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In my childhood narcissism, I thought that Kate and I were the only victims. I didn't realize that my mother didn't have a choice about what happened to her. The '50s were the dark ages when it came to understanding emotions, and many conditions, now treated with medication and counseling, got labeled as mental illness. And the legal system in those days, I learned as a journalist, was stacked against people like my mother. They were subject to "involuntary commitment," the practice that allowed almost anyone to be put away on the say-so of a family member and a judge. My mother was just 45 when it happened, in the full bloom of life.Mom's friends, when they talked about it, suggested that my father simply got tired of her. A loner with a wild streak, it's a wonder he got married in the first place -- four times in all (my mother was his second wife). Born in Covington, Kentucky, in 1910, he'd hitchhiked across the country to California and never really settled down, even after marrying Mom in 1945, working in real estate, and having two children. For much of his life, his center of gravity was outside the home, at a bar, sipping martinis, smoking cigarettes and flirting with every good-looking woman who walked by.
According to Daddy and the doctors, though, Mom had a nervous breakdown; both the deterioration of her marriage and the loss of her mother devastated her. Once, after an argument, when my father was heading out to a bar at night, my mom begged him not to leave her. She had two young children to care for; she needed him. He didn't change course. Feeling desperate, she ran down the street after him in her nightgown, crying.
Were Mom's problems due to her sensitive nature? Or was my father's inability to deal with emotion and monogamy the issue? I was so young; I didn't know the truth. And now, raised by my father, my wires got crossed. It became easier to blame Mom, since she was the one who had left me.
My father must have believed I'd share her fate, because if I'd cry over something, he'd say, "Be careful or you'll end up like your mother." Another time he said, "Get hold of yourself. Be more like me. I don't need anyone."
Sometimes, when Mom's friends first met me, they couldn't get over how much she and I looked alike. "Like mother, like daughter," they'd tell me.
They meant it as a compliment. But back then, I hated every word. Convinced I'd end up like her, I got rid of every trace of her I could.
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