Me and my siblings used to wonder among ourselves why adults would act like grandma was sane when clearly at times she was not. The only reliable conversations you could have with my grandma were about dogs and horses she had known. Otherwise you'd risk a firestorm of crazy, even if you were just a kid. She could say the meanest things in the world about other people. Her redeeming grace was she didn't say mean things about kids, or dogs, or horses, no matter how awful they were.
Mental illness in our family was shoved far back into the closet. My grandma had to be removed from the home she owned because she was a danger to herself and others. No "assisted living" or nursing home was willing to keep her long. My grandma would bounce in and out of homes, always landing in the master bedroom of my parent's house, which they left open for her and her devil cat. My parents themselves slept in the peach painted girl's room. My youngest brother was still living in the turquoise painted "boy's room" of the three bedroom farm house.
I'm certain the police would have shot my grandma dead on several occasions if she hadn't been some little old white lady pensioner they knew from previous calls.
THE WORST DAY IN MY LIFE was an indirect consequence of my grandma's crazy, me running away into a greater crazy.
My mom is bipolar, just as one of my kids and and a couple of me and my wife's siblings are. (Hi mom!) My mom isn't t going to do anything about that, here in her eighth decade, not that I ever expected her to.
My mom was always functional at work, but my dad has always covered for her, both her high peaks and her low peaks, and he still does. She's his muse. They are both artists.
I like to think my kids learned something from me, from my bad example. They didn't quit high school, they didn't take nine years to graduate from college having been asked to leave twice, and they didn't experience any periods of self-imposed-and-inflicted dumpster diving homelessness.
My parents would have certainly rescued me from my madness, but I didn't want them to know.
It was that closet thing.
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