On Love in America

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I entered adulthood knowing that I had a defective heart. Literally, this was in the form of a mitral valve that might someday need to be replaced. Figuratively, it was because I had grown up hearing psychiatric terms being applied to siblings, along with the diagnosis “born without the ability to love.” I knew that the fact these descriptions were applied to siblings but not myself was random. Instead of concluding that the description and terms were inaccurate and unjust, however, I looked into my own heart for this ‘ability to love’. I knew I had to hide the fact that I could not find it, or risk the same fate as my siblings.

I’ve learned in my life and work that — though it may be fundamental — love is a tricky concept. Many if not most of us have heard the word spoken when we know it represents anything else — a demand, a warning, a threat, or a punishment. Many have experienced the word in association with horrific acts and enter adulthood wondering whether this thing that’s expected of us even exists, and by what miracle we might be able to perform it.

I spent my early adulthood doing ambitious things that I thought might compensate for my heart’s deficiency, and obscure that fact that I was not able to do it. It seemed to me that only a miracle could result in loving or being loved — a theme I’ve discovered within many people’s experiences that get labeled psychosis — and chose to do something that at the time seemed like it would take a miracle to achieve, which was making movies.

I’m proud of the movies I made, but lost faith that making movies would lead me to knowing what I needed to know, let alone convince (or fool) someone to love me. I turned toward becoming a therapist but as I studied the DSM I began to realize that all the terms I’d grown up hearing were specious. I was studying and working in the William James building — a literal ivory tower at Harvard, named after a man sometimes referred to as the father of American psychology — and thought about how appalled William James would be at what was being done literally in his name. The DSM was like a sweater that falls apart as soon as you tug a thread, and I went looking for other perspectives. I read Bob Whitaker’s Mad in America when it came out in 2002 and realized that the whole psychiatric enterprise is built on a foundation of sand.

Mad in America reads like a mystery novel about the history of psychosis treatment, in which the central question is “could we possibly have been — and continue to be — this stupid?” (I won’t give away the answer, but if you are reading this you probably know how it ends.) When I saw on the dust jacket that Bob and I lived in the same city, I called and to my surprise we soon had lunch and have been friends since.

At the time Bob seemed pessimistic that after all the work he’d put into the book, there was not much hope of denting the pharmaceutical industry’s edifice. At the conferences I went to, however, Bob was already becoming a hero to people whose experiences had been systematically ignored, belittled, and derided.

So when I saw that Bob was accepting any invitation to speak — occasionally paid but mostly not — while living like a monk, I offered to do whatever I could to help. Booking travel, picking up dry cleaning, whatever I could. When Bob told me he was thinking of writing a book to explore the apparent fact that the advent of the “miracle” psychiatric drugs — antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and second-generation antipsychotics — seemed to coincide with a shift from psychiatric episodes being transient to being long-term if not permanent disabilities, at first I tried to dissuade him, saying that the first book had nearly killed him and he owed nothing to the cause.

Nevertheless, he got a contract to write the book. I saw Bob come back from each meeting more committed, until it felt that the community of people who had been wronged by the psychiatric miracle drug myth had become, essentially, his community. After Anatomy of an Epidemic was published, Bob decided to create the Mad in America website and invited me to be its first editor. I leapt at the chance and poured myself into it.

I knew I was helping to create something that could possibly change the world. At the same time, I was aware that I was driven by fury at all that I had seen growing up, and that I continued to see as an adult. The fury drove the long nights of editing while attending a graduate program during the day, but after about four years I burned out. I needed to be driven by something other than anger and, as the people with whom I’d grown up and hoped to help died, I needed to find a way to open my heart and engage in a healthier way. I needed to find a way to truly heal my defective heart.

This led my partner and I to Open Dialogue training and practice, with a mixture of successes and failures. And what I loved most about it was finding myself with couples and families who were trying to do what I had been trying to do; heal their broken hearts and learn to love. This I could see doing for the rest of my life.

Which leads me to what happened earlier this month. After a year of increasing health struggles, we discovered that it was time to replace my defective heart valve. I was scheduled for open-heart surgery a few days later at the nigh-comically named Lovelace Heart Hospital, which turned out to be not only a first-rate facility but the perfect place for me. It was expected to be a routine 3-hour procedure, but as soon as they popped the hood I nearly died, taking three shocks to bring me back and a seven-day induced coma while they figured out how to close the hood again.

When I came to in the ICU, I quickly learned how many people had been pulling and praying for me; how many people to whom I owe gratitude; many more, in fact, than I will ever even know. I realized that there is no room in this second life for anything but gratitude — and love. Yes, the anger I’ve felt was arguably appropriate to the circumstances, but I’ve had my time of storming the streets and it wasn’t what was going to get me to the life I wanted. I realized that I owed no allegiance to the thoughts and feeling that had plaqued my first life, which I had given up thinking I could ever be free of… those thoughts and feelings were now gone. When I saw an unwanted thought or feeling on the horizon, I could flick it away and redirect my attention to the overwhelming luck with which I am here at all, and my gratitude to all with whom I have the good fortune to share this miracle.

A couple of days after I came back to life I talked to Bob for the first time. Along with welcoming me back he said that Mad in America would not exist without me. I do not believe for a minute that this is true, as evidenced by all the passionate and talented people who have taken it further than I could ever have conceived of. But, for the first time I blurted out what had always been true, “Bob, I did it because I love you.”

I realized then that, for me, this project has always been about love. The competing interests we explore in these pages are all variations of ideas on how to love; our challenge is to make sense out of the harder road that ignores fast and easy answers in favor of the hard work of opening our hearts even when we are angry and afraid. This, I believe, is the measure of Mad in America’s success; can we find our way past fear and anger to loving each other. I have been blessed with open-heart surgery. Perhaps for others a blog will do.

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. Kermit leads workshops and webinars on the role of humor in psychotherapy and other human services. You can reach him at [email protected].

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38 COMMENTS

  1. I know what you mean about open heart surgery, Kermit. In 2016, I had to have three of the arteries in my heart replaced, what they call, “cabg,” (Oh, yummy.) I was 63 years old, back in those days. This was the most serious operation I’d ever had and I was mucho scared. I sure am glad I haven’t had any trouble since then.

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  2. You brought a tear to my eye, Kermit. Thank you for all you’ve done. I’m glad you survived a near death experience (NDE), and my prayers for your continued healing. Any interesting NDE story?

    “This, I believe, is the measure of Mad in America’s success; can we find our way past fear and anger to loving each other.” I love MiA, since it gives the patients who were harmed by psychiatry a voice, and a place to get the anger out, via writing. And it’s also a good place to share our psychopharmacology research findings.

    Thank you, MiA and Kermit, sending my love.

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    • Before this, I was fond of saying that I often have “Near Depth Experiences.” I didn’t actually credit the experience that much. And since my experience, I’ve wondered whether the gratitude would abate and I’d slip into old ways of being.

      So far, this is not the case. I tear up daily thinking of how lucky I am, and have always been. I am not haunted by old hurts; just exhilarated to find how much I can make out of this life I’ve been given.

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      • As one who dealt with 14 different unjust and even illegal (by a now FBI convicted doctor) anticholinergic toxidrome psychiatric attempted murders, thus also dealt with a NDE. I too am at least trying to get over my anger, and trying to help protect others, which is a good goal in life.

        I think that is largely the goal of MiA. And I, too, daily think “of how lucky I am, and have always been.” Again, thank you for all you do, Kermit. You are a very important person. God bless.

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      • Dearest Kermit
        I /we are grateful for your life , new beginnings and holding space for love for real . Touching that , bringing it forward and living in gratitude is healing to just type , now to meditate on it . Again , we are all grateful for your life , and your love . Thank you , love and gratitude for you and your love at home

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  3. Thanks so much Kermit. I am so happpy you suirvived. It is really from no matter what perspective a long and winding path of side stones and standing stones and milestones and then unexpected flowers and meadows abd the unexpected garter snake that rushes across your path. Keep on healing and what can we all do here or outside of here to walk more together than not?

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  8. Kermit

    So glad to hear you made it through such a near death experience, and then came out the other side with a much greater appreciation of the value of “love” in the world.

    I have such fond memories of our past social interactions during the early days of MIA. I felt your (search) for love and empathy toward humanity at that time, and it was obvious that it was a driving force in your motivation to build MIA. I always appreciated our intellectual “jousting” about the issues of the day, and especially about the difficult questions of what it would take to make the world a more humane place to love and commune. You always challenged me to go deeper and not be mechanical in my thinking.

    Humans have the capacity to be quite selfish, hateful, and violent in certain environmental circumstances, and the opposite is also true. In a safe and more egalitarian environment humans can be extremely giving, cooperative, and loving. We have much work to do to find and create that safe space for the best of humanity to flourish.

    I just recently returned from a week long acoustic music camp in the lake region of New Hampshire. It was a magical experience where words alone cannot describe what it feels like to be distant from the all the divisions, competition, and hatefulness in the current social landscape. There was so much love and mutual support centered around the universal language of music. It made me understand (if only for a brief moment in time) what a “genuine” socialist world could be like.

    Elon Musk is quoted as saying that empathy is a human “weakness.” This is the equivalent of saying that “too much love is a bad thing.” Reality is once again turned on it head. Human love and empathy are intimately connected and there cannot be one without the other, AND we need more of both in the world.

    Musk’s quote prompted me to write a new song called “A World of Difference” with the first verse as follows:
    “I’ve been told it can make a world of difference
    And I’ve been told that nobody should care
    Empathy is the heartbeat of all resistance
    It can break on through your fear and despair
    Just look into the eyes of a wayfaring soul
    Then you’ll know why; you might even cry
    You might see your reflection, then bring a stranger home
    A treasure find of the human kind”

    I am also reminded of the Patty Griffin song “When It Don’t Come Easy” (a must listen) where one of her verses goes as follows:
    “So many things that I had before
    That don’t matter to me now
    Tonight I cry for the love that I’ve lost
    And the love I’ve never found
    When the last bird falls
    And the last siren sounds
    Someone will say what’s been said before
    It’s only love we were looking for”

    Hey Kermit, I send my love, and I know in my heart that the world is a better place having you here another day.

    Carry On! Richard

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  9. My personal takeaway and edits from this excellent article, thank you Kermit ❤️

    “I realize that there is no room in this life for anything but gratitude — and love. Yes, the anger and fear I’ve felt was arguably appropriate to the circumstances; I realize now that I owe no allegiance to the thoughts and feeling that have plaqued me – those thoughts and feelings are now gone.”

    What I have found to be true in my life having thrived through multiple personal struggles from an infant and youth brought up in the often abusive medical system (for which I now also am deeply thankful and owe deep gratitude for my life) to a grandmother enduring the pain of two now adult children who have gone through alcoholism and psychosis (and 5 years of a revolving door of unsuccessful psychiatric hospital and medication “management” – HA! What a sad joke – to lives of thriving and purpose.

    Might this be the key to Resilience that we are all needing in these times of political unrest? It is true me.

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  11. You’ve opened your home to us on two occasions, which was a blessing. I’m also grateful for you and Louisa hosting the Mad in America online parent support group. And now you’ve opened your heart (no pun intended) to our Mad in America family, another real blessing! Thanks so much for sharing this. I read it this morning at one of those low moments I regularly have where I feel a sense of futility and despair about our “mental health” system, which can be so cruel, unjust and spirit-crushing for many people. Carol and I prayed for you when we heard of your upcoming surgery. So glad to hear you’re back. Actually much more than “back” in this bittersweet journey we’re in, as you so well recounted.

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  12. Thanks Kermit for sharing this story, and we are all so glad you made it through! Being aware of the fragility of our lives makes us value them more. And love is that valuing in action.

    We can get hard and bitter in fighting what we see as opposing life for ourselves and others – we have to balance the fact that this opposition is important, with having to go deeper and remind ourselves of the love of life that is the reason we care in the first place. Thanks for reminding us of all that.

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  15. Kermit, this is such a lovely essay. (Just realized I said “LOVEly”). It is great to read that condensed story of the early days of MIA, and yours and Bob’s relationship. Glad you survived the operation. May you new valve serve you well for decades.

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  17. I am relieved and so pleased that our hopes for your best outcome came to be, Kermit.
    RE: ” It seemed to me that only a miracle could result in loving or being loved .” I had a similar epiphany, before I poured out my heart to God one night in the 1970s , but it was accompanied with the fearful conviction that ” I just don’t want to hurt anyone.” Life since then has been wonderfully miraculous in terms of blessings, but it has been a heart breaking nightmare to witness how conflicted an admixture I could be, how really perilous is this world, and how easily I could make a tragic decision that started Catherine down an unpredictable path that resulted in terrible suffering and then her death.
    When we discovered Mad In America about 13 years ago, I felt uncertain how to navigate all the different human admixtures who are working out their own convictions of who and how to love and who and what to hate. My foolishness has brought me full circle and here i am again saying “I just don’t want to hurt anyone”. Yet, we know that truth can hurt, and it goes both ways.
    I am truly thankful for you, Kermit, and Louisa, and for Robert, Steve, et.al, and for our intersections which I view as miraculous.

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  18. Kermit, so glad you survived this major surgery and a NDE. I remain so grateful for the Mad in America website, the books Robert Whitaker wrote, and all the pioneering work you, Robert and everyone at Mad in America have done in exposing how spurious DSM labels are and how harmful the treatments often are. Take good care, Wishing you all the best in the future!

    Btw, perfect description in this line:
    “The DSM was like a sweater that falls apart as soon as you tug a thread”

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