Hysteria, by Will Stanton

I delayed writing about this subject longer than I normally do about selected topics because I was torn between writing about a painful truth regarding my mother or resisting it and writing something fictional and entertaining, simply as an antidote.  I finally decided to stick to facts but to keep it as short as possible.

First, you have to understand my mother's background.  Several terrible events combined to damage her emotionally.

First, apparently, her own mother was very fond of her first-born daughter but did not express much love or support for my mother.  This only enhanced my mother's deep attachment to her father, evidently a very caring, loving man, who also was highly admired for his many skills and successes.  He was a professor of physics and chemistry, kept bees, took the family on long camping trips (which included Colorado back when it had mostly dirt roads), collected Indian arrowheads, and played classical violin.  Unfortunately, he was exposed to radiation from his early lab experiments and died painfully of cancer at age forty-eight.  My mother, at the time, was at that critical age of fifteen and deeply suffered the loss of her father.

Next, her mother developed the strange notion that she needed to remarry but retain the same surname.  Consequently, she blindly married her late husband's uncle, until then unmarried and a whole generation older.  It turned out that this man became the “stepfather from Hell.”

To start with, he decided that the family must abandoned their beloved home (once owned by Mary Todd Lincoln's family) and move to his home-town.  My mother packed her few prized possessions into a trunk in anticipation of the move.  The stepfather, however, left the trunk behind, later stating that “there wasn't enough room to take it.”  My mother was very hurt and never forgot the callous loss of her possessions.

Everything went from bad to worse.  Very quickly, my mother and grandmother discovered that this man had a violent temper and frequently exploded into tirades of verbal and even physical abuse, hitting them.  When the stepfather discovered that my mother was saving a little money during summers working as a waitress so she could go to college, he stole all her money to pay for ill-chosen stocks that he had bought.  He lost all the stocks and money in the Great Depression.  This man chose not even to keep his disdain for the family private.  He frequently spoke ill of them to friends and neighbors, telling terrible falsehoods about them.

It wasn't until many years later when I was in my forties did I hear hints from my mother that this “stepfather from hell” had gone every morning into her bedroom.  Apparently, my grandmother never knew or was too afraid to do anything about it.  My comprehension of this trauma became clarified by my father, who spoke to me shortly before his passing.  He stated that, for a while after he and my mother were married, she would wake up every morning, screaming.  I was absolutely shocked.  In retrospect, I realized that this hysteria had been expressed in many ways during my childhood.

Throughout my childhood and adult life, I witnessed my mother's deep-seated fear and anxiety.  I realize that, no matter how hard she struggled to do the right things with her life and her family, to take on and excel in numerous activities, she continually was plagued by those fears and anxieties.  She feared the world; she feared people.  Many times, I heard her bitterly declare, “I hate men; I just hate men.”  She feared anyone whom she did not understand.  She feared blacks and foreigners.  She feared and disliked homosexuals.  Once, when I was watching a documentary on Africa, she rushed over to the TV and turned it off, stating, “I don't want you to watch that.  All white-hunters are homosexuals.”

As another consequence, she tried to control all people and the world around her.  Anyone or anything that she could not control upset her.  Everything had to be just the way she thought it should be, otherwise she would worry, sometimes even panic, and become hysterical.

An unfortunate, known psychological phenomenon is that one way traumatized people attempt to cope is to adopt many of the same hurtful behaviors that had caused them harm in the first place.  This was true with her.  When I was young, she once said that she hoped that she never would become like her stepfather - - - but she did.  Very often, when she feared that she was not in control, she shouted in rage.  I recall seeing her screaming at my oldest brother and beating him.  She hit my father so hard that she burst his eardrum.

When I went to university in Europe, my parents drove me to the university campus.  It was late evening and becoming dark.  My father took one wrong turn where there was very little street-light and no outlet.  He had to turn around.  Simple enough; however, my mother panicked and began screaming hysterically.  At the time, I did not understand.  Now I do.

My brothers and I have realized for some time that, even though we were, what psychologists call, a “looking good family,” word got around about my mother.  New neighbors were warned to avoid getting to know my mother.  We brothers and my father suffered long-term damage from that environment.  My father, early on, withdrew as much as he could into his own world, finding every reason to go to his office, take the car for a wash, or do some other chore that would take him away from the house.  My oldest brother adopted the same dictatorial and controlling behaviors with his family.  He also eventually disassociated himself from our parents and never went back to see them, even at their funerals.  My middle brother became the rebel and stayed away from the family as much as possible, even disappearing for some years after his marriage.  My late friend Dr. Bob observed in me, what he said was, a rare trait of reacting to my past experiences by instinctively developing an unusual degree of sensitivity and empathy for other people, something that apparently helped me to be affective in my profession.  Apparently, I was good at taking care of other people, but not myself.

Yet, despite the damage done to our family, I cannot but help but feel great sympathy for my poor mother.  She suffered greatly in her childhood, and I am not sure how much true joy or love that she felt in her life.  As for me, I know that, as they say, “I've carried a lot of baggage throughout my life.”  It took me some years to understand why. 

And, now that I have told you this story, I will put it on our blog for others to read and to think about.  But, for myself, now that I have read this unhappy tale to you, I will dispose of it and remove it from my computer.  It is too painful for me to keep or to read again.

© 14 June 2016 

About the Author 

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories.  I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.