I believe that each of us has one thing he was put here to do in his lifetime. My mother's "one thing" was to drive me to the hospital. She refuses to take credit for my recovery, yet I'm convinced her act of courage made the difference between my having a life worth living, and living a life spent on the margins. My intent in interviewing Mary Ann Bruni was to inspire you to seek help. Here now, an intimate Q&A.
On September 25, 1987 at five o'clock in the afternoon, I took you and Dad in the backyard and told you the government was after me. That night, I had a break with reality. By ten the next morning, you had driven me to the psych ER. A day later, I was in the hospital and given Stelazine. Within three weeks, I no longer had any of the positive symptoms that I presented when I got sick. [I was 22 years old, and had graduated from the university in June.]
CB: How did you know what to do? Why did you take immediate action instead of waiting?
MB: That's a good question. Everything you said was pretty accurate. Let me see, I don't know, I took immediate action but I believe Daddy was a nurse at the time [he was] and so he knew that it was a mental problem. He didn't put a name to it, but schizophrenia, that was the name they put to things like that. There was no certainty. But we agreed it was not right, you were not yourself, so we had to seek help, there was no denying it, and no reason to wait for it. Because-because why? When we talked about it, the week before you actually broke with reality. You had taken Daddy aside and you were talking to him, telling him all your plans, you were very hurried, your demeanor was hurried. And you had also done the same to me, you said, "You know, I'm not going to live [on the Island] all the time," and things like that. I understood, but you were talking nonstop, and you were never like that. This was the week before your breakdown-and so we knew then, we put it all together and said, "This is not right." So I knew you had to go to the hospital, and I took you to Veronica Lane.
CB: I was locked in the chair, and you came to give me the pudding because you couldn't give it to me while I was in the [psych] ER. What happened in that moment when you saw me in the chair?
MB: It was a heartbreak-it was a heartbreak. You could never see your child in such a state. It was more than I could take. And every time we would visit you after that, I would leave there and feel like I wanted to throw up, I got the shakes, like my body wasn't my own any more. That is not like me-I'm strong-but during those visits it was traumatic to see you like that, my little baby, it was a heartbreak. I must have thought, a touch of reality with your Mommy, and something you liked at the time-chocolate pudding-because I wanted you to know that I was there for you, I wanted you to be aware I was there.
CB: The nurse unlocked me, took me to a room where I could shower, and get dressed again. An hour later the psychiatrist with blue eyes came in with you and Dad, and told me, "Chris, you have to take the medication. You don't want to have paranoid schizophrenia." How did you feel about that suggestion?
