Today is the anniversary of my mother’s birthday (I never called her mom or mum, though dad was fine for my father — perhaps Paul Weston could help me with that one). Aside from June 15 reminding of Ellen Marie Hart’s (nee Jones) birth, technical problems with Netflix last night were the circumstances for our viewing (with Isabelle) The United States of Tara, which provided another reminder of mother. We had begun our Roku experience with Parenthood, a series that the Mrs. has enjoyed when I travel. But when we moved from the Pilot to Episode One, Netflix wouldn’t cooperate. In searching for an alternative — we had partial access to Netflix on-line streaming, we came up with UST. It is about a middle-class interior designer, wife, and mother of two adolescents, who has a personality disorder. The posters for the show reveal four different Tara’s. We only saw three in the Pilot, which was plenty. In addition to the “normal” Tara, we saw T, a raunchy, drug-taking, sex-seeking floozy, and Buck, a Tom-woman who cross dresses as a working-class carpenter-like figure.
Weird.
As much as I admire Toni Collette, her skills could not over my discomfort with how nonchalantly the show treated psychiatric “challenges.” The children, one in high school, the other in junior high, were never phased by the arrival of the floozy or seeing their mother as a beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking, foul-mouthed, get-er-done ruffian. For them it was fun to have mom show up in different characters. And dad was not any more help. The versions of his wife caused no ripple in his countenance and the possibilities of amour with T made him wish (though he knew he shouldn’t) that Tara had more gitty-up in the boudoir.
Are you kidding? My mother was bi-polar, God bless her. For the last 43 years of her life, starting with a hysterectomy, she varied between highs that saw uncontrolled and unexplained spending, and lows that parked her in front of a steady stream of bad network television, including news about murders in Philadelphia that made her think her son was always in danger. As an adolescent, college and graduate student, young husband, and even middle-aged man, those swings were never easy to take. At first they were embarrassing. Over time they produced sorrow for the torments my mother had to endure (though she never wanted to take her meds).
If two versions of my mother were hard to handle, I don’t think doubling the trouble would have made mood swings or multiple personalities pleasant, entertaining, or life spicier. Disturbing is the notion that people in Hollywood or somewhere connected to it can trivialize psychiatric disorders in the way that this show does. I can imagine some genuine comedy material here if writers and producers explored the genuinely funny moments that come with manic-depression, say the way that Whit Stillman does in Last Days of Disco. But UTS doesn’t cut it. Meanwhile, Parenthood is premised on the family angst that comes with the discovery that a young son has Asperger’s. Go figure.
Old Life 
The wife & I tried Tara but she didn’t work for us.
Toni was good in “Little Miss Sunshine”, maybe the only Hollywood movie ever to feature a Proust scholar (played by Steve Carell) as one of the lead characters.
I did finish season 2 of “The Wire”. Very strong.
If you’re streaming you need to watch Seasons 1 & 2 of “The Killing”.
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Erik, thanks for the tip. The wife will be away and The Killing might work. But I have a hankering to spend time with The Wire’s characters again. I saw the actor who plays Wallace in the Wire is starring in a new film based on L.A. police brutality and seeing him brought tightness to the throat. I miss those guys.
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Wallace is also in “Friday Night Lights”. Not a bad series, but aimed at younger viewers than us. “The Wire” was a coup for African American actors.
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Erik, my wife said, which was correct, what movie or series has ever made so many white Americans identify with so many blacks?
Younger than we, my (wrinkled) arse. TMI.
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US of Tara may have been a bit Pollyanna, but considering D.I.D.(disassociative identity disorder) has had to undergo a hard fought but nevertheless terribly real(early childhood trauma induced condition) DSM classified condition. The exposure of the condition in that format has done a lot of good.
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Though she’s never been professionally diagnosed with it (that we know of), I have a sister who I am convinced has bi-polar disorder and it’s no laughing matter. She’s ploughed four marriages (that we know of), has disappeared from and reappeared to our family for several lengthy periods over her life time, has unabashedly (at least for the moment) flown into fits of rage over the inappropriate way (she thinks) she was raised that led to her pied, dappled, and checkered life, and is now in her late 60’s living alone (as far as we know) with little to show for any of it except Social Security. It’s a sad disorder and can be even more sad in the extreme cases.
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Darryl,
I just got home after a late night at the restaurant to read this post. One of your most poignant for sure. I know I have talked about it from time to time here, but as someone who battles with bi-polar disorder, and is now a father of 3, I can really sympathize with your mother. I am always very concerned with how my malady might affect my kids and wife. I can only pray that my kids will have the perspective and loving respect that you have for her when evaluating my duties as a parent. If she was a Bob Jones grad (which I hope I am recalling correctly from some of your other posts) in the post-war years, I am certain that even the suggestion of mental illness was a pariah, much less having to take medicine that just might replace the Holy Spirit’s job. Being a Moody Bible Institute alum was brutal for me (only God knows why I am still in the faith today) in an age when mental illness and mood disorders don’t carry the stigma they did in your mother’s day. Coming to this understanding has been a painful process, as one of my closest friends in high school and at MBI who also struggled with bipolar disorder didn’t make it, taking his own life in his mid-twenties as a bible college/evangelical burnout who couldn’t reconcile his struggles with his convictions.
It seems obvious to me that at least aspects of your mother’s life were most likely very difficult, if not brutally so, and not only for her but for your family. Especially so if she didn’t have the proper help to give her insight into how bi-polar might affect her life, her family, and how to develop sensible strategies to develop. To be at home with the Lord, finally of a sound mind must be of great relief for her.
I have often thought about the confluence of faith and mental illness. A sincere Christia who struggles can understandably wish that the symptoms will abate merely as a result of their faith. But, at least in my own experience, God doesn’t take the suffering away as much as opens a path through it, even turning some of it into an avenue to experience joy in surprising ways. Maybe this is why I have almost zero patience with the hot-blooded spirituality of certain Reformed pietists – to someone who really struggles, their program is a recipe for spiritual torment, not peace; or why I can’t take some of the amped up culture-warriors seriously, because they have no patience for how badly sin can distort people, and their affections, leading them to perilous lifestyle choices, but at the same time making them far more vulnerable to the workings of God’s grace in the midst of their brokenness. For me the most powerful spiritual realities are the simple rhythms of the church, faithfully attending to the means of grace, that give me the hope of the world to come and strength for the present age; not the emotionally charged, experientially driven sessions in the prayer closet, or “long talks with God”. He has already spoken definitively in Christ, who is offered freely to us in the Gospel, who we are invited to participate with in the vicissitudes of the Lord’s Table and Baptism, who comes to us in power through the frailties of his human ministers ordained to bring us his Word and to shepherd us along the way.
All to say, mental illness needn’t be an impediment to grace, and often can be an avenue through which it is made most real. Maybe Paul wasn’t a total masochist when he spoke of rejoicing in his weaknesses so that in them the power of God would be made know…
Gotta take my meds and get some sleep.
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Jed, thanks. Stay medicated, my friend.
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I was living half a country away from my mother when I started becoming concerned about her. I was so concerned that I got a plane and went from the airport directly to her. When she opened the door there was no look of familiarity or warmth, just “do you think it’s cold in here?” I looked at papers on her table full or her writing, but she hadn’t just written each character once – she had re-written each letter several times, one on top of another. There were prescriptions from several different doctors with fairly close dates on them. I then found out that, due to delusions about the functioning of her body, she hadn’t eaten for several days. Then there were people spying on her or otherwise doing ill to her, with racist overtones to that particular delusion.
This kind of thing wasn’t entirely new since she had various psychiatric issues from perhaps her late thirties, but she had been functional enough to be on her own. To shorten the story, I went to court to become her guardian and brought her back to the Midwest to live with my family. A combination of meds, oversight, and support from church ladies have helped to bring a good deal of stability in her mental state and pleasantness in her demeanor. My wife has gone above and beyond what would be reasonable to expect from her.
I had some concern about how my mother being in the household would affect my own kids. One never knows for sure, but I hope it was good to show patience and care for an older person who maybe wasn’t “giving back” as much as might be expected from a grandma.
Humor? My second daughter – she of many impersonations – has a few of “Grandma” that are funny without having any malice in them. I don’t watch a bunch of television or movies, but the ones I have seen about psychiatric conditions tend towards either callous mocking or Pollyannism (not to be confused with polytheism).
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BTW DGH, your mother and I share a birthday. Now you know when to send me a card.
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sean – early childhood trauma induced condition
Erik – The Church was that rough on you?
I for one don’t suffer from bipolar disorder. I’m pretty much weird and obnoxious all the time. We all have our crosses to bear.
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Jed – Maybe this is why I have almost zero patience with the hot-blooded spirituality of certain Reformed pietists – to someone who really struggles, their program is a recipe for spiritual torment, not peace
Erik – Amen to that. Nice post, Jed.
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No worries Erik. RC seminary could get sketchy but I was old enough to navigate it. What’s tough is those so young they don’t have the tools to handle or process what’s happening to them and how those ways of coping,altering, follow them into adulthood.
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The difficulty of coexisting with pietists is being demonstrated by Pietist Tom. We can coexist with them as long as we are afforded a certain quota of eye rolls. They can’t coexist with us, however, as their sense of moral superiority & moral indignation combined with their lack of a sense of humor rendors us intolerable to them. Maybe you’ve known similar pietists in your churches.
They rage, we laugh. They rage, we laugh again. And so it goes.
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The game of “you talk first and say what you like or appreciate in life and I’ll then take up 10 hours and 100,000 words of invective to attack you” sucks.
Pietists love that game.
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Kent,
Indeed. Which is why there are certain pietists I won’t even try to have a conversation with. If they approach me I won’t talk to them unless there is an elder present. It’s not worth subjecting yourself to the misunderstandings, real and contrived, that will inevitably result. Edwards and revivalism is to thank for much of this within the Reformed world.
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I didn’t get to read Edwards until after my conversion to the Reformed faith.
To be honest, I see very little that the two have in common.
Spurgeon is also in that boat, but sentimentality gives him a bit of a pass.
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D.G.,
You could also attempt a Veronica Mars marathon when the wife is away. No streaming, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Mars
I watched the whole series while working through the night one August. They raised over $5 million through Kickstarter recently to make a movie. I chipped in $5.
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M A N U
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Erik, I’m not sure I could watch anything that features Rob Bell’s sister.
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SPURS…. now the series begins in earnest
Bron can’t quit out there any more, I think he really wants to win it all and that a Miami effort that is giving more than 10% is easily the better team
This strategy does backfire, but rarely does…
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I got nothin on the sad content of this post, but as a Wire fan (and also a fan of Homicide: Life on the Street before that), I will second the nomination of The Killing. A much smaller cast, but great acting and great stories nonetheless.
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Jed, I had no idea! Your testimony is heart warming and shows how deep and wide, God’s unspeakable gift travels. What an encouraging report!
FWIW, I would have never known you were bi-polar by the way you comport yourself on line. I have always enjoyed sparring with you, because you fight fair. You tend to be calm in the storm. And I have been very impressed with your knowledge in economics.
Jed, you keep pressing on brother! I am proud to call you my friend! But I am even more joyful to call you my brother!
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I have found that reading Dostoyevsky can be good for the personality disordered type:
Reading Dostoyevsky is challenging. I find his philosphy of conflict difficult to understand so I am taking the time to try to get it better. This, I believe, will help in reading his novels with greater clarity. I think Dostoyevsky is an important figure to understand and is relevant to what is happening in our surrounding society today. What happens to man internally when spiritual life is either confused or disregarded? And how does the interplay of the structure of society with man effect the conflicts and struggles going on inside of man? I think these two questions are what drove and motivated Dostoyevsky’s writings.
According to Robert Jackson, who wrote an introduction to the Penguin Classics, NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND and THE DOUBLE, “Dostoyevsky’s tragic-comic novel THE DOUBLE, A PETERSBURG POEM (1846;1866)….and his novel NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND (1864)….are both amalgams of tragedy and satire, and both embody what Dostoyevsky called the truth of the underground. He took pride in having foregrounded in these two works a new and tragic underground social and literary type. In the most basic sense the underground behaviour and outlook of the new social type, as it pertains to Dostoyevsky’s early works in particular, is the consequence of a radical denial of man’s organic need for self-expression, and his natural drive to be himself and to occupy his own space and place in the world. The suppression of the basic drives of human nature, however, signifies not their death, but their disfiguration.”
“The whimsical but keen chronicler of Dostoyevsky’s Petersburg Chronicle (1847) touches the roots of the underground when he writes that ‘happiness lies….in eternal indefatigable activity and in the practical employment of all our proclivities and capacities’, but that if man is dissatisified, if he has no means to express himself and bring out what is best in him (not out of vanity, but as a result of the most natural human need to know, express, embody his “I” in real life)’, he undergoes some kind of extraordinary breakdown- drink, card-playing, gambling, brawling, or lastly, goes mad with concerns about status, while at the same time privately disdaining preoccupation with status, and even suffering over the fact that one must suffer because of such trivialities as status. And so, involuntarily you arrive at the almost unjust, even insulting, but likely very probable conclusion – that we have very little sense of our own dignity, that we have very little necessary egoism.”
“Dostoyevsky reported on the socially charged theme of ‘Individualism and Egoism’ in the radically oriented Petrashevsky Circle to which he belonged in the late 1840’s- one of his readings that contributed to his arrest in 1849 and sentence to prison for four years in a labour camp in Siberia and an additional six years in exile there.”
“After his return from Siberia in 1859, Dostoyevsky echoed his thoughts on man’s need for creative self-expression….where he wrote that the need to affirm oneself, to distinguish oneself, to stand out, is a law of nature for every individual; it is his right, his essence, the law of his being. He went on to note that this need ‘in the crude unstructured state of society manifests itself in the individual quite crudely and even savagely.”
“In the most immediate sense, the problems of the ‘dissatisfied’ man- personality breakdown, the absence of a sense of true human dignity, of ‘necessary egoism’ point…..to the theme of the basic needs and rights of individuals to self-expression, and the consequences of their suppression….the author dramatizes this theme in the social framework of St. Petersburg’s vast state bureaucracy and its minor clerks and functionaries……the underground emerges, finally, as a consequence of a profound moral and spiritual crisis of Russian educated classes. The reason for the underground, Dostoyevsky wrote….is the destruction of faith and general norms. Nothing is sacred.”
“THE DOUBLE and NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND are threshold works of Dostoyevsky: the first inaugurates his important motif of the “double’ and projects his concept of the underground and an underground social type; the second work, NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, lays out the basic social, moral-philosophical and religious positions that Dostoyevsky will develoop in the five great novels- CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, THE IDIOT, THE DEVILS, THE RAW YOUTH, and THE BROTHERS KARAMOZOV. NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, however, is not only an arresting and profound introduction to these works, but to the twentieth century, which recognized as its own the problems of reason and irrationality, freedom and self-will, human dignity and degradation.”
What I find confusing and frustrating with Dostoyevsky is that I think his view of the Gospel and spiritual life places way too much burden on the individual’s moral responsibility (which we cannot bear) and not enough emphasis on what Christ accomplished for those whom He died for- his elect. Reading Dostoyevsky is burdensome and almost despairing with his view of the Gospel. I think this worked itself out in his own personal life too. He was not as great of a man as he was a great writer. And I think he was under a constant burden of guilt and self-punishment for his lack of living up to his spiritual ideals. I don’t think man can meet his “organic need for self-expression, and his natural drive to be himself and to occupy his own space and place in the world” without the Gospel. But it is a Gospel that is different than the Gospel that Dostoyevsky expressed in his writings. There is not much “good news” in the Gospel of Dostoyevsky. It all depends on man and his living up to his spiritual ideals, not on Christ and what he did for individual sinners. Christ bore the burden that fallen man cannot bear- it is this which releases guilty man to love and serve his neighbor. It is this, I think, which Dostoyevsky sought to communicate in his writings. However, it was a distorted Gospel and you feel the burden without the hope that you can actually pull it off in your own life. My point being, we cannot, but Christ did.
What I do find beneficial in reading Dostoyevsky are ideas and thoughts like the following, ie., he describes man in spiritual crisis and how “the world” (or Russian society of his time) exascerbates and further escalates the spiritual crisis. He also held to spiritual ideals which were common during his day but were frustrated and warped by opposing forces in society at large. It is this conflict of opposing forces which Dostoyevsky depicts so forcefully:
1) “Dostoyevsky showed that Gogol had connected with Russian reality in a critical way. At the same time, Dostoyevsky’s first two works gave, in their new psychological realism, clear evidence that his literary method was his own. ‘Belinsky and others, he wrote boastfully to his brother on 1 February 1846, find “a new and original element in me in the fact that I proceed by Analysis and not by Synthesis, that is, that I go into the depths and, picking things out atom by atom, I disclose the whole, whereas Gogol goes for the whole directly and therefore is not as profound as I am.”
2) “The basic idea of all art in the nineteenth century, a Christian idea, Dostoyevsky wrote….is the restoration of fallen man, the justification of the pariahs of society, humiliated and rejected by all. In the figure of the humble and virtuous clerk, Makar Devushdin, the desperately impoverished hero of POOR FOLK, Dostoyevsky restores the image of the so-called “little man.”
3) In his notebook for August 1875, well after publication of NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, Dostoyevsky alludes to Golyadkin as his ‘chief underground type’ and refers to the generic underground type as ‘the main person in the Russian world.’ In another notebook entry….he expresses his pride in being the first to bring out the real man of the Russian majority and …the first to expose his disfigured and tragic side. Dostoyevsky broadly defines the tragic world of the underground: “I alone brought out the tragedy of the underground, consisting in suffering, self-punishment, the consciousness of something better and the impossibility of acheiving it and, mainly, consisting in the clear conviction of these unfortunate ones that everyone is alike, and therefore it’s not worth trying to improve oneself! What can support those who try to improve themselves? Reward, faith? There are rewards from nobody, faith in nobody! Take a step from here and you’re at extreme depravity, crime (murder). Mystery.”
4) “The moral psychological underground of THE DOUBLE has broadened here into a spiritual underground involving all of Russian society. In a judgment that embraces both contemporary Russia and its historical past, Dostoyevsky writes in another entry: “There are no foundations in our society, no norms that have been worked out in life, because there really has not been any life, either. A colossal shock, and everything is breaking down, collapsing, being negated as though it had never existed, and not only externally as in the West, but internally, morally.”
5) “The Underground Man is a product of this collapsing world. His is a symbolic-character image of nineteenth century man divorced from his natural roots and faith, yet seeking, in the depths of his confession, for moral and spiritual foundations, for an ideal.”
6) “The term “Superfluous Man”….came to designate, both negatively and positively, a whole range of characters in Russian nineteenth century literature. As a rule, the ‘superfluous man’ was a member of the upper class, intelligent, capable and desirous of engaging in useful social activity, but condemned to inactivity because of his heightened moral or social consciousness, or his inability to adapt to the oppressive tsarist bureaucratic world of provincial society; or because of his comfortably secure, and therfore undemanding, economic status; or because of some personal idiosyncrasy, or for all of these reasons. Such individuals, typically outsiders, would lapse into states of indolence and boredom, become alienated from their social peers and society. Others out of boredom, cynicism, spiritual emtiness became fatalists, gamblers and duellists. Dostoyevsky’s concept of the “dissatisfied” man- one who denied the possibility of actively employing his abilities and talents in life- certainly overlaps with the social and cultural types of ‘superfluous man’. At the same time, his dissatisfied man is inclusive of other social types, mostly urban, such as his underground type Golyadkin, hero of the THE DOUBLE.
7) The concept of freedom is also important in understanding Dostoyevsky’s writings. “The Russian word “svoboda”, like its English counterpart “freedom”, is used in the sense of freedom of speech, or freedom as opposed to slavery. It implies rights and obligations. The Russian word “volia”, essentially outside the law (though not necessarily opposed to it), is psychological or psychic in character; it embraces both the concept of will (volition, desire or wanting), as well as that of freedom. This kind of freedom is the felt and organic right to act as one pleases, to do what one wills with ones own life, according to one’s own sense of right and wrong. The will to be free, to be one’s own master, to occupy ones own space, can also take on a romantic or capricious character. Finally, if frustrated or suppressed, “volia” can turn into self-will (svoevolie), arbitrary action (proizvol), or a feeling that all is permissable (vsedozvolennost). Here, of course, is an important element of Dostoyevsky’s “tragedy of the underground.”
8) The following is an explanation of Dostoyevsky’s spiritual ideal. “The expression ‘land of holy wonders’ was used by the poet, philosopher of history and theologian Alexey S. Khomyakov (1804-1860) in his poem ‘Dream’ where he presents the West as a world that has lost its former glory and is now covered by a ‘deathly shroud.’ One of his central ideas- also to be found in Dostoyevsky’s own thought- is the orthodox religious idea of ‘sobernost’ (from ‘sobor’, council and church), a Russian word variously translated as conciliarity, ecumenicity, harmony or unanimity. It is the liberty to love that unites believers, writes the Russian theologian Sergius Bulgakov in his book THE ORTHODOX CHURCH….This religious idea finds expression in the Dostoyevsky’s social views on authentic brotherhood in “Winter notes on Summer Impressions,” and in Father Zosima’s concept in THE BROTHERS KARAMOZOV of the connectedness of all phenomena, and of universal responsibility ‘for all and everyone.’ He speaks of the ‘magnificent communion’ of the future when man will not seek servants but will strive to be the servant of everybody.”
9) In opposition to the above spiritual ideal is Dostoyevsky’s concept of “Baal”- “a god of modern bourgeois materialist society- a ‘proud and sombre spirit’ who reigns like an emporer over a giant city. Full of contempt for the people he rules, ‘he does not even demand submission, because he is convinced of it.’ He is not at all troubled by the ‘poverty, suffering, grumbling, and stupefaction of the masses,’ and ‘contemptuously and calmly, distributes oraganized charity, just in order to dispose of it.’ Dostoyevsky’s Baal in certain features, such as his contempt for the masses, anticipates the Grand Inquisitor in THE BROTHERS KARAMOZOV.
Excuse me while I go kiss the sky. Please take that with some humor.
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For some insight into manic depression I recommend Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Marriage Plot”.
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