In He Came In With It: A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness, artist Miriam Feldman expands into writing by sharing very personal experiences with her son’s mental illness as well as the greater impacts on the entire family.
Growing up Nick was a bright, shining light in Feldman’s family. Intelligent and creative, with a great big heart, he charmed those around him and showed great promise as a budding young artist. As he grew into his teenage years, Nick began to engage in some typical adolescent behaviors of exploration and rebellion — lying to his parents about where he was going and what he was doing, experimenting with drugs, falling in love, and having sex for the first time. These behaviours gradually slid into the more bizarre, however. Like so many mothers would, Feldman found herself wanting to protect her son, to explain away these occurrences as something she could fix if only given the proper space and time. For years she took this approach until finally it could be denied no longer that something more significant was happening with Nick.
What began as a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder was, over time, revealed to be Schizophrenia. Feldman ultimately came to realise that Nick had been hiding this slow descent into the depths of his own mind even more than the family realised. In He Came In With It, Feldman shares the ups and downs of navigating the mental health system, seeking the best care for her son within a structure that is all too often broken. From obtaining an accurate diagnosis to experimenting with various medication regimens to find what would work best, no part of this journey has been easy. In fact, Feldman calls the time period that this book covers the “Bad Ten Years.”
As Feldman faced the mental struggle of having a relationship with someone who is still her son, yet in so many ways not her son, she also lost quite a bit of herself. With a gritty — and at times startling — candor, she exposes all of her thoughts and actions on the page. She holds back nothing. Feldman unveils what mental illness can do to a family, how the overwhelming stress day in and day out can drive wedges between the other members, leaving them grasping to stay connected. She shares how these experiences impacted her marriage, leaving her and her husband often at odds on what was causing Nick’s issues and how they should be handled. She discusses how her other children were affected by their brother’s illness. And she shares her own internal struggles — questioning herself and how she could have possibly missed the warning signs, wondering what she could have done differently to help prevent this mental illness from manifesting, and grieving the loss of the life that she always expected Nick would lead. Here Feldman shows that there is a beautiful veracity in exposing our imperfections, our humanity.
While I find the context of the family’s larger story, and particularly Feldman’s story as a mother, both relevant and impactful, I went into the book expecting a bit more about Nick and his journey. This ebbs and flows throughout the book, as the focus often shifts to the impact on Feldman and other stressors ongoing in her life as a mother. I was also troubled by Feldman’s continual use of words such as “crazy” and “nuts” to describe her son. While I understand her approach to this difficult topic is infused with dark humour, and she is able to talk about her family in whatever way she chooses, these choices undermine the mission of mental health advocacy. If we want others to know better what mental illness really is and do better to decrease stigma, we must model this, including the language we use.
Despite this, Feldman’s work ends on a hopeful note and there is surely much that readers can glean from viewing Schizophrenia through the personal lens of one mother’s experiences.
He Came In With It is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore. Thanks to Turner Publishing Company and BookSparks PR for providing me with an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
In an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, where generations of families enjoy deep roots in old homes, the O’Rourke family fits right in. Miriam and Craig are both artists and their four children carry on the legacy. When their teenage son, Nick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, a tumultuous decade ensues in which the family careens permanently off the conventional course.
Like the ten Biblical plagues, they are hit by one catastrophe after another, violence, evictions, arrests, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning…even cancer and a brain tumor…play against the backdrop of a wild teenage bacchanal of artmaking and drugs. With no time for hand-wringing, Miriam advances, convinced she can fix everything, while a devastated Craig retreats to their property in rural Washington State as home becomes a battlefield.
It is while cleaning out a closet, that Miriam discovers a cache of drawings and journals written by Nick throughout his spiral into schizophrenia. She begins a solitary forensic journey into the lonely labyrinth of his mind.
This is the story of how mental illness unspools an entire family. As Miriam fights to reclaim her son from the ruthless, invisible enemy, we are given an unflinching view into a world few could imagine. It exposes the shocking shortfalls of our mental health system, the destructive impact of stigma, shame and isolation, and, finally, the falsity of the notion of a perfect family. Throughout the book, it is the family’s ability to find humor in the absurdities of this life that saves them. It is a parable that illustrates the true definition of a good life, allowing for the blemishes and mistakes that are part of the universal human condition. He Came In With It is the legacy of, and for, her son Nick.
We share a concern.
You show concern about the terms “crazy ” and “nuts”. I show concern about the term “stigma”.
All three are of of the same ilk.
Harold A Maio