"Let her be taken care of: let her be treated as tenderly as may be." - Jane Eyre
A Monster in the Room
I assumed she would get over it, find a great organized man to fall in love with, and slowly acclimate to life outside of the nest.
The person who returned shamefully after two semesters of college was not my sister. She was darker, quieter, and she released a fury on herself that was hateful to listen to. All night she squandered time on YouTube videos and books, then woke late in the afternoon. She ate little for days and then consumed a feast when she finally emerged from her curtained room.
The person who returned from college was not my sister, and I hated her for what she had become. She had been my best friend for seventeen years. We used to stay up together until four o’ clock in the morning talking about our favorite literary elements of books—Beloved almost always came up. We had the same thoughts about things like literature. They weren’t merely for enjoyment; they were meant to be studied out, carefully considered, debated. Countless hours had been passed between us as we attempted to decipher who Beloved really was, lauding at the literary genius that was Toni Morrison.
After she changed, I bought her a book of quotes from Toni Morrison for Christmas. We sat on my bed and read through every single page together, and it was almost like she had never left. One casual statement turned into an hour long discussion about "Recitatif", Song of Solomon, and The Bluest Eye. But then, all at once, she accidentally knocked over a table lamp, scattering the miscellaneous items that had been nustled next to it onto the floor. The peace we had been sharing fled the room to hide from her self-implosion. She hadn’t just knocked down a lamp. Instead, she had somehow re-convinced herself that she was good-for-nothing, would never amount to anything, and was a disgrace to our family. The moment was dead, and somehow her explosion had erased all of my memories of her companionship and I started to believe the things that she was saying.
The person who returned shamefully after two semesters of college was not my sister. She was darker, quieter, and she released a fury on herself that was hateful to listen to. All night she squandered time on YouTube videos and books, then woke late in the afternoon. She ate little for days and then consumed a feast when she finally emerged from her curtained room.
The person who returned from college was not my sister, and I hated her for what she had become. She had been my best friend for seventeen years. We used to stay up together until four o’ clock in the morning talking about our favorite literary elements of books—Beloved almost always came up. We had the same thoughts about things like literature. They weren’t merely for enjoyment; they were meant to be studied out, carefully considered, debated. Countless hours had been passed between us as we attempted to decipher who Beloved really was, lauding at the literary genius that was Toni Morrison.
After she changed, I bought her a book of quotes from Toni Morrison for Christmas. We sat on my bed and read through every single page together, and it was almost like she had never left. One casual statement turned into an hour long discussion about "Recitatif", Song of Solomon, and The Bluest Eye. But then, all at once, she accidentally knocked over a table lamp, scattering the miscellaneous items that had been nustled next to it onto the floor. The peace we had been sharing fled the room to hide from her self-implosion. She hadn’t just knocked down a lamp. Instead, she had somehow re-convinced herself that she was good-for-nothing, would never amount to anything, and was a disgrace to our family. The moment was dead, and somehow her explosion had erased all of my memories of her companionship and I started to believe the things that she was saying.
Which of us was the monster?
During high school, we had driven to and from school together, had shared the same friend group, had enjoyed the same activities. But beneath all of that we knew that it was dissolving. At the time, I felt so sure that I could see all of the things that she needed to do to be alright again. Depression would never lose a battle if she continued in her lackadaisical pattern (I thought). To win back her life, she would need to find stimulation through education, friends, and a career (I thought). I believed I had an answer for all of her problems, and I was furious that she wasn’t acting in the way that I thought would fix her and bring her back to what she had been before. What started as love for my sister and sorrow for what she was becoming slowly grew into an acute hatred. I felt that she was allowing herself to give into her demons, and I couldn’t forgive her for her weakness.
I kept waiting for her to become herself again, to tease me instead of complimenting me endlessly. Her compliments towards me were always stabs at herself. “Mikayla, you’re going to be such a great mom someday” really meant, “Elizabeth, you will never have your own family. You aren’t good enough for that.” I waited for her spastic energy to return, that personality trait that had made her so popular throughout high school. But each day she turned more morose than the last.
I kept waiting for her to become herself again, to tease me instead of complimenting me endlessly. Her compliments towards me were always stabs at herself. “Mikayla, you’re going to be such a great mom someday” really meant, “Elizabeth, you will never have your own family. You aren’t good enough for that.” I waited for her spastic energy to return, that personality trait that had made her so popular throughout high school. But each day she turned more morose than the last.
I approached Elizabeth’s mental illness the same way I approached all of my life’s problems. First, I completely ignored it. Once my emotions were securely situated in a locked cabinet in my mind, I turned to Jane Eyre for comfort. Jane was like me, and I counted on her for everything.
Understanding the Monster through Literature
But even in the world of Thornfield Hall I could not escape Elizabeth. I imagined my sister as Rochester’s deranged wife Bertha, chained in the attic, feeling less than human, feeling otherness. Rather than getting the care and attention that Bertha needed, she was hated, misunderstood, and sent out to the attic to be ignored and forgotten. Eventually, she could not break from the prison of her mind. When her brother, Mr. Mason, finally came to knock on the attic door and find admittance, he was viciously bitten and left to bleed out in the same dark dungeon she was bound in.
Elizabeth reacted similarly to any attempts by friends or family members who knocked at her door. Back then, I assumed it was because she didn't want the help. Knowing what I know now, the root of her mental anguish, I realized that she didn’t need stimulus and advice, which she knew was all that would be forced on her if she ever opened the door. Her real balm could only be an uncritical listener to whom she could unburden the true poison that festered inside of her.
Elizabeth was just as misunderstood as Bertha was, constantly hiding her true self from the rest of the world, while those closest to the situation felt only frustration. Rather than Rochester’s approach of banishing Bertha to the attic, I wish I had looked at my poor, unraveling sister in the way that Mason did: “Let her be taken care of: let her be treated as tenderly as may be.” I truly hated her at first. I didn’t understand why she had fallen so quickly, so suddenly evolved into something strange and terrifying. My family was afraid to breathe around her, my mother spent so many tearful nights in prayer that she would return to herself. My family, especially myself, couldn’t understand that returning to her previous coping mechanisms might have done more damage to her than we could imagine.
I don’t like to think about Elizabeth during this stage of her life, this stage of my life. I was so furious at her for giving up on life that I forgot how to be kind, forgot what she used to be, forgot how she used to act. Residue from that time still settles like a film on my mind, somewhere on a shelf that I pushed back into a deep corner. I feel sick when I think about it. Really, truly, physically ill, where my head pounds and my stomach twists and I change the channel in my mind like switching the radio station. The guilt still bites at me.
Banishing the Monster
No other family in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would understand the deep joy that my family felt when Elizabeth came out to us that she was homosexual. She didn’t revert back to the person she had been before her depressive period, but for once, she was happy again. She could hold her head high when she emerged from her room. She was able to take decisive steps about her future. She enlisted in the army, chopped her hair off, and told us about the girls she thought were cute. Some of her old humor returned to her. Everything that I had attributed to her for weakness, the self-destructive tendencies, the insecurities about her future, suddenly made perfect sense.
She told us she had known since she was a child. I couldn’t believe that my biggest concerns during my adolescence had been a shy nature and inability to pass chemistry tests. Meanwhile, my sister had been struggling with hiding her sexuality from the age of six, trying to understand her place in the gospel that her family was so devoted to, terrified that someone might discover her secret. I thought of when my family drove to Chick-fil-A to show our support when they took a stand against gay marriage, and I shuddered.
When she called to give me the news, she told me that she had been terrified to tell me, convinced that I would be disgusted with her. She will never understand the relief that I felt in the moment that she gave me the news. It opened the line of communication that had been sealed shut for so long. I was finally able to look at her as a sister again, not the Bertha character, shriveled up in the corner.
I don’t completely understand her situation, or what the future holds for her. But I have a rainbow colored pin that sits in a drawer in my apartment that I am not ashamed to own, and I still feel a profound feeling of solace when I remind myself that the dark creature I had been so afraid of for three years had finally been banished for good. She is certainly different, and things aren’t perfect, but I have found how to love my sister again.
Image credits: Personal photos by Mikayla Krupa and Elizabeth Shepherd
Understanding the Monster through Literature
But even in the world of Thornfield Hall I could not escape Elizabeth. I imagined my sister as Rochester’s deranged wife Bertha, chained in the attic, feeling less than human, feeling otherness. Rather than getting the care and attention that Bertha needed, she was hated, misunderstood, and sent out to the attic to be ignored and forgotten. Eventually, she could not break from the prison of her mind. When her brother, Mr. Mason, finally came to knock on the attic door and find admittance, he was viciously bitten and left to bleed out in the same dark dungeon she was bound in.
Elizabeth reacted similarly to any attempts by friends or family members who knocked at her door. Back then, I assumed it was because she didn't want the help. Knowing what I know now, the root of her mental anguish, I realized that she didn’t need stimulus and advice, which she knew was all that would be forced on her if she ever opened the door. Her real balm could only be an uncritical listener to whom she could unburden the true poison that festered inside of her.
I don’t like to think about Elizabeth during this stage of her life, this stage of my life. I was so furious at her for giving up on life that I forgot how to be kind, forgot what she used to be, forgot how she used to act. Residue from that time still settles like a film on my mind, somewhere on a shelf that I pushed back into a deep corner. I feel sick when I think about it. Really, truly, physically ill, where my head pounds and my stomach twists and I change the channel in my mind like switching the radio station. The guilt still bites at me.
Banishing the Monster
No other family in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would understand the deep joy that my family felt when Elizabeth came out to us that she was homosexual. She didn’t revert back to the person she had been before her depressive period, but for once, she was happy again. She could hold her head high when she emerged from her room. She was able to take decisive steps about her future. She enlisted in the army, chopped her hair off, and told us about the girls she thought were cute. Some of her old humor returned to her. Everything that I had attributed to her for weakness, the self-destructive tendencies, the insecurities about her future, suddenly made perfect sense.
She told us she had known since she was a child. I couldn’t believe that my biggest concerns during my adolescence had been a shy nature and inability to pass chemistry tests. Meanwhile, my sister had been struggling with hiding her sexuality from the age of six, trying to understand her place in the gospel that her family was so devoted to, terrified that someone might discover her secret. I thought of when my family drove to Chick-fil-A to show our support when they took a stand against gay marriage, and I shuddered.
I don’t completely understand her situation, or what the future holds for her. But I have a rainbow colored pin that sits in a drawer in my apartment that I am not ashamed to own, and I still feel a profound feeling of solace when I remind myself that the dark creature I had been so afraid of for three years had finally been banished for good. She is certainly different, and things aren’t perfect, but I have found how to love my sister again.
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