Glenn Close: 'Mental Illness Is a Family Affair'
Glenn Close: 'Mental Illness Is a Family Affair'
Inspired by her sister's struggles, the award-winning actress and activist works to erase the stigma of mental health conditions.
"It was New Year's Eve 2001," she says. "I was really drunk, and that was when the urges to kill myself became impossible to ignore. My husband was asleep, all my kids were home in bed, and I went out to his truck and his gun was there, and I was just going to be done with it. With my life. But then I all of a sudden pictured my children's faces and realized what they would have to deal with if they found me. It would be a lifelong curse."
She found the strength to quit drinking and started going to Alcoholics Anonymous -- but "the bipolar disorder continued its nasty work in my brain."
Three years later, the sisters were visiting their parents when Jessie pulled Glenn aside as she was about to leave. "I told her that I had a voice in my head, telling me to kill myself over and over again," she recalls. "The week after that, I was at McLean Hospital in Boston. My sister takes things in hand." (The Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital was the setting for Susanna Kaysen's memoir, Girl, Interrupted, and Sylvia Plath's novel, The Bell Jar.)
It's taken time, and many adjustments to her medications, but today, Jessie successfully manages her illness and travels the country speaking about mental health.
Even though Glenn stepped in and made sure her sister got the help she needed, she says she didn't yet fully understand what Jessie had gone through. "There are a lot of things I didn't learn about, really, until I read the galleys of her book," Glenn says. (Resilience: Two Sisters and a Story of Mental Illness was published in January 2015.) "We didn't have a tradition of checking up on each other -- that wasn't one of the tools in our toolbox. What you have as a child is what your caregivers give you."
Glenn says she has forgiven her parents for any blame that anyone from the outside might expect her to assign them. "They were dealing with things I understand very deeply. They had their own lack of tools in their toolbox. Things can go from generation to generation until somebody says, 'Wait. Let's stop.'"
Glenn Close: 'Mental Illness Is a Family Affair'
Inspired by her sister's struggles, the award-winning actress and activist works to erase the stigma of mental health conditions.
Sister Struggles continued...
"It was New Year's Eve 2001," she says. "I was really drunk, and that was when the urges to kill myself became impossible to ignore. My husband was asleep, all my kids were home in bed, and I went out to his truck and his gun was there, and I was just going to be done with it. With my life. But then I all of a sudden pictured my children's faces and realized what they would have to deal with if they found me. It would be a lifelong curse."
She found the strength to quit drinking and started going to Alcoholics Anonymous -- but "the bipolar disorder continued its nasty work in my brain."
Three years later, the sisters were visiting their parents when Jessie pulled Glenn aside as she was about to leave. "I told her that I had a voice in my head, telling me to kill myself over and over again," she recalls. "The week after that, I was at McLean Hospital in Boston. My sister takes things in hand." (The Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital was the setting for Susanna Kaysen's memoir, Girl, Interrupted, and Sylvia Plath's novel, The Bell Jar.)
It's taken time, and many adjustments to her medications, but today, Jessie successfully manages her illness and travels the country speaking about mental health.
Even though Glenn stepped in and made sure her sister got the help she needed, she says she didn't yet fully understand what Jessie had gone through. "There are a lot of things I didn't learn about, really, until I read the galleys of her book," Glenn says. (Resilience: Two Sisters and a Story of Mental Illness was published in January 2015.) "We didn't have a tradition of checking up on each other -- that wasn't one of the tools in our toolbox. What you have as a child is what your caregivers give you."
Glenn says she has forgiven her parents for any blame that anyone from the outside might expect her to assign them. "They were dealing with things I understand very deeply. They had their own lack of tools in their toolbox. Things can go from generation to generation until somebody says, 'Wait. Let's stop.'"
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