How Mental Illness Impacts The Whole Family with Deborah Kasdan EP 347

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Hey everybody, this is Brian D Smith back with another episode of Grief 2 Growth. And this is a podcast where we venture into profound journey of growth, of understanding and hope that often emerges from the deepest grief. So if you're joining us for the first time, I want to give you a heartfelt welcome. We delve into the intricacies of the human experience. We explore life, death, and the many facets of grief that touch us all. Our conversations aim to enlighten, to inspire, and provide solace by sharing stories of resilience and transformation. And today's episode, we're honored to host Deborah Kasdan. She's the author of the book Roll Back the World: A Sister's Memoir. Her narrative is not, her narrative is not just a memoir. It's a powerful exploration into the heart of a family that was grappling with the seismic effects of mental illness. Today we're gonna dive deep into some of the most pressing issues surrounding mental health. Today we'll explore the, uh, state of mental health op, uh, options in the US. We'll discuss the scarcity of resources and the critical need for comprehensive care. Uh, we'll get Deborah's insight into navigating the complex world of long-term, uh, care for family members. And we're gonna shine a light on the often overlooked aspects of mental illness. The relentless and loving care provided by families. We'll also talk about the societal stigma around mental health issues. Her story is a testament to the urgent need for conversation and for change, pushing against the misconceptions and prejudices that so many of us face. Her journey through her experience with her sister is one I think is going to enlighten us all. So whether you're here seeking comfort, understanding, or knowledge, join us as we unfold these vital topics with Deborah Katzen. So let's continue to grow, grow together and welcome Deborah to Grief to Growth.

Hello, Brian. Glad to be here.

Yeah, it's really good to have you here, Deborah. I know that you have a— you wrote this book about the sister journey that you and your family went through with your sister. So tell me about your sister Rachel.

Rachel, 3 and a half years older than me. And she was a very creative, adventurous, girl. She loved to explore. And she was, in a way, my role model. You know, she told me things I needed to know when I started kindergarten. Oh, you know, you can't just talk. You have to raise your hand. What colors went together. And when I got dressed. Mainly, though, she— what books to read. And it was in books and literature and writing that I think we kind of had a lot in common. And she loved, she loved reading. I did too. But she became in high school a poet. She loved Walt Whitman. And many of her poems are nature poems like his. And when we, when we were in high school, well, she was 3, yeah, she was finishing high school. I was just starting. She would be writing late at night. I'd hear the typewriter going in our room. So she was quite a presence in my life.

Yeah, I can imagine. Sisters. So how many total children in your family?

We were 4.

Okay.

Rachel, then 3 and a half years later myself, then a brother barely 2 years younger than me, and then younger sister, 7 years younger than me.

Okay. And I know your book is about your sister and your families, because I want to add your family because these journeys we go through, we're all together, we're all intertwined. So tell me about the beginning of her diagnosis. When did that happen?

After she finished high school. In high school, she was a little bit troubled. She had trouble focusing on up on her schoolwork, and she was more interested in doing her own thing. Um, after— she didn't want to go to college right away, and this was a high school where most of the kids went to college. Um, so she decided to go to Israel and work on a kibbutz, and she joined up with a group, and she loved working on the kibbutz, and, uh, she's— she was just a natural because much as she loved to, to read and write, she loved physical activity, labor. And we got very detailed letters about her activities and adventures in Israel. And she came home and she looked just great. She was bronzed and beautiful and just, just wonderful looking and very worldly and cosmopolitan. But then she began traveling in, in the States to New York. We were in St. Louis then. In the middle of the country. And she would go off to New York, live on the Lower East Side, and then she decided she wanted to live in San Francisco. And she was kind of bouncing around and she kind of lost her way. And a friend— she was going with a friend to Montreal, and the friend called up my parents and said that something was wrong, come get her, or put it— they put her on a plane. My parents picked her up when she was in San Francisco. The lawyer she worked for— she was a legal secretary— said, "Something's wrong. Come get her." So apparently she was having some type of psychotic breaks, and my parents committed her to a hospital. I mean, there were attempts to have treatment with, you know, private psychiatrists, and they recommend institutionalization. So she was, she was 23. That was in 1965. We're going back a bit, but she was 23 when she was first institutionalized. Okay.

And up until that point, had you noticed anything about her mental health or her mental state?

She was angry a lot. She had especially— well, both my parents, but especially to my mother. And I attribute that to some past history from very early years. Um, so she just seemed, uh, very, um, very angry and intent on doing her own thing, kind of oppositional as they call it now. Um, but I first noticed something when— but I thought my parents just wanted her to, um, you know, lead a more conventional life. Not that they were all that conventional, but you know, they didn't— when she didn't want to go to college full-time, they said, "Okay, but then you should have a job." But then she couldn't keep her jobs. But I first noticed something when she came back from San Francisco, and she told me that two men had followed her from New York City to San Francisco. She had seen two men, And I could just see the fear in her eyes, and I, I knew she was in the grip of something, you know, beyond just normal, um, rebellious, rebellious behavior.

Right, right. And she was diagnosed as schizophrenic, is that right?

Okay. Yeah, it's kind of a catch-all diagnosis.

I mean, yeah.

Overlaps now with, um, a lot of overlap with bipolar disorder now, um, with schizoaffective disorder. But she checked all the boxes for schizophrenia here.

Okay. And you said you, of course, heard your parents tried to get her private treatment at first with psychiatrists, I guess, psychologists. How did, how did that go? And, and, and At what point did your parents or someone make a decision she had to be hospitalized?

Yeah. I think she would— she knew how to game the system with the private doctors, and she knew what to say. She's very, very, very bright. So she never would continue very long with them. When she was hospitalized, I was away at summer camp. Working as a counselor at a residential camp. So this was after my second— no, after my first year of college. And I didn't see exactly what happened. That's one of the issues that's always bothered me, that I never really understood exactly why my parents hospitalized her to begin with. And because it's very traumatic to be involuntarily hospitalized.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. It causes a lot of— it can cause a lot of damage on its own. And I think that's what happened to Rachel. So I think they saw a lot of self-destructive behavior So, and she had been living at home and she might have run off, she might have run off and gotten herself into trouble. My father would sometimes have to pick her up, you know, she would kind of hang out in the streets for a while. So I'm not sure exactly what triggered it at that particular time, but It was very upsetting, very shocking to me. And my parents told me that, oh, you know, they have new medication now. You know, they'll give her the medication and she'll get better. But I think the initial medication she had, they gave big doses in those days and they weren't quite as good as, they weren't as good as the medication we have now, which also has bad side effects. But these really, really knocked her out. She was sedated, basically. They call it chemical handcuffs. And she— it was very difficult then when I did see her in the hospital. So she— it was the beginning of deinstitutionalization, you know, when they were closing up, when they decided hospital, you know, people shouldn't be staying in hospitals for a long term. And she was, she was discharged to very dangerous parts of St. Louis and was harmed there. She said she was assaulted, raped in boarding houses there. And my parents were just beside themselves and wanted to get her readmitted. And the hospital discharged her several times to these very inappropriate and unsafe conditions. And that began a so-called revolving door of discharge and readmission, discharge, readmission. So that was pattern for quite a number of years.

So what was your experience in terms of the way mental illness was accepted or not accepted during that time?

It was very— yeah, it was— there was stigma, and there still is stigma. There's something, especially schizophrenia, I think when you have that diagnosis, it has all kinds of associations. I mean, my parents were very educated. My father was a social worker, not a clinical social worker, but he did community work. So they were aware, you know, they were pretty sophisticated in their thinking. But, you know, it's still embarrassing and there's shame. And especially for my mom because Even they, they would blame it on the mother. And my mother was very defensive with it with a hospital social worker and didn't want to get involved, felt very strongly that she was being blamed. I was never part of these sessions with the hospital because I was away at school. Right. And that's one of the issues that, that I bring up in my book is that it's so important for families to have support early on and that everybody knows what's happening. But I didn't feel comfortable talking about it. And I think, you know, I think that I just felt shame that I couldn't, that I couldn't do anything for her and that my family couldn't do anything for her. We couldn't afford a private hospital, that would have, you know, involved selling the house or, you know, just all— it's just impractical for middle-class families.

Sure.

And to be in a state hospital like she was in, it's just— it's just— there's a stigma. Uh, mass media had people like, uh, Sybil, multiple personality disorders. Lots of people think schizophrenia is multiple personality disorder. It's not. That's, that's a very, a very narrow diagnosis. Um, so, uh, it, it, it was very, very difficult to talk about And I think largely because of my own sense of shame and hopelessness. And I didn't know, you know, as time went on, it became less and less clear that she could really recover from this. I mean, that initial hope goes away pretty fast. So, mm-hmm. And I think what was most damaging is that it was so difficult to talk about in the family itself. I think everybody had their own response to it. So you're talking about 6 people with their own lives and their own needs and their own issues. And I think not being able to talk about it in the family was very nonproductive in the long run.

So within the family, how would you approach it at all? Or did you approach it at all?

Well, everybody was different. I asked my parents, and they gave me the answer that they heard from the psychiatrist. And I said, but I don't understand it. They told me as much as they could. And my mother shared— it was easiest to talk to my mother. But I believe that they were doing the best that they could, and they were doing all that they could. My brother thought they were— what, it was outrageous to institutionalize her. He identified with her more strongly. He felt more rebellious than I did and had his own issues that he was dealing with. That involved some shame on his part. And he never got to talk about his issues till much later. And then my— so he was— he pretty much distanced himself from the family right after. Now, we, my brother and I, were both in those early years, we had just started college. I went off to Michigan, he went off to Seattle. So we were spread out pretty far. And then my little sister stayed home, but she was, you know, she was 13 years old when this started. So, and so she had all issues of adolescence. And so everybody was, you know, all, all the things that you try to deal with kids individually. That, you know, they kind of brushed aside. In fact, you know, my mother said it towards the end of her life. She said, I just regret that all the focus was on Rachel. And I didn't understand her at first, you know, because I thought we didn't do enough for her. But she, I think, you know, in reflection, I've reframed it in mind that she meant that she didn't get to deal with us as much as, um, you know, as much as she would have liked to individually for our own individual development. Yeah.

Yeah. So was Rachel— I know she was in and out of the hospital. Did she have better times, or what was the experience like?

Um, stay with us, we'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

Yeah, the thing about mental illness, and with psychosis-related illnesses, Um, the psychosis is— the psychoses are episodic themselves, and she would get kind of manic and, you know, just dash off somewhere and do something, right? Um, but then I think if they're not overly medicated, you know, they're— they can— there can be, you know, you can function, and then they can learn how to deal with this, like the psychotic episodes, or avoid them. So when she was well, you know, she could visit and talk and, you know, have, I mean, have interesting conversations. She read. They tried some job play, you know, some very, for her, low-level jobs, you know, like babysitting, because she I shouldn't say low level, but I mean that they were below her educational level. And I think she could do that for a little while. But then, you know, she got bored because she wanted to be a poet. She wanted to be a writer. And she was writing poetry. And she— that's, that's what she wanted to do. Mm-hmm. So what I— yeah, but I think the overmedication just suppressed what would have been the high points in her development.

Yeah, it's—

I think in recovery.

Yeah, it's a tough line to— because, you know, to keep people from getting too high, they medicate them, but then they're, you know, they're not functioning. They're cutting off their personality, their creativity. I think a lot of people feel like when they're having that medication, so they rebel against it.

Yeah. So there are people now who are working to recover without depending so much on medication, and they don't even use the phrase schizophrenia. They use the word hearing voices. And they, they, they find— they work on ways to, to, to avoid the voices when they can, but to live them, live with them when they need to and have and not make medication the centerpiece of their recovery. Mm-hmm.

So how do you feel things have improved since that diagnosis, if at all?

There is some better medication, but everybody cannot tolerate it. It has, especially for psychosis, it can have very severe side effects, life-threatening side effects. So people who use it have to be tested all the time regularly that they don't have You know, their blood work will show if they're going to have a reaction to it. There are ways to recover that involve outpatient treatment and supportive housing, because housing is one of the biggest, biggest needs for people who have trouble keeping a job or a well-paying job. So, and that's what Rachel ultimately found. It took a long time, but she found an agency, a local agency that could provide that for her. Mm-hmm. So there are models of recovery that have, you know, that may or may not have medication. I think most of them have some medication, but without these other things, The medication won't really be enough. So the trouble, of course, now is the lack of consistent funding and robust funding. So you get into a cycle that short-staffed, they're not effective. And then people say, well, you know, they're not working. Well, they're not working because they don't have effective, um, robust funding from the community. It, uh, involves community funding, state funding, federal grants. It can be done. Yeah.

So what do you— what do you wish people knew about mental health issues? What do you wish society would, would understand that we don't understand?

Well, that people can recover even from severe mental illness. There If it's done right, there is recovery possible. That families need to be involved early on because they can be a wonderful source of support if families are able to stay intact and understand, know what to expect. And deal with their own issues, as, you know, every family is going to have its own issues, every individual does, then they can be a support. But sometimes when you have a person who's very oppositional, they may not want to be with their family. Then the community needs to provide this support. And that sometimes when you see people who are obviously seriously mentally ill on the streets or the parks, wherever, Um, you know, I wish people could understand that they, they have families who love them but may not have been able to help them and may or may not be estranged. Um, but it's not always because they were rejected. It's because families didn't have the support or the circumstances were such that they couldn't support them. So that, so that, so that people of all, you know, of— with severe mental illness are— they have their histories, they have their capabilities, they have their problems, but they're full people who come from families and communities.

So with your family, um, you, you mentioned, you know, the stigma, I think, but also, I would— was there any, like, you know, we should be able to you know, she should be able to live with us, or was there guilt in having to institutionalize her? How did that go?

Oh, definitely severe guilt. Um, uh, my brother was very angry at, at my parents, and, um, that led to some temporary estrangement on his part. Um, I respected my parents' decision But yet I couldn't. I just couldn't talk to them about my feelings. And I just had this feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. Being helpless is a terrible feeling. You know, for some years, I— as it turned out, throughout her life, I think the one thing my sister wanted from me was to send her books until her last years when she— it was hard for her to read, but I had to pick up books and send them to her wherever she was staying because she moved around a lot, even in hospitals. And some, you know, some cash for cigarettes. That was the extent of the help I could give her. I thought a lot about why can't she live with us, but I knew it would I couldn't raise my own children and have my own career if she was living with us. I just had this fear that, you know, she would take off and I'd have to go find her. So I was almost haunted by this fear. And she couldn't live with my mother. There was too much tension and anger between them. Mm-hmm. She would ask sometimes, And then I'd feel guilty that I couldn't have her in my family, right, household. And then she would say— and then she would change her mind. She said, no, I don't want to live with my sister. She didn't. I think the ideal situation would have been to find her something, someplace near a family near my parents at the beginning is, again, if there was supportive housing that was effective, then family can be involved. Even if they can't live with them, they can be involved with their— Right. —with their life, somewhat involved in the decisions. So they can't make all the decisions. Right. But to keep the connection, I think that's what's so important, because when estrangement sets in, then you lose the connections. There were periods where I didn't know where my sister was. I couldn't even write, not long periods, but we're talking about 30-plus year span. So, right, additions were taken over different times, right? And she moved to different hospitals for various reasons. And then when she would get out, she could be, you know, there were times when she was living on the streets and I didn't know where she was until she got readmitted.

During that time, was she making her own decisions or did someone have power of attorney for her?

My parents remained, um, official guardians, and my father did, and then when he died, my mother did. But that doesn't mean you get to make decisions. That's just some legal construct. Um, she would get her SSI checks directly sent to the hospital where she was at. Um, So when I think they were involved in the decisions while she was in St. Louis, in St. Louis State Hospital for 15 years. But then there was the big change when my brother took her out west, and then everything changed.

So your, your brother did take her out west for a period of time?

Yes, he decided So this was 15 years into this. He was freshly divorced. And he decided that he could get her help she needed. And he was going back to Seattle. He had moved away, but he was going back. And he could get her the help he needed. And he lined up— we had lots of meetings about it, family meetings about it. It was a big decision. We didn't do it lightly. And I felt I didn't know whether what he proposed was possible. We spent a lot of time talking about it, involved my younger sister, and he just didn't see any hope for her in St. Louis. He didn't agree with my parents' decision. They had a lawsuit going against the the state hospital, it was in federal court. And he thought that would just keep her in the hospital rather than help her get out. So I supported, and my little sister supported, the decision to take her out to the Pacific Northwest, to Seattle. And he had doctors lined up and consultations, and, uh, uh, it lasted 3 months, and, uh, then she was on her own. She took off. Okay. Yeah. And she got into the Oregon State Hospital system. Okay.

So when she would take off like that, how would she end up at another hospital? Would, would it be through the police, or how did that happen?

I think when, when she left my brother, I think it was voluntary. She had been in a day treatment program, and I think it was— he had been trying to get her into that. It was voluntary. Um, so all of the above. Sometimes it was police. When she got into the Oregon State system, it was the police. I think she set a little fire or something. It's a way to attract attention, to get help. Yeah. And that was the police. Then she was discharged, and when the placements didn't work in the halfway homes, oh, I don't know, you know, it might be voluntary, it might be involuntary. Sometimes if she didn't have a place to stay, she would just knock on the door, so to speak, of the hospital and ask for readmission because she was so damaged. I mean, you know, after all those years, you know, you're— the whole system infantilizes somebody. Um, uh, they didn't want to keep her for, you know, for many years. They, they were incentivized. The incentive for them was to, to move her into transitional housing, but it never worked for her. And so then, you know, eventually she was in a chronic ward, and that's when she finally met up with somebody who was able to, to get what she needed, get her what she needed.

Yeah. So it's— it sounds like over the years maybe things have gotten a little bit better. What would you like to see in our mental health system if you could if you had a magic wand, you could wave it.

Well, something like that. What finally worked for her, um, uh, local agencies who have roots in the community, ideally near family. That didn't happen for Rachel, but that could have. That, that's the ideal system, um, where— but the— not that the family controls adults with severe, serious mental illness, but, you know, they might have some input. And so, um, and so local agencies that are funded by this, by, uh, local communities and the state, um, philanthropic funding as well as, um, you know, government funding, that Fountain House is a model for that. That's a national organization where they provide recovery, where they therapy, occupational therapy, socializing. People need a purpose. They need coaching to go back to school, or job coaching is a big— it's very important how to keep a job. And it, you know, it takes a lot of staff to, to to help people get back in the community after they've been in the hospital. You know, as well as talk therapy, you know, therapy. Clubhouses are important for where people who have been in hospitals can socialize. And that's what the program is called, Clubhouses. And, and learn and practice, like, you know, life skills. Um, people need to have a purpose, and I think with coaching they can, they can succeed in jobs and school.

Okay, I want to go back to something you, you said earlier, and you were saying that someone, I guess, on maybe the doctors were putting blame on your mother for Rachel's condition. What— in what way were they blaming your mother?

Oh, excuse me. That goes back to like the, you know, with autism, the idea of the refrigerator mother that was in the 1960s. It's kind of, kind of post-Freudian type of thinking that the that the, you know, the mother's responsible for, you know, the development of the child. And if they don't bond, if, you know, if they don't— and mothers were blamed, you know, for anything with children in those days. You know, it's not so much these days, but it was back then. I mean, there were issues with my mother, but You know, children grow up with issues against their parents. So, but the, but the issues Rachel had caused her to accuse my parents of things. And then the psychiatrist in charge of her case would then believe her literally, instead of having these open, having constructive, nonjudgmental conversations, there would be conversations about blame. So whenever you you get a family together, you know, kids are going to start blaming their parents, and somebody's going to either support them or, or not. You need people who are skilled in very non-judgmental family interactions, right? Right. There is a, a, an approach now they call it open dialogue, where you have family, um, a family system, and you bring the whole and maybe close other people in the network, close in the network. Mm-hmm. You bring them together and allow them to discuss the issues that might be between parent and child, mother and child. Mm-hmm. Uh, in a way that allows everybody to air their grievances and to be nonjudgmental. So I think that's the key. Um, people were just quick to have judgments about mothers in those days. I'm— Yeah, I think that that's not—

it's not as bad now. Yeah. So I know in your book you included some of Rachel's poetry and her letters that kind of come through in her own words. So what would you like for us to know about Rachel?

Oh, that she was fiercely intelligent. People— I talked to people who knew her in Israel, and they said, oh, she was talking about things, you know, she would politics and art, and she was curious and adventurous. Her thinking was adventurous. And she was a good person. She never knowingly hurt anybody. And she just had a sense of adventure. She She had a lot to offer. And she had a beautiful spirit. And I think the strength of that spirit is what worked for her and against her. She wouldn't give in if something didn't make sense. I got, as part of my research, I got notes from the Oregon State Hospital systems that she was in. And it's very hard to go through, but, you know, when they would tell her she would have to, hygiene is a big issue for people with schizophrenia. For some reason, they lose their sense of hygiene. So they were always encouraging trying to get her to shower more. And a nurse said, you know, I told her, I gave her the shampoo and she said, "The soap will do fine." You know, she's just like, "Let me do it my way." So she had this sense of herself that might have gotten her in trouble with people in charge of the system. And, but yet it kept her going and it kept her through all these really rough times. And And she survived the system. She did survive the system. And that's the story that, you know, I hope people enjoy in the book is how she survived it. And she was able to meet up with people who meant something to her, who she could connect with, especially in the last decade of her life. And she had a spiritual side too that I wasn't even aware of for quite a while.

Really? Tell me about her spiritual side.

Well, at the end of the book, she found a synagogue and she, without the help of her caseworker, her social worker, he told me that she would just go there herself. And they didn't know, they were shocked that, you know, she looked like a street person. And they were shocked when they saw her saying the prayers. They thought she was just looking for shelter, but then they realized, and they got her to clean herself up a little bit, and they honored her. And had her lead the congregation in prayer. And I only found out about that after she died from somebody who contacted me. And yeah, you know, part of, I think, being a poet, you know, is kind of transcending. There's a transcendence to it, the identification with nature, She always— that's one of the reasons we thought she might do better in the Pacific Northwest. She loved nature so much and she loved walking, and to her that was a very spiritual, spiritual experience. When she was in eastern Oregon in Pendleton, I think she identified with the Native American, the indigenous population there. They were very prominent in that part of the country. She talked to me when I visited her a lot about their beliefs. So she was, she was a seeker.

Yeah. So she passed at the age of 59, was that correct? So, correct. Yeah. So she, she did survive the system, as you said, for, for several years. Um, was she in the system when she passed, or were you able to, to be with her or anything like that?

She was out of the hospital system. Okay. This, this was this marvelous caseworker who got her out, and, um, she was just in under the care of this local agency. Okay. And they, um, found housing for her. It took a couple, uh, tries before they found her the perfect place for her, um, in the woods, and not totally remote because there were other of these little little houses in the woods. So, so they brought her medication that she needed and helped her out as much as she wanted. She could walk, she could take a, you know, hike whenever she felt like it. And she, she was there, they would leave her the medication. So she had her freedom, which is what I always just wanted for her. I wanted her to be free. And I just hated the thought of her being confined. And she had her freedom. And she was under the care of this agency, but it was not a hospital system. Okay.

Okay. And so you, you have your corporate career, and you decide, I'm going to write a book about my sister and what this does to my family. So what was, what was the reasoning behind you putting the book out? Why did you decide to make this?

Yeah, that's a big— I think Rachel's just just influenced me. She— when she died, I just wanted people to know. I wanted to just write in testament to her, to who she was. And I said I felt this urge to tell her story. So yes, you said I was working corporate and it took me a long time. I did a little bit of this, a little bit of research. Then my mother came to live with me, my family, and I interviewed her a lot. I got lots of stories from her. And when I retired from my corporate career, I was able to write more consistently. And it came together in bits and pieces and with encouragement from people who I shared my writing with and writing classes, and I wanted to be able to share her poetry too. So I do, as you said, I have 6 poems in the book. And so I braid together, I braided together my story and my sister's story and my family's story. And I just felt that I wanted to honor her. I wanted to solve the mystery to me of why it got so— why her condition became so bad. And that meant delving into family history, family decisions. And I braided that into the story too. So I had this curiosity about what happened. So writing the book help me solve it. I got hold of all these letters, and I could see certain patterns that I hadn't been aware of before.

Yeah. How's, how's your, your remaining family? Have they reacted to, to the book being out?

Oh, very well. Um, um, my siblings were very supportive. My mom passed by the time It would have been a little bit hard to publish it while she was alive because there were painful parts of her life. And, you know, who needs to, you know, to go through that again when you're in your 90s? So it was just my two siblings left and they were supportive and helped me with the timeline and recall certain things. And then my own children were just really, really very supportive. One of my daughters said, who was born when Rachel first became ill, my first daughter, said, "Oh, now I understand what I was born into. I was born into the middle of something," you know, when she, when she read the description of what exactly was happening when she was born. My granddaughter would come in when she was tiny. She's a teenager now, but, you know, when's the book going to be finished? How many pages have you written? You know, so she would just egg me on. I couldn't stop after that. I mean, it was a matter of I just had to finish it. I had invested so much time and commitment to it. Once you tell people you're writing a book, then, you know, yeah, once it's out there, people start to ask you when it's coming out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm really— I'm glad that you, you're telling Rachel's story and your, and your family's story and, and, you know, sharing her legacy. And I— every time we do something that helps overcome that stigma that we have around, uh, mental illness. I think, you know, we were talking about people don't understand it. Um, there's, there's a lot of blame that goes around, a lot of shame that goes around, and the way to overcome that is to, to expose us to the, to the truth, you know, the, the good, the bad, and the, and the not so great. So appreciate you doing that very much.

Yeah, and I hope people support organizations that support people who need it because of mental illness. Yeah.

Yeah, I think, you know, we used to go to, you know, extremes. We just institutionalized people and then we kind of went to the other extreme and just, you know, everybody's kind of on their own. So hopefully we're finding a more healthy balance now. Right, right.

And if people are failing outside of the institute, it's not— the answer is not to send them back in, but to provide better community support and keep funding those organizations that can provide it. Like the one that finally helped Rachel. Yeah.

Well, Deborah, thanks so much for being here today. Remind people again of the name of your book and where they can find out more about you.

Uh, Rollback the World: A Sister's Memoir. Um, I have a website, deborahkazdan.com, um, and you can find the book, uh, online at any of the online bookstores— Barnes Noble, Amazon, Bookstore .org. And I hope people will be touched learning about Rachel. Yes, absolutely.

I'm sure they will. I'll have the links in the show notes so people can find it. And Deborah, again, thanks for being here. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you, Brian.

Bye. Hi there, I'm really excited to tell you about my latest ebook. It's 4 Lessons That You Can Learn from a Near-Death Experience Without Going Through All the Trouble of Dying to Learn Them. I've been studying NDEs for several years now. I am completely convinced that not only are they 100% real, but that there's some very universal wisdom that we can get from the near-death experience. And I've distilled that down in this book into 4 short lessons. And I've also given you all the reasons why I believe that NDEs are absolutely real. So go to www.grieftogrowth.com/NDElessons to pick it up for free. Www.grief2growth.com/NDElessons. I hope you enjoy it.