This is my first draft of the dingdang "personal statement" I should have

mailed out yesterday to the grad school. Oh, ambivalence! Go Cheney yourself! This thing gets mailed today in some form.

Feedback appreciated. :hi:

* * * *

In the summer of 1994, I had been advanced to candidacy in the doctoral program in English at Berkeley. That means, I’d finished my coursework, my language tests and passed my Oral Examination. I was in the process of writing a prospectus when I married my husband. It seemed like a good time to begin a new marriage. We both came from Latino families, shared many intellectual interests, not the least of which were jazz and popular culture, and had known each other on and off for about twenty years.

What neither of us knew was that somewhere during those twenty years, my husband suffered the onset of a personality disorder. No one else seemed to know it either. His formal diagnosis was depression and he was in therapy for that with a prominent psychiatrist here in San Francisco.

The first time I witnessed a psychotic episode in my living room, it’s likely that the time I spent studying Object Relations in a working group at Cal saved my life. Although I was in the English Department, I survived the Theory Wars of those years by reading Freud, Klein, Winnicott and others with Janet Adelman and Nancy Chodorow. Janet had studied with Winnicott herself and she and Nancy and a group of Bay Area clinicians as well as academics from other disciplines at Cal met once a week with graduate students in the evening. We had very lively discussions about this British school that was so out of favor during the day in our curriculum. In any case, the work I did with that wonderful group stood me in good stead when my husband went into a paranoid state that night because although I had very few tools at the time, at least I understood, roughly, what was happening for him and was able to contain that very dangerous situation to a degree.

I spent most of the next eight years trying to get appropriate care for him while I supported us and while I tried to keep his case in the arena of mental health care and out of the criminal justice system. Because he was unable to work, I had to leave Cal in order to support us. That was a loss but my extended family has always come first so there was no question at that time what was more important to me, my dissertation or my family.

Doug’s story has been extensively covered in the press, and even on cable because he was a successful, well known comedian. One night in 2001, our family headlined CNN ahead of the Pope and the Boy Scouts. And even though friends questioned the wisdom of going public in that way, even then I knew that the coverage was an opportunity to reframe mental illness for the public and not to mention, for Doug and for our family. We participated in a live chat after that segment and all in all, I’m satisfied we made the right decision both for ourselves and for the community of families struggling to find care, let alone, trying to counter stigma.

What hasn’t been covered very well is the struggle most families that deal with mental illness have on their hands – trying to manage at home, trying to access care, struggling to stay connected to community. To say we are thrown on our own resources is such an understatement that it borders on comedy.

But it is precisely because our families have so little support as families that I had to develop the habit of independence and a support network. Doug wasn’t exactly an equal partner in that effort but it’s equally true that I learned the most important lessons of my life from him and from how he coped with a society that mostly wanted to ditch him.

During those years, I had to do a great deal of research on everything from drug interactions to crisis prevention, management and resolution. I reached out to anyone I could contact, mostly via the internet and also, all over the world. There were two projects in particular that would prove very useful for me, for our family and for the underserved community of families dealing with personality disorders.

The first one was an internet peer support group I put together. I’d been on other lists that were mostly for the “okay” people – in other words, for spouses of Borderlines, for their partners or other relatives. But, after a time, it seemed clear to me that those groups more or less just duplicated the disruptive dynamics in our families. So, I started a discussion list for anyone who was dealing with BPD – whether it was our own or whether we were simply “sharing” a family member’s situation. I had no idea if it would work. That group is now six years old. It’s worked very well as a mixed group and often as a manageable bridge from internet discussion to actual treatment in “real” life.

The second project was a book, a snapshot of the progress of our family over the period of one year, taken from my correspondence to our support group. It’s a little train wreck as a book. I wrote it before Doug was in any way stabilized so I had to write during the days he was decompensated or at night after work. I couldn’t find an editor willing to take it on, and the printer botched the binding so it couldn’t be sold. But that little book has gone all over the world to families that needed support and that wanted to think along with me how we could best manage our situation. I gladly mailed it out because it seemed to me that widening the network of supported and supportive families was in itself a project worth the effort and expense.

Thinking back to those years, it’s possible that the most important thing I learned was the habit of activism and the strength inherent in collaboration. Had I remained passive and misguidedly “respectful” of Doug’s situation and the professionals he interacted with, he’d most likely be in prison right now, instead of stable, working and also, active in his community.

And it’s probable that without experiencing that level of need and isolation and danger, I wouldn’t have become active myself not only on our behalf, but on behalf of the community. When I realized that if this was happening to our family, it was happening to many families, I promised myself I would help find resources for anyone who needed them. And that decision changed my life in a profound way.

Doug and I are no longer married, although I make myself available to support him as needed. He seems to do better without the demands of marriage. And since our marriage ended, I’ve had a great deal of time to reflect on what I learned during the course of that relationship.

I learned how to withhold my reactions. How to reframe a concern, how to predict a crisis, how to use communication tools like SET. How to listen to anyone and anything. How to appreciate the value of the person in front of my own nose, not matter how superficially difficult that person may be to address in the moment. So, after my marriage ended and I was no longer writing comedy and producing events for and with Doug, it seemed to me that it would be a shame to waste that life experience, to waste the skills I learned dealing with our personal situation. It became clear to me that while my training was in literary criticism and Shakespeare, my attention was still with our families, dealing with so much barehanded in their living rooms. I’d like to work on that.

Elizabeth Ferrari
San Francisco
August 25, 2007












,

lol

I'd use the applause smiley, but that doesn't even seem to cover it.

This is really good!

And it's nice to get a background on you since I'm new :)

:hug:
:grouphug:

I think it is very good, with only one question
coming from an expat who knows little about applying for graduate studies in the US:

Is it necessary to use your husband's name in this?
My instinct would be to keep his name out of this to protect his privacy here, even though as you say he is a public figure. (Maybe even because he *is* a public figure I might keep this more private here).
If I were editing it for myself I might cut the paragraph in the middle about Doug's story going public. This also does not really add to the personal history as related to your wanting to be accepted into the program.

But besides this one reservation of mine of respecting his privacy as I was reading through it, the rest of the personal story is IMO excellent and gives clear reasons why interested in the field.

Mail it.

:thumbsup:

DemEx

and especially here in San Francisco, so I'm not telling anything new here that hasn't been in many outlets already. But, good call, I will go back and read that paragraph.

Thank you!

Thanks for sharing that. It is most interesting! And very well written. I did not know most of that since I too am fairly new in this forum.
I thought what my family was dealing with is bad, but at least we aren't well known so we don't get dragged through the public..that sounds perfectly hideous to me.
Talk about making lemonade out of lemons. Send it. I think it will be very well received.:)

a SF Chronicle reporter picked up the story. That's how CNN found us.

I made a conscious decision to use the press for stigma busting because, there was going to be press in any event.

Somewhere around here are some photographs I took one night after an incident and later gave to the CNN producer. Every single one of my personal possessions had been destroyed. My violin was smashed, there were books burning in the fireplace, a chair I'd had recovered was slashed. The few little pieces of jewelery I had were thrown into the trash as well as most of my clothes.

My pets were impounded and my car was towed. Doug thought I was a danger and had done his best to "erase" me from our home. Then, he packed a bag and went to a two week gig. Luckily, I wasn't home at the time. I wish I could go back and hug both of us because I don't know which one of us was more afraid. The saddest part was knowing that Doug couldn't be afraid of me or try to harm me without at some level being afraid and harmful of himself. :hug: :grouphug:

Give me lemonade, any day!

With a woman who had BPD. We were not an item, she was the landlord's "irregular and convenient cum dump". Sorry to be so graphic, but that is the only accurate way to put it.

From what I understand, she was BPD all her life, but it got terribly worse when her husband left her, went to live with his abusive parents in Florida, they abused him AGAIN, and he became a serial killer. His parents became executors of the estates of all four elderly women he killed and raped. His father also owned the company that did their yard work. How convenient. He was killed in prison, stabbed to death.

I know very well much of what you went through. I went through a lot of those things as well, and hell, I wasn't even getting laid. That was, perhaps, the most perverse part. I was getting all the BPD product meant for the husband and the landlord, because I was there. Many things valuable and many mementos of my career in the music business, like my Seger platinum album and a custom Washburn guitar that Washburn gave to me were stolen. Family heirlooms, too. It was like going to the Freddy Krueger Fun Park and riding the Woodchipper ride.

The trauma led me to where I am today. But I survived, thanks to good people who let me lean on them for strength.

Now you are gonna be one of those human leaning posts. How utterly cool. ;-)

:scared:

What amazes me about BPD is how receptive it is or can be to gentle, calm intervention. All that stuff that got destroyed was destroyed because 1) The "team" wasn't doing their job and 2) I didn't know what I was lookin' at or how to respond, and 3)Doug had no insight into his situation at the time. All those elements had to be present for that violin to be smashed. I still miss my charm bracelet that was all tools that really worked. That was learning the hard way, for sure.

Doug's parents were abusive as hell. Or, his father was -- old school authoritarian, "I'm a man and you're my property" Latino. His mom had something going on, some kind of mild autism, and just went along with him. His sister didn't make it into her 30s.

Doug must have good karma because he has a circle of friends that put arms around him.

Here's to a fine circle of friends. :toast:

But my experience was that she would have been receptive to that from those she felt were the cause of her problems. For me, it was either complete and total selfless abeyance to her every whim(and she had a lot) or she started acting out in the most destructive fashion. I am not a screamer and never have been, but especially after the years of martial arts training, I place a high price on maintaining an even and measured affect, always a tactical asset. I was always that way with her, even solicitous and sympathetic. But it did not work.

She was one of those people who always had to identify someone she knew as the living embodiment of all that is evil in this world. Ring any bells? In her mind, I became that person. It was easy: all I had to do was breathe.

She started that stuff on a medical billing job she had, towards her boss. She went off one day and all of a sudden a shitload of billing records went missing. I mean A LOT. They found them in a nice tidy cube in the trash compactor. She denied it(She was a most skillful liar...), but they had her number and she got fired. That was when the fun began, because she started a new hobby:

Trashing my reputation all over the town I lived in all my life. To hear her tell it, I was stealing from her, looking to boink her(GAAAHHHH!), abusing her child(a monstrous little shit. I was expected to put up with the kid's bullshit and violent displays without saying a word) and I bought the nails for the cross. Not to mention a drunk(She was right about that one). People love destructive gossip, so they believed her. I slipped farther into depression as I lost friends, and self-medicated with ETOH. Good times, good times. ;-)

Through working for Easter Seals and therapy, I came to understand what was wrong with her. I also came to understand that getting away was the only choice I had. It was a game I could never, ever win.

I also came to understand that there is a lot more BPD or stuff just on the edge of it, than a lot of people know. Oh, and I also came to learn that BPD people can, if left untreated, develop S-AD. In reflection about her behaviors in the past, there is a real potential for that being in the mix as well, because some of her junk had no basis in any normative reality and it was episodic and transient. When she was in the grip of her delusional states, it was frankly disorienting. That said, she was clearly Axis 1 BPD.

Half of it, he believed. The other half was amplification.

That group of issues results in utter chaos if unattended. No sh!t.

It must be terrible to have a brain that sometimes lets you trust your peeps and that sometimes urges you to destroy them because they're out to get you.

When people tell me borderlines are "manipulative", I think, of course they are. We call that survival. We use the skills that we can lay hands on, such as they are. :shrug:


I'm sorry you went through that. I'm sorry any of us go through that.

It was something I went through and now it's done. I never talk about it with anyone, because the parameters of the experience with an untreated BPD person are kind of hard to explain to the uninitiated.

The experience informs me but does not consume me. I just never had a chance to discuss it with someone who would understand the meat 'n taters of the experience.

Thanks for your patience.

When Dougala was upset, what he said sounded not only plausible but likely. When both of us were upset, ditto AND we sounded exactly alike even if our stories regarding the same event were totally different because that's what happens when the whole family gets good and reactive. You don't know who is on first.

I wasn't kidding about the elephants. :)

I mean, have you ever SEEN a pile of elephant poop?! ;-)

:P

is very good. I asked my wife, who has more experience teaching, to read it. She thinks it is very good, too.

than the culture I'm writing to. Boundaries, acceptable displays of emotions, so many things are slightly different. So, I appreciate the reality check.

I have been living in another country for so long that my "readings" of things are different now with my extensive experience of a "foreign" culture.

:hi:

DemEx

:hi:

it is very good. from the heart, and brave.
they better take you, or else....

squish a ooupla of bad paragraphs together. Then it goes out, with a copy of the letters I mention in the text.

Two friends are writing letters for me -- they have to get the form today once I figure out how to turn a pdf form into a word file.

Last thing is to go fetch my transcript at Cal.

If they take me, cool. If they don't, I'll find another program. :hi:

I am honestly speechless. And it takes a lot to make me speechless.

If they do not let you into this program, I will drive out there and hurl insults at them until they cry. Seriously, this is amazing.

you can go to adobe's site and turn up to 3 docs into pdfs. iirc. newer copies of word have a button for that. if all else fails, you can email it to me and i will do it for you. k? pm if you need me.

It's not that big and they can print out only that one page if they're smarter than me. :silly: If they're not, I can fax it but I'd hate for them to get a blurry copy.

I can't tell you how much I needed your help to get it done.

And now that it is, it's like a layer of cR@p has been removed.

Thank you.

:woohoo:

If they have any sense at all they will accept you in a heartbeat!:toast:

Good job that you dug down and found the gumption to go ahead and do this.
I think we all can appreciate how hard it can be. And how liberating!
:hug: :grouphug:

:woohoo: :toast: :bounce:

:thumbsup:

DemEx

:party:

I am much impressed with your writing, and all that you do to help others. Thank you.

:toast:

I want some phone numbers. I have Skype Out and I can bug the pure living hell out of 'em. Give 'em what for. ;-)

Thanks. :)

And if they DON'T accept you, I will personally go there myself, and have a big crying fit. You'd be surprised what people will do to get a 38-year-old man to quit crying.

:)

:hug:

It was back in June of 2005. I was just out of the hospital (mental-health related, of course), my marriage was ending, and I was living with my mom, commuting 90+ miles a day to work (a very uncommon thing to do in Minnesota).

I got busted doing 15 over the limit in a construction zone. I literally broke down then and there, and the trooper cut me some slack and wrote it for nine over. Of course, I really was crying because I was pretty much at my breaking point.

:D

Comes in handy.

lol