had inherited my father’s work ethic. But finding a job at 19 with only one year of college under my belt and little experience proved to be difficult. I was so embarrassed about taking welfare that I swore I’d never tell anyone—yet another shameful secret I felt I had to keep.
I made a promise to myself: No more fuck-ups, Kathe! Get a grip on yourself. Nobody is going to take care of you but you. I apologized to God for my sins and vowed to Him that I would get back on track. Before long, I managed to find housing on my own and left my boyfriend for good.
With the help of public assistance, I was also able to return to FIT part-time. Keeping my promise to God, I worked hard. It didn’t take long for the professors and other students to take notice of how much I applied myself. I found out that I had a talent for marketing. People praised my ideas and projects.
One of my classmates knew I was looking for work and offered to help. “I have a friend who works in a showroom, and they’re looking for a salesperson. She could probably get you a job.”
To look the part for the interview, I borrowed a suit from a friend. It was winter, but I didn’t own a decent coat. I just walked into the building without one.
The job was with a well-known hair accessories and sunglasses company that had a showroom on Fifth Avenue. They carried accessories by designers like Anne Klein, Bill Blass, and Donna Karan. I didn’t know what to expect, but the interview went well. Rose, the director of sales, took a liking to me; I have no idea why.
As I was leaving the interview, she asked, “Where’s your coat?”
“Oh, I left it in the car.” I think she could tell I was lying. I’m sure she realized I was embarrassed and really needed the job. Maybe she felt I was hungry enough that I would work hard. So she hired me and became my first mentor.
Accepting the job meant I had to quit FIT again. I was just a bit shy of my degree when I took the job with Rose, and I worked with her for nearly five years.
She groomed me, teaching me how to sell and how to speak with clients. She paid for me to have a complete makeover. This meant getting my hair cut and colored, a makeup lesson, and a manicure. She didn’t buy me clothes, but she sent me to sample sales so I could get designer labels at low cost. She took me out to dinner and taught me the rudiments of fine dining, from what the different forks are for to where the water glass is placed. I felt like her Eliza Doolittle.
While I appreciated Rose immensely, she put me through hell with her impossible standards.
She was always criticizing me, and I felt inadequate next to her. I would use Jersey slang, and she’d say, “Really, Kathe?” It was a challenge to win her approval, and I often went home in tears.
Yet by the time I was 20 years old, I had discovered that I did my best work under pressure. My experiences with Rose taught me that I could accomplish almost anything with hard work and determination. Eventually, I earned some accounts of my own, which allowed me to work with major retailers and some of the designers, like Donna Karan.
I went from working in the showroom to being promoted to marketing and advertising. I discovered that I had a talent for managing press shoots, selecting top models, and designing product packaging. People seemed to enjoy working with me as much as I enjoyed them. It was amazing to feel capable, self-sufficient, and successful for the first time in my life. I was off welfare and exploring the exciting city of New York, and I felt I had a sense of purpose. I had the apartment and the job. I was on my way!
Then, one fateful day when I was 23 years old, I ran into Dana, a friend from high school. She had been one of the “party girls” who was always cutting school, going to New York City, and using drugs. While I had been friendly with her and her group, I didn’t spend a lot of time with that crowd.
Dana was trying to overcome her addiction to heroin and wanted me to help her. “I don’t know much about drugs,” I told her.
My experience had included smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine a few times. I guess I was lucky that none of my experimentation had led to addiction, so I didn’t understand the power that drugs can have over addicts. I assumed anyone could get clean if they had enough willpower.
“I just need people in my life who are successful like you and don’t do drugs,” Dana said. I thought my friendship with her could offer me some excitement, and I was naïve enough to think I could help her.
One evening, she invited me to her apartment. “Do you remember Larry Crawford?” she asked.
Unlocking Secrets Page 3