15. But is love enough?
On my incredible parents and navigating the weight of their sacrifice
Hello Beautiful Human,
I am so glad it is Friday — not because I have some wild plans for the weekend but because I plan to sleep through the entirety of it. My night terrors have been back with a vengeance as of late and after a week running on 8 hours of sleep total instead of 8 a night, I am quite excited to take one dose of Nyquil and catch some serious z’s.
I am not sure if it’s my age — I mean 35 is definitely over the hill, right? ;) — or merely that I have ceased to appreciate rebellion as much as I used to but I finally emphasize sleep as aggressively as my practitioners used to when I was younger. Back then, I practically made a career out of proving that I could pull endless all-nighters and function much to their dismay. Now, I would happily prove that I can sleep 12 hours a night to anyone who offered me the chance to do so. How times have changed. Regardless, please consider this my weekly reminder that sleep is productive and any rest that restores you, is rest well deserved.
In lieu of my exhaustion this week, I struggled to write the chapter for you all until I had the most wonderful interview and conversation with Sarah Fay, a renowned author, advocate, investigative journalist, and creative writing professor. We connected immediately and I could not be more grateful for the renewed energy and passion I felt after talking with her. It is always so refreshing to find someone who is excited to nerd out about the mental health care system like I am and that is exactly what we did. If you are not familiar, I highly encourage you to check out her book — Pathalogical and also her substack — Cured where she shares her own experiences with recovery along with other recovery narratives and resources from experts in the field. If you are also interested in learning how to make a career out of writing and become more effective at writing on substack, in particular, be sure to check out her other substack — Writers at Work as well where she puts her brilliance and MFA to incredible use. (Do I think she is awesome? why yes, yes I do)
Anyways, all that said, thanks to Sarah, I wrote you all this next chapter on time. So now, without further ado, a piece about my incredible parents.
Wishing you a weekend that is exactly what you need it to be.
With love and snugs from the girls.
Kindly,
Kate
15. But is love enough?
Sitting at the breakfast table, coffee in hand my Dad studied the Sunday New York Times in front of him. Fully immersed in whatever he was reading, he didn’t hear me as I took a seat at the top of the stairs and chose to watch him for a moment instead of interrupting his well-deserved peace and quiet. As I studied his furrowed brow and laser focus, I saw grey hairs sprouting from his dark brown hair that I had never noticed and faint wrinkle lines growing by his eyes that I could have sworn weren’t there just a few months earlier. He looked tired and worn down and the very realization of this left a hollowness in my chest.
My dad was a busy man and an incredible one at that. He was the first-born son of an internationally renowned negotiator and Harvard Law Professor and held himself to a near-impossible standard. This impossible standard was the standard his father expected of him and it was one we all suffered under. At just 16, while he was still in high school, he had been tasked with being in charge of his mother’s care after she attempted suicide because his father had to go negotiate abroad in the West Bank. And his care for his mother, who lived with Bipolar Disorder, the same diagnosis I had, only grew from there.
Even under the weight of his mother’s turbulent condition and father’s incessant demands, my dad seemingly always exceeded expectations but after graduating from Harvard, he became an outward-bound instructor on Hurricane Island and fierce outdoorsman taking a notable break from the sky-high expectations and academic pursuits of his family. He spent his early twenties summiting peaks and teaching others how to survive in the wilderness and develop resilience and self-reliance, lessons he instilled in me and my sisters starting at a very early age. I like to think the woods let him have the childhood he never really knew. Of course, the shadow of expectations doesn’t disappear in the backcountry, and after losing one of his best friends on a climb up Nanda Devi, the second-highest peak in India, he went to Harvard Medical School where he met my mother.
He and my mom both pursued Primary Care and after graduating from Harvard, they both did their residencies in Seattle at the University of Washington. In his residency, as he drove an ambulance to make extra money, he realized that he didn’t want to solely practice medicine, he also wanted to fix the broken healthcare system he had lived firsthand through the lens of his mother’s illness. That dream of fixing the healthcare system, of eradicating the profit-driven model in pursuit of an outcomes-based one, was what had brought him and my mom to Dartmouth. They moved with only a part-time job offer and they split that one position at the VA in exchange for my Dad getting an office down the hall from the only academic pursuing the analysis of outcomes in conjunction with healthcare spending in the country.
Perched on the stairs, I mused on that risk – on that bravery – on fighting for a dream born out of pain from his mother’s illness that no one else believed in but him and my mom. And they had done it. My dad went on to not only work with that academic but run the very organization that was born from their findings and afterwards consult on the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, my mom had become a pioneer in healthcare communications and advocating for the patient narrative to be front and center. So respected, she even began to teach “on doctoring” at Dartmouth medical school which taught all students the fundamentals of communication in healthcare while also seeing patients at the local VA. Both their careers were nothing short of impressive and their hard work after all those years had finally paid off just when I got sick in high school.
I thought about all the work dinners that celebrated them that I didn’t attend, all the conferences around the world they left to fly home and visit me in the psych ward and all the times they had chosen me over their own dreams. How could I even be their daughter? How could I ever have come from such incredible human beings who showed up for me always and not be able to make it through a week without drowning myself in a Nyquil bender? And most of all, how would I ever make up for all of the pain that I continually caused them?
My dad shifted in his seat as he turned the page of the newspaper. Catching a glimpse of sock-adorned feet at the top of the stairs, he called out, “Katerina?! Is that you?” It was his pet name for me – his loving name – the one he had called me when I danced swing with him at a wedding as a girl or fiddled on my violin while he sang and played the guitar. Mustering all the positivity I could, I answered that it was indeed me and slowly descended the stairs and entered the kitchen, treading gently as I tried to present as well as I possibly could.
Met with a wide smile, he pointed to the island upon which a massive blueberry coffee cake sat cooling. “Good morning sweetie, I got up early and made your favorite.” I tried to smile – to be light in manner – to simply pretend to be well for a mere moment but even after biting my lip and bowing my head, I still couldn’t keep my tears at bay. I didn’t deserve him or my mom. I didn’t deserve any of this just as they didn’t deserve the pain my illness was forever causing.
He rose to hug me and held me for a moment or two before silently cutting the coffee cake and dolloping a massive piece on a plate in front of me at the table. I ate in silence as he tried to return to the paper, clearly aware that I wasn’t up for talking that morning. Time passed like this for a while and only after my second piece did I find the words to thank him for coming to get me and bringing me home the evening prior.
I remember how he shook his head at that and told me that I never needed to thank him – that it was his honor to be my dad and that I never needed to do anything at all but keep surviving. He emphasized this a few times over – how deeply proud he was that I kept fighting and surviving no matter what. His words were said with pure love and they were meant to be a balm – a statement of nothing but true adoration and understanding. But in the midst of my sadness and overwhelm, they landed differently and all I was left with that morning was a full belly and the feeling that even though I was born from dreamers and change makers who did the very things the world told them they would never do, I would never amount to anything more than survival and the greatest tragedy my family had ever known.
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Eloquent, as always. I hope that now you can see that you are a light to your family and us, and you are changing the way people see mental illness. You are a trailblazer!!
Oh Kate - you've done so much more than just survive! You've become an educator and an inspiration.