Humpty-Dumpty Sister

Humpty-Dumpty Sister is my attempt to give voice to my sister's life and death with schizophrenia. When I was fourteen and on my way to school early one day, the doorbell rang in our NYC apartment. There stood my seventeen-year old sister, Charmion, her stockings fallen to her knees, her dress crumpled, and tears pouring out of her eyes. She begged not to have to go to school. Our mother enfolded Charmion into her arms, hushed her and whispered to me: "Go to school. She'll be all right." But she was not all right; ever again. She had taken her first fall into paranoid schizophrenia, becoming both suicidal and homicidal. She broke into so many pieces that even I, her champion-charged at five by my father to take care of her, our other sister and Mother-could not, with all my mind, body, heart and soul put her together again. Over most of the next fifty years, Charmion was confined to mental hospitals and residences for the mentally ill. She was: shocked, poisoned, iced into comas, beaten and drugged into "fear and trembling." And more. This is my account of those awful years and events-most of our lives. It is a story of destroyed lives and families, of hope and perseverance, of guilt, sadness and fury. Truly, "lose your dreams and you will lose your mind." But as well, lose your mind and you will lose your dreams.