“I’d spent a semester on leave, back at my family home, finally facing my sadness about how changed my brother was and the fear that I might develop psychosis too.”
This specific anxiety doesn’t get discussed enough, but feels common to anyone who loves someone in suffering. I swear I could feel the rot in my genes when a family member starting showing signs of psychosis and wondering when I would start to deteriorate, as if I was awaiting a cold at the first sign of a tickle in my throat. We fear it, I think, because we so love the person in pain and simultaneously understand how difficult it is to give that love.
“I’d spent a semester on leave, back at my family home, finally facing my sadness about how changed my brother was and the fear that I might develop psychosis too.”
This specific anxiety doesn’t get discussed enough, but feels common to anyone who loves someone in suffering. I swear I could feel the rot in my genes when a family member starting showing signs of psychosis and wondering when I would start to deteriorate, as if I was awaiting a cold at the first sign of a tickle in my throat. We fear it, I think, because we so love the person in pain and simultaneously understand how difficult it is to give that love.
This was a wonderful essay.
This is a beautiful essay from a wise wife, mother, and therapist. The truth of it brought tears to my eyes.