An Illness, Inherited?

I spent many months, as a fetus, in a mental institution, listening to the world shuffling outside. I don’t know what meds were administered to me in that developing stage. I lived in the belly of a woman I would never know. But my relationship with something dubiously entitled mental health was already established.

I grew up in public care, in a series of foster placements, children’s homes, adoptions, hostels; by the time I was 16 I had moved around 30 times. I had no memory of ever meeting anyone I was related to or even seeing a photograph of them. All I knew, thanks to a social worker, was that one parent had at one point been given a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The social worker tried to explain schizophrenia to me. She drew a cat and said that if I was schizophrenic I would not see a cat, I would see a lion. I thought that sounded excellent. Every book I loved transported me to a world where wardrobes were portals and trees could talk. Also, I wanted to be like someone, even if that someone had a disease. I didn’t know anyone who looked like me, or shared my DNA in any kind of a way.

But I was told not to tell anyone that I came from a crazy person or nobody would speak to me. I was advised to say I had been put in care because my biological mother had a more socially acceptable illness: They suggested cancer.

http://nyti.ms/1gSJ9c8