– When is Maggie coming back from overseas?
I was having a chat with my sister’s friend from school at the Farmer’s Market stall where she and her husband sold hot, thin crêpes, patés and cheeses. We exchanged inquiries about our children and then, flipping a crêpe while glancing at her waiting customers, she moved on to ask about my wider family.
– And Marcus, does he have kids? No? Lives the bachelor life does he, good for him. No ties yet ha ha.
It’s sometimes difficult for people to have even the vaguest concept of what Marcus’s life is like – it’s a mystery to me and I have spent a lot of time with him over the years. But I do know that it’s a world away from any notions of footloose, party-loving bachelors enjoying the single life. Marcus has a serious mental illness, schizophrenia, which means that he hears voices that aren’t there and, at its worst in the throes of his psychosis, he has no concept at all of what is real and what is not.
I have seen Marcus’s diagnosis labelled by a doctor as ‘treatment resistant.’ While severely disabled by his condition, he has long periods when he functions well and with help he can live fairly independently. He can only manage to work for two hours a week when he is well but his life has the rhythms and routines of ordinary people and his pursuits – exercise, looking after his dog, domestic chores, a coffee at a café, participation in a course like Tai Chi or photography, and time with family – are the sorts of pursuits that we all take part in and which contribute to a full life. Dad is an amazing support for him: as well as advocating to receive the services of Marcus’s community workers, he bought Marcus a dog, has funded and organised his share house and visits him every day.
A valuable part of Marcus’s life since he became an uncle seven years ago has been his time with his nephew and now his two nieces. As I have mentioned in an earlier blog, he and dad often drop in for a visit after church on Sundays and read the girls stories or take them for a walk down the street. He made them a toy wooden boat each a few weeks ago, learning the skill over a few weeks at the local Men’s Shed just so he could make something for them. He always greets the girls ‘hello Lara, hello Rhea’ and is happy to see them, and sometimes he brings his poodle too, which prompts excitement and delight. They are comfortable sitting on his knee having their shoes put on or looking at a book. He is one of the few people whose hand they will take.
Since Christmas though, Marcus hasn’t been as well as normal and has been more withdrawn, anxious and depressed. Whether cause or effect, he lost his part-time gardening job early in the New Year and this coincided with his very kind housemate being overseas for nearly two months and with a decreased level of functioning and mental health. He took to asking me more often when we talked how he should handle his illness and what I thought he should do to improve his motivation. He started collapsing in public places and being taken by ambulance to hospital. In the past five months he has been hospitalised in the acute mental health facility about five times, from periods of a few days to weeks at a time. Sometimes he has seemed cheerful when dad has taken me to visit, more often he is silent, lethargic and depressed.
Throughout he whispers to himself periodically as he has done for nearly twenty years now since his first ‘episode’ of psychosis, and his whisperings are his own private conversations. Increasingly over the past months his whisperings have grown louder and they ask, ‘why is this happening to me? Go go go go go.’ They ask me or others around him or they are words repeated like a mantra. I don’t know if there is any point in replying, or what is the best thing to say.
Last weekend things came to a head during a visit to our house. Dad had persuaded the hospital to release Marcus for the weekend on condition that dad stayed with him the whole time, which he had done, even sleeping on his couch and feeding him breakfast in the morning – Dad doesn’t want Marcus to become institutionalised and lose touch with the outside world. He had taken Marcus to church then to deliver some prunings to the tip and they came over to see the girls just before lunch.
Dad was first to the door holding Mozart, the poodle, by the lead, and his eyes flashed with a penetrating gaze. Marcus was behind him and allowed himself to be kissed but was silent and vacant. I chattered on saying I needed to change the girls’ nappies. He followed me in to their room as I did so but he wasn’t really conscious of his surroundings. ‘Say hello to Lara, Marcus,’ I said, the big sister talking. He said nothing.
I carried on with the nappies and Marcus wandered into the lounge room. He tripped over some of the girls’ toys and nearly fell. Steadying himself he spun around and around slowly as if showing us physically what his mind was doing. Dad decided it was time to go and led and coaxed Marcus to the front door. And after that there was chaos.
The door was closed but Marcus wanted to get back in. He fell on the clothes airer on the front porch where the nappies were drying, mangling it beyond repair. Oblivious to his dog tied nearby, he pulled away from dad when dad tried to get him to the car. He rang our doorbell repeatedly then he was at the car but he wouldn’t get in. We were inside with the girls so as not to frighten them, and we heard running and thrashing around in the bushes in the garden. He fell on some of them, we later found branches ripped off and his jacket was razored right down the back. Dad, Steve and I agreed that an ambulance needed to be called. At his insistence I took the ambulance with him back to hospital that day.
Marcus is not likely to see the girls for many weeks now: his medication has been increased significantly, causing him to be sleepy for much of the day, and he is not well enough for visits out. I don’t know whether the girls will remember that visit when they see him again and will be wary of him. As they grow up they will doubtless become used to his ways and may not see him as someone who sometimes acts strangely and has a disability, but rather as an individual – their uncle and godfather – who is always interested in what they are doing.
In knowing Marcus, I hope that he will make them kinder, more empathetic people who appreciate the broad spectrum of humanity that always has and always will make up our world.
