How Mental Illness Impacts The Whole Family with Deborah Kasdan

Brian Smith  0:00  
Hey everybody this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth. And this is a podcast where adventure in the profound journey of growth of understanding and hope that often emerges from the deep, deepest grief. So if you're joining us for the first time, I want to give you a heartfelt welcome we delve into the intricacies of the human experience, we explore life, death and the many facets of grief that touches all. Our conversations aim to enlighten, to inspire and provide solace by sharing stories of resilience and of transformation. And today's episode, we're honored your host, Deborah caston. She's the author of the book rollback the world assisters memoir. Her narrative is that her narrative is not just a memoir, it's a powerful exploration into the heart of a family that was grappling with the seismic effects of mental illness. Today, we're gonna dive deep into some of the most pressing issues surrounding mental health. Today, we'll explore the state of mental health options options in the US, we'll discuss the scarcity of resources and the critical need for comprehensive care, we'll get Deborah's insight into navigating the complex world of long term care for family members. And we're gonna shine a light on the often overlooked aspects of mental illness. The relentless and loving care provided by families will also talk about the societal stigma around mental health issues. Her story is a testament to the urgent need for conversation and for change, pushing against the misconceptions and prejudices that so many of us face. Her journey through her experience with her sister, is one I think is going to enlighten us all. So whether you're here seeking comfort, understanding or knowledge, join us as we unfold these vital topics with Debra Katz. And so let's continue to go grow together. Welcome, Deborah to grief to growth.

Deborah Kasdan  1:49  
Hello, Brian. Glad to be here.

Brian Smith  1:51  
Yeah, it's really good to have you here. Deborah, I know that you have you wrote this book about the sister journey that you and your family went through with your sister. So tell me about your sister, Rachel.

Deborah Kasdan  2:04  
Rachel, three and a half years older than me. And she was a very creative, adventurous girl. She loves to explore. And she was, in a way my role model. You know, she told me things I needed to know when I started kindergarten. Oh, you know, you can't just talk you have to raise your hand. What colors went together and when I got dressed, mainly though she big out what books to read. And it was in books and literature and writing that I think we kind of had a lot in common. And she loved. She loved reading. I did too. But she became an high school poet. She loved Walt Whitman. And many of her poems of nature poems like his. And when we when we were in high school, when she was three, she was finishing high school. I was just starting. She would be writing late at night, I'd hear the typewriter going in our room. So she was she was quite a presence in my life.

Brian Smith  3:23  
Yeah, I can imagine sisters. So how many? How many total children in your family?

Deborah Kasdan  3:28  
We were four. Okay, Rachel, then three and a half years later, myself than I Brother barely two years younger than me and then younger sister seven years younger than me. Okay.

Brian Smith  3:44  
And I know your books about your sister and your and your families because I want to add your family because these journeys will go through the world. We're all together. We're all intertwined. So tell me about the beginning of her for her diagnosis. When did that happen?

Deborah Kasdan  3:59  
After she finished high school in high school, she was a little bit troubled. She had trouble focusing on on her schoolwork and she was more interested in doing her own thing. After she didn't want to go to college right away. And this was high school where most of the kids went to college. So she decided to go to Israel and work on a kibbutz and she joined up with a group and she loved working on the kibbutz and she's she was just a natural because the much that she loved to read and write she loved physical activity, labor. And we got very detailed letters about her activities and adventures and Israel. And she came home and she looked just great. She was Bronston beautiful and just just wonderful looking and very worldly and cosmopolitan. But But then she began traveling in in the states to New York, we were in St. Louis, then middle of the country, and she would go off to New York live on the Lower East Side. And then she decided you want to live in San Francisco. And she was kind of bouncing around, and she kind of lost her way. And a friend, she was going with a friend to Montreal and the friend called up my parents and said that something was wrong. Come get her or put it, they put her on a plane. My parents picked her up when she was in San Francisco. The lawyer she worked for she was a legal secretary says something's wrong from gather. So apparently, she was having some type of psychotic breaks. And my parents committed her to a hospital. I mean, there were attempts to have treatment with, you know, sec, private psychiatrists. They recommend institutionalization. So she was she was 23. That was in 1965. We're going back a bit. But she was 23 when she was first institutionalized.

Brian Smith  6:17  
And up to that point, did you notice anything about her her mental health or her mental state?

Deborah Kasdan  6:24  
She was angry a lot. She had especially well, both my parents, but especially to my mother. And I attribute that to some past history from very early years. So she just seemed very, very angry and intent on doing her own thing, kind of opposition, I will say, call it now. But I first noticed something when, but I thought my parents just wanted her to, you know, lead a more conventional life, not that they were all that conventional. But you know, they didn't, when she didn't want to go to college full time, they said, okay, but then you should have a job, but then she couldn't keep her jobs. But I first noticed something when she came back from San Francisco. And she told me that two men had followed her from New York City to San Francisco. She had seen too many. And I could just see the fear in her eyes. And I knew she was in the grip of something, you know, beyond just normal, rebellious, rebellious behavior.

Brian Smith  7:38  
Right. And she was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Is that right? Okay.

Deborah Kasdan  7:46  
Yeah, it's kind of a catch all diagnosis and overlaps now with a lot of overlap with bipolar disorder now, with schizoaffective disorder. But it's actually checked all the boxes for schizophrenia here.

Brian Smith  8:07  
Okay. And you said you of course her, your parents tried to get her private treatment at first with psychiatrists? I guess psychologists had it. How did that go? And at what point did your parents or someone make a decision? She had to be hospitalized? Yeah.

Deborah Kasdan  8:25  
I think she would. She knew how to gain the system with the private doctors. And she knew what to say she's very, very, very bright. So she never would continue very long with them. When she was hospitalized, I was away at summer camp working as a counselor there residential camp. So this was after my second No, after my first year of college, and I what I didn't see exactly what what happened. And that's one of the issues it's always bothered me that I never really understood exactly why my parents hospitalized her to begin with. And because it's very traumatic to be involuntarily hospitalized, and it causes a lot of it can cause a lot of damage on its own. And I think that's what happened to Rachel. So I think they saw a lot of self destructive behavior. So and she had been living at home and as she might have run off, she might have ran off and gotten herself into trouble. My father would sometimes have to pick her up, you know, she would kind of hang out in the streets for a while. So I'm not sure exactly what triggered it at that particular time. But it was very upsetting. Very shocking to me. And my parents telling me that, you know, they'll they have new medication now, you know, they'll give her the medication and she'll get better. But I think that the initial medications she had, they gave big doses in those days. And they weren't quite as good as they weren't as good as the medication we have now, which also has bad side effects. But these can be really, really knocked her out. She was sedated, basically, they call it chemical handcuffs. And see, it was very difficult than when I did see her in the hospital. So she it was the beginning of deinstitutionalization. You know, when they were closing, when they decided, ask, you know, people shouldn't be staying in hospitals for a long term. And she was she was discharged to very dangerous parts of St. Louis, and was harmed there. She said she was assaulted, raped, in boarding houses there. And my parents were just beside themselves and wanted to get her readmitted. And they're in the hospital, to discharged her several times to these very in a inappropriate and unsafe conditions. And that began a so called revolving door of discharge, and readmission, discharged readmission. So that was a pattern for quite a number of years.

Brian Smith  11:57  
So what is what was your experience in terms of the way mental illness was accepted or not accepted during that time?

Deborah Kasdan  12:07  
It was very, it. Yeah, it was, it was still there was stigma, just and there's still a stigma. There's something especially schizophrenia, I think, when you have that diagnosis, it has all kinds of associations. I mean, my parents were very educated. My father was a social worker, not a clinical social worker, but he did community work. So they, they were aware of, you know, they, they were pretty sophisticated in their thinking. But, you know, it's still, it's still embarrassing, and there's shame, and especially for my mom, because even they, they would blame it on the mother. And my mother was very defensive with with a hospital social worker and didn't want to get invited thought, felt very strongly that she was being blamed. I was never part of the sessions with the hospital because I was away at school. And that's one of the issues that that I bring up in my book, I said, it's so important for families to have support early on, and that everybody knows what's happening. But I didn't feel comfortable talking about it. And I think, you know, I think that I just felt shame that I couldn't, that I couldn't do anything for her and that my family couldn't do anything for her. We couldn't afford a private hospital that would have you know, involved Son House or, you know, just all it's just impractical for middle class families. And to be in a state hospital like she was in, it's just, it's, it's just, there's a stigma. Mass media, had people like Sybil, multiple personality disorders, lots of people think schizophrenia is multiple personality disorder. It's not that's, that's a very, very narrow diagnosis. So it was very, very difficult to talk about. And I think largely because of my own sense of shame and hopelessness, and I didn't know you know, as time went on, it became less and less clear that you could really recover from this. I mean, that initial hope goes away pretty fast. So it, I think what was most damaging is that it was so difficult to talk about in the family itself. I think everybody had their own response to it. So you're talking about six, six people, right? They're all six with their own lives and their own needs and their own issues. And I think not being able to talk about it in the family was very non productive in the long run.

Brian Smith  15:35  
So within the family you had to have, would you approach it at all? I mean, or did you approach it at all? Well,

Deborah Kasdan  15:42  
everybody was different. But, you know, I asked my, my parents and they gave me the answer that they heard from the psychiatrists. And I said, you know, I don't understand that they told me as much as they could. And my mother shared, it was easiest to talk to my mother. But I believe that they were doing the best that they could, and they were doing all that they put, my brother thought they were at what it was outrageous to institutional ICER, he identified with her more strongly, he felt more rebellious than I did, and had his own issues that he was dealing with, that involve some shame on his part. And he never got to talk about his issues till much later. And then my. So he was he pretty much distanced himself from the family name, right after. Now, we, my brother and I were both in those early years, we just started college. I went off to Michigan, he went off to Seattle. So we were spread out pretty far. And my little sister stayed home. But she was, you know, she was 13 years old when this started, so and so she had all issues of adolescence. And so everybody was, you know, all all the things that you try to deal with, with kids, individually, that, you know, the kind of brushed aside. In fact, you know, my my mother said, towards the end of her life, she said, I just regret that all the focus was on Rachel, and I didn't understand her at first, you know, because I thought we didn't do enough for her. But she, I think, you know, and reflection, I've refined that nine that she meant that she didn't get to deal with us as much as you know, as much as she would have liked to individually. For our own individual development. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Smith  17:56  
So was Rachel. Yeah, I know, she was in the hospital, did she have better times or what was experienced?

Deborah Kasdan  18:07  
Yeah, the thing about mental illness, with psychosis related illnesses. The psychosis is the psychosis or episodic themselves, and she could get kind of manic and you know, just dash off somewhere and do something. Right. But then, I think, if they're not overly medicated, you know, there they can, there can be, you know, you can function and then they can learn, learn how to deal with this site with psychotic episodes or avoid them. So, when she was, well, you know, she could visit and talk and, you know, have fun and have interesting conversations. She read. They tried some jobs, like, you know, some very for her low level jobs, you know, like babysitting because she, I shouldn't say low level, but I mean, they were below her educational level. And, yes, I think she could do that for a little while. But then, you know, she got bored because she wanted to be a poet. She wanted to be a writer. And she she was writing poetry. And she's, that's, that's what she wanted to do. So what? Yeah, but I think the overmedication just suppressed. What would have been the high points and in her in her development? Yeah,

Brian Smith  19:48  
it's I

Deborah Kasdan  19:50  
think it's every Yeah, it's a tough

Brian Smith  19:52  
line to because we want to keep people from getting too high. They medicate them but then they they're not. They're not functioning there. They're cutting off their personality, their creativity. I think a lot of people feel like when they're when they're having those, that medication, so they rebel against it.

Deborah Kasdan  20:09  
Yeah, yeah. So there there are people now who are working to, to recover without depending so much on medication. And they don't even use the phrase schizophrenia, they use the word hearing, hearing voices. And they, they, they find they work on ways to, to, to avoid the voices when they can but to live them live with them when they need to, and have and not make medication, the centerpiece of their recovery.

Brian Smith  20:49  
So how do you feel things have improved since that diagnosis, if at all.

Deborah Kasdan  20:58  
There is some better medication, but everybody cannot tolerate it, it has specially for for the psychosis, it can have very severe side effects, life threatening side effects. So people who use it have to be tested all the time, regularly, if they don't have their blood work, and will show if they're going to have a reaction to it. There are ways to recover that involve outpatient treatment, and supportive housing, because housing is one of the biggest, biggest needs for people who have trouble keeping a job, or a well paying job. So, and that's what Rachel ultimately found, it took a long time, but she found an agency, a local agency that that could provide that for her. So there are models of recovery, that have, you know, that may or may not have medication, I think most of them have some medication. But without these other things, the medication won't really be enough. So the trouble, of course, now is lack of consistent funding and robust funding. So you get into a cycle that short staffed, if they're not effective, and then people say, Well, you know, they're not working well. They're not working because they don't have effective, robust funding from the community that involves community funding, state funding federal grants, it can be done. Yeah.

Brian Smith  22:51  
What do you what do you wish people knew about mental health issues? What do you wish society would understand that we don't understand?

Deborah Kasdan  22:59  
Well, the people can recover, even from severe mental illness there. If you know if it's done, right, there is recovery is possible that families need to be involved early on, because there, they can be a wonderful source of support, if families are able to stay intact, and understand, you know, and just know what to expect, and deal with their own issues. As you know, every family is going to have its own issues every individual does, then they can be a support. But sometimes, when you have a person who's very oppositional, they may know they may want to not want to be with their family, then the community needs to, to provide that support. And that sometimes when you see people who are obviously seriously mentally ill on the streets, or the parks wherever that I wish people could understand that they have families who love them that may not have been able to help them and may or may not be estranged by but it's not always because they were rejected. It's because families didn't have the support or the circumstances were such that they couldn't support them. So that so that it's so that people of all, you know, with severe mental illness are they have their histories, they have their capabilities, they have their problems, but they're full people have come from families and communities.

Brian Smith  24:43  
So with your family, you mentioned, you know, the stigma, I think, but also I would was there any like, you know, we should be able to, you know, she should be able to live with us or was there guilt and having to institutionalize that Without go,

Deborah Kasdan  25:00  
Oh, definitely severe guilt. My brother was very angry at my parents. And that led to some temporary estrangement on his part.

I respected my parents decision. But yet, I couldn't. I just couldn't talk to them about my feelings. And I just had this feeling of hopelessness, and helplessness being helpless is a terrible feeling. You know, for some years. As it turned out, throughout her life, I think the one thing my sister wanted from me was to send her books until her her last year is when she was hard for her to read that. I had to pick up books and send them to her wherever she was staying because she moved around a lot, even in hospitals. And some, you know, some cash for for cigarettes. That was the extent of the help I could give her. I thought a lot about why can't she live with us. But I never would, I couldn't raise my own children and have my own career, if she was living with us. I just had this fear that she would take off, and I'd have to go find her. So I was I was almost haunted haunted by this fear. And she couldn't live with my mother, there was too much tension and anger between them. She would ask some times, and then I feel guilty that I couldn't go out and have her in my family, or household. And then she would say, and then she would change her mind. She said, No, I don't want to, I don't want to live with my sister. She didn't. I think the ideal situation would have been to find her something someplace near a family near my parents at the beginning, is can if there was supportive housing that was effective, then family can be involved. Even if they can't live with them, they can be involved with their, with the light with their life, somewhat involved in the decision, so they can't make all the decisions. But to keep the connection, I think that's what's so important. Because when estrangement sets in, then you lose the connection. So there were periods where I didn't know where my sister was. I couldn't even write not not long periods, but we're talking about 3030 plus years span. So in addition to times, she moved to different hospitals for various reasons. And then when she would get out, she she could be you know, there were times when she was living on the streets, and I didn't know where she was. And so she got

Brian Smith  28:04  
readmitted during that time, but she make your own decisions or did some of that power of attorney for her.

Deborah Kasdan  28:11  
My parents remained official guardians. And my father did and then when he died, my mother did. But that doesn't mean you get to make decisions. That's just some legal construct. She would get her SSI checks directly sent to the hospital where she was at. So when I think they were involved in the decisions while she was in St. Louis and St. Louis State Hospital for 15 years. But then there was the big change when my brother took her out west and then everything changed.

Brian Smith  28:53  
So your brother did take her out west for a period of time? Yes,

Deborah Kasdan  28:57  
he decided. So that this was 15 years, 15 years into this. He was freshly divorced. And he decided that he could get her help. She needed and he was going back to Seattle. He had moved away but he was going back and he could get her the help he needed and he lined up. We had lots of meetings about it, family meetings about it. It was a big decision. We didn't do it lightly. And I felt I didn't know whether what he proposed was possible. We spent a lot of time talking about it. involved my younger sister and and he just didn't see any hope for her in St. Louis. He didn't agree with my parents decision. They had a lawsuit going against the state state hospital. It was in federal court. And he thought that would just keep her in the hospital rather than help her get out. So I supported and my little sister supported the decision to take her out to the Pacific Northwest to Seattle. And he had doctors lined up and consultations and it lasted three months. And then she was on her own. She took off. And she got into the Oregon State Hospital System. Okay.

Brian Smith  30:39  
So when she would take off like that, how would she end up in another hospital? Would it be through the police site? Or how did that happen?

Deborah Kasdan  30:49  
I think when when she left my brother, I think it was voluntary. She had been in a day treatment program. And I think that was he had been trying to get her into that it was voluntary. So all of the above, sometimes it was police. When she got into the Oregon State system, it was the police, I think she said a little fire or something, it's a way to attract attention to get home. And that was the police, then she was discharged. And when the when the placements didn't work, and the halfway homes, oh, you know, it might be voluntary. It might be involuntary. Sometimes, if she didn't have a place to stay, she would just knock on the door, so to speak about the hospital and ask for readmission, because she was so damaged. I mean, you know, after all those years, you know, your, the whole system infantilizes somebody they didn't want to keep her for, you know, for many years, they were incentive incentive for them was to move her into transitional housing, but it never worked for her. And so then be you know, eventually she was in a chronic ward. And that's when she finally met up with somebody who was able to, to get what she needed. Get away from needed. Yeah.

Brian Smith  32:23  
So it's, it sounds like over the years, maybe things have gotten a little bit better. What would you like to see in our mental health system, if you could, if you had a magic wand, you can wave it?

Deborah Kasdan  32:34  
Well, something like that what finally worked for her local agencies who have roots in the community, ideally near family, that didn't happen for Rachel but that could have that's the ideal system. Where but not that the family controls adults with severe serious mental illness but you know, they might have some input and sick and so local agencies that are funded by this by local communities and the state philanthropic funding as well as you know, government funding that fatten house is a model for that that's a national organization, where they provide recovery where they have therapy, occupational therapy, socializing, people need a purpose, they need coaching, to go back to school, or job coaching is a big is very important, how to keep a job and you know, it takes a lot of staff to, to to help people get back in the community after they've been in the hospital you know, as well as talk there, you know, therapy, clubhouses are important for where people who have been in hospitals can socialize, and they that's what the program is called clubhouses and and learn and practice like, you know, life skills. People need to have a purpose and I think with coaching they can they can succeed in jobs, and school.

Brian Smith  34:39  
I want to go back to something you said earlier, you were saying that someone I guess so maybe the doctors were putting blame on your mother for Rachel's condition. What in what way were they blaming your mother?

Deborah Kasdan  34:55  
Oh, just being that goes back. to like the, you know, with autism, the idea of the refrigerator mother that was in the 1960s, it's kind of kind of post Freudian type of thinking that the, you know, the mothers responsible for, you know, the development of the child. And if they don't bond, if, you know, if the if they don't. And mothers were blind, you know, for anything, children in those days, you know, it's not so much these days, but it was back then. I mean, there were issues with my mother, but you know, children grow up with issues against their parents, so, but the accurate but the issues Rachel had caused her to accuse my parents of things, and then the, the psychiatrist in charge of her, her her case would then believe her literally, instead of having these open, having constructive non judgmental conversations, there would be conversations about blame. So whenever you get a family together, you know, kids are going to start blaming their parents and somebody's going to either support them or, or not, you need people who are skilled and very non judgmental family interactions. There is an approach now they call it open dialogue, where you have family, a family system, and you've been the host, and maybe close other people in the network close on the network, you bring them together and allow them to discuss the issues that might be between parent and child, mother and child in a way that allows everybody to air their grievances and to be non judgmental. So I think that's the key. People were just quick to have judgments about mothers in those days. Yeah, I think that that's not it's not as bad now. Yeah.

Brian Smith  37:08  
So I know in your book, you included some of Rachel's poetry's, and her letters kind of come through, in her own words. So what would you like for us to know about Rachel?

Deborah Kasdan  37:19  
Oh, that she was fiercely intelligent people. I talked to people who knew her in Israel, and I said, Oh, she was talking about things, you know, she, politics and art. And she, she was curious and adventurous. Her thinking was adventurous. And she was a good person. She never knowingly hurt anybody. And she just had a sense of adventure. She, I, she had a lot to offer. You and she had a beautiful spirit. And I think the strength of that spirit is what worked for her and against her. She didn't she wouldn't give in think something didn't make sense. She, I got as part of my research, I got notes from the Oregon State Hospital System that she was in. And it's very hard to go through but you know, when they would tell her she would have to hygiene is a big issue for people with schizophrenia, for some reason, that they lose their sense of hygiene. So they were always encouraging, trying to get her to shower more. And a nurse said, you know, I told her, I gave her the shampoo and she said, the soap will do fine, you know, she just like let me do it my way. So she had this sense of herself, that might have gotten her trouble and trouble with people in charge of the system. And but yet it kept her going and kept her through all these really rough times. And that's and she is She survived the system. She did survive the system. And that's the story that you know, I help people enjoy in the book is how she survived it. And she was able to meet up with people who meant something to her who she could connect with, specially in the last decade of her life. And she had a spiritual side to that I wasn't even aware of her for quite a while.

Brian Smith  39:55  
Really Tell me about your spiritual side. Well,

Deborah Kasdan  39:57  
at the end of the book, I Um, when she, she found that a synagogue, and she, without the help of her caseworker, her social worker, he told me that she would just go there herself. And they didn't know, they were shocked that she looked like a street person. And they were shocked when they saw her saying the prayers. They thought she was just looking for shelter, but then they realized and, and they got her to clean yourself up a little bit. And they honored her and had her lead, lead the congregation in prayer. And I only found out about that after she died from somebody who contacted me. And yeah, you know, part of, I think being a poet, you know, is kind of transcendent. There's a transcendence to it, the identification with nature. She always that's one of the reasons we thought she might do better in the Pacific Northwest. She loved nature so much, and she loved walking. And to her that was a very spiritual, spiritual experience when she was in Eastern Oregon and Pendleton. I think she identified with the Native American indigenous population there. They were very prominent in that part of the country. She talked to me when I visited her a lot about their beliefs. So she was seen as a seeker. Yeah.

Brian Smith  41:43  
So she passed at the age of 59. Was a Correct, correct, yeah. So she she did survive the system, as you said, for several years. Was she in the system when she passed, or were you able to to be with her or anything like that?

Deborah Kasdan  41:59  
She was out of the hospital system. Okay, this, this was this marvelous caseworker who got her out. And she was just in under the care of this local agency. And they found housing for her. It took a couple tries before they found her the perfect place for her in the woods, and not totally remote, because there were other these little houses in the woods. So. So they brought her medication that she needed and helped her out as much as she wanted, she could walk, she could take a you know, hike whenever she felt like it. And she, she was there, they would leave with a medication. So she had her freedom, which is what I always just wanted for her, I wanted her to be free. And I just hated the thought of her being confined. And she had her freedom. And she was under the care of this agency, but it was not the hospital system. Okay.

Brian Smith  43:05  
And so you, you have your corporate career, and you decide I'm going to write a book about my sister and with this as my family. So what was what was the reasoning behind you putting the book out? Why did you decide to make this? Yeah,

Deborah Kasdan  43:17  
that's a big, I think Rachel just just influenced me. She, when she died, I just wanted people to know. I wanted to just write and a testament to her to who she was. And I said, I felt this urge to tell her story. So yes, he said, I was working corporate. And it took me a long time. I did a little bit of this a little bit of research. When my mother came to live with, live with me, my family and I interviewed her a lot got lots of stories from her. And when I retired from my corporate career, I was able to, to write more consistently. And it came together and bits and pieces and with encouragement from people who actually had my writing with and writing classes, and I wanted to be able to share her poetry too. So I do as he said, I have six poems in the in the in the book. And so I braved to get I braided together my story and my sister's story and my family's story. And I just felt that, that I wanted to honor her. I wanted to solve the mystery to me of why it got why her her condition became so bad. And that meant delving into family history, family decisions and And I braided that into the story too. So I had this curiosity about what happened. So writing the book helped me solve it, I got hold of all these letters, and I could see certain patterns that I hadn't been aware of before.

Brian Smith  45:19  
How how's your, your remaining family have they reacted to the book being out

Deborah Kasdan  45:24  
of there? Well, um, my siblings are very supportive. My mom passed by the time it would have been a little bit hard to publish it while she was alive, because there were painful parts of her life and you know, who needs to, you know, to go through that, again, when you're in your 90s. And so it was just my, my two siblings left. And they were supportive, and, and helped me with the timeline, and we call recall certain things. And then my own children were just really, really very supportive. When my daughter said, who was born when Rachel first became ill, my first daughter said, Oh, now I understand what I was born into. I was born into the middle of something, you know, when she when she read the description of what exactly was happening when she was born? My granddaughter would come in when she was tiny. She's She's teenager now. But you know, when to book we're going to be finished how many pages? She would just egged me on it. I couldn't stop after that. I mean, it was a matter of I just had to finish it. I, yeah. invested so much time and commitment to it. And once you tell people, you're writing a book, then?

Brian Smith  46:59  
Yeah, once it's out there, people start to ask you when to come? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm really, I'm glad that you, you're telling Rachel story, and you're in your family story. And, and, you know, sharing her legacy and I, every time we do this, I help helps overcome that stigma that we have around mental illness. You know, we were talking about people don't understand it. There's a lot of blame that goes around lot of shame that goes around. And the way to overcome that is to, to expose us to the truth, you know, The Good, the Bad, and the and the not so great. So appreciate you doing that very much. Yeah.

Deborah Kasdan  47:40  
And I hope people will support organizations that support people who need it because of mental illness. Yeah.

Brian Smith  47:47  
Yeah, I think, you know, I, we used to go to extremes. We just institutionalized people. And then we kind of went to the other extreme, and just, you know, everybody's kind of on their own. So hopefully, we're finding a more healthy balance now.

Deborah Kasdan  48:00  
Right, right. And if people are failing outside of the SEC, it's not. The answer is not to send them back in but to, to provide better community support, and keep funding those organizations that can provide it, like the one that finally helped Rachel.

Brian Smith  48:19  
Deborah, thanks so much for being here today. Remind people again of the name of your book and where they can find out more about you?

Deborah Kasdan  48:26  
Well, that the world assisters memoir, I have a website, Deborah caston.com. And you can find the book, Online at any of the online bookstores, Barnes and Noble Amazon bookstore.org. And I hope people will be touched learning about nature.

Brian Smith  48:50  
I'm sure they will. I have the links in the show notes so people can find it. And Deborah, again, thanks for being here and enjoy the rest of your day.

Deborah Kasdan  48:57  
Thank you. Bye. Bye bye.

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