Gina's Story

Even as a child, I always knew my mom had a mental illness - just like I knew my dad was illiterate. But nobody talked about it. It was just the way things were.

I never liked the way we had to live, but I didn't, of course, know how different we were until I went to school. By the time I was in high school, all I wanted was to move away. I just wanted to turn my back on my family and never see or hear from it again.

I could have run away. But where would I have gone and what would I have done? I decided to stay and finish high school, then go to college as far away as possible and just never come back. In the meantime, there was all of high school to get through. Mom was obsessed with youth and beauty. Old and ugly were synonyms to her. Thus, the older I got, the older (and uglier) she thought she was.

When I was about 13 years old, she washed her hands of me. For most of my teenage years mom was either in an alcoholic stupor, had a headache, was taking a "beauty nap," or was in a violent rage. I was frequently beaten, often stalked and usually confused. Needless to say I was very unhappy.

I was never encouraged to have any friends my own age, and the few I did have were never invited to the house because mom would make fun of them and ask them embarrassing questions. More disturbing was that mom often would hang around the house in various stages of undress and would answer the door that way, especially if teenage boys were calling.

Where, you might ask, was dad through all this? He was working. He had three jobs. He may have been illiterate, but he was not stupid. He knew that his work was his only escape.

The one friend I did have through all this was Mrs. Barnes. She was our neighbor. I hung out at her house. She was a widow and did everything for herself. I would hang out at her house and we would do ordinary things like housework, gardening and cooking, while at my house, we would listen to mom complain that nobody did enough for her. That we were ingrates who didn't appreciate having a mother who was beautiful and perfect. I liked Mrs. Barnes's way better.

Her belief was that if you want something done, you should just do it. As an adult, my house is more like Mrs. Barnes's than the one in which I grew up. For that I will forever be indebted to her. Mrs. Barnes taught me that it was possible to live quietly from day to day without chaos and revenge.

Mrs. Barnes was my mentor. I really loved her. I felt safe in her house. She taught me about independence and confidence. She taught me that if I wanted to do something, I could.

After high school graduation I moved into an apartment with my best friend who also came from a chaotic and abusive household. Many may view this as selfish given the fact that I moved away and didn't try to get mom the help she really needed. However, it didn't occur to me to try and fix mom. She wasn't diagnosed. And besides, how many years can you listen to people tell you how lucky you are to have such a beautiful mother, and then go home and face her rage?

Through it all, I just wanted to live a quiet, circumspect life devoid of rage and fighting. I think I have accomplished that.

Over the years I have met many children. I have always remembered Mrs. Barnes and have tried to be the same kind of example to the children I meet. After many years of talking to children, I began to recognize the common thread that ran through any of their lives the - mental illness.

I wanted to help them. I looked for places to refer them and found nothing. All I would hear was, "They're okay, and besides, you're not their mother." Despite the frustration, I kept fighting.

When I thought I had exhausted all my options, I called the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and was referred to Edie Mannion of the TEC Family Center. We began talking on the phone regularly and realized that we had a common interest - to help kids growing up with mental illness in their families get the support, knowledge and coping skills they need and deserve. This common goal led to the establishment of the Child and Adolescent Coping Skills Project.

As project coordinator for the Coping Skills Project, I feel a great sense of accomplishment knowing that I now am better equipped to achieve my life's mission - to help children and adolescents cope with a family member struggling with mental illness and to secure a solid future for themselves.

Contact Gina Caruso:
email: gcaruso@mhasp.org
telephone: 215-751-1800 ext. 229