Transcript 13- Bev

These transcripts deal with themes of mental illness and trauma

Cassandra interviewed Bev over skype. Bev was a mother in Cassandra’s girl scout troop 13 years ago.

Um, so please state your name, your age, and your gender identity and presentation?

What’s presentation?

It’s… I’m… imagining that you identify as a woman. So for you it’d be as a woman.

Okay. Yeah. My name is Beverly Mcinis and 64 years old. I am female and I identify as a woman.

Um, so have you been officially diagnosed with any sort of mental… mental illness? And if so with what?

Um, yes, I have Depression and Anorexia.

Okay. Um, and do you feel like those diagnoses are fairly accurate? Do you think they cover all the symptoms that you manifest?

Ninety percent of the time. I think there might be some bipolar tendencies in there. Um, however, I haven’t pursued that because I don’t want to be, uh, taking another medication, basically. What I’m doing works and I don’t want to change it.

So there’s like, a little bit of mania in…?

Yes, yes, yes.

Um, so this is going to be a very, very broad question. Um, so you can take as long or as short to answer as you want, but it’s basically, what’s your personal history with mental illness? Like from when symptoms started manifesting until now, what have been the major turning points? Like when did you get diagnosed? How have things changed for you? Basically like the complete story of it.

Okay (Bev laughs). Well, how much time do you have?

People have taken two hours to answer this question

I… I feel like I probably started noticing symptoms when I was a teenager. I would have some very down periods. I’d also have some very manic periods where I’d be up for a couple of days. Um, of course that was not helped by drug use. I had an affinity for amphetamines and so… that fed the mania. Um, when I was in my late twenties, early thirties is when I developed the anorexia. And it was just.. I just couldn’t eat. I was miserable in my life and I just… I think I was slowly killing myself. I think it was suicide by default maybe. But at that point in my life I weighed 90 pounds. I was 5’8”  so I’m now twice a woman I used to be (Bev laughs). And that was really not ever… firmly diagnosed. I know the doctors would talk to me occasionally about it when I’d go in for other things, but I was in a small town with doctors who were kind of just in training or less and they, uh… they didn’t have a whole lot of experience with this and this is of course back in the early eighties.

Um, then let’s see, about 1993, I sunk pretty low and (insert name of husband) was the one that suggested I go see someone, you know, (insert name of husband) is my husband, um, so I started going to a psychologist. Uh, we did a lot of talk therapy, which kind of helped. Uh, about a year later I went to a psychiatrist, asked her to take antidepressants. Um, and I’ve been on antidepressants ever since. Taken a variety of things, probably half a dozen different things over the years. Um, and I take Zoloft now for it and that seems to work… minimal side effects. Some worked better than others, but had… worse side effects. So, uh… I do believe that this runs in my family. Um, from my dad’s side of the family, they didn’t talk much about mental health. Um, and my dad still won’t talk about it. It was swept under the rug. But I can see from some of the stories, there were some… some murders, there was drinking, there were some affairs and what have you, I can see that there was something going on back then. I also suffer from ADD. Uh, and I’ve had that ever since I was a kid. Um, and I can pretty well control that, I do have medication for those days when I just know… you know, just can’t concentrate. But uh, that’s about the extent of it. Um…

When… when you were younger, like before you got diagnosed, before you went and got help, like, what did you… what did you think of it as, like how did you… how did you think about it?

Um, you know, different times, I thought of different things. One time I thought maybe it was… god, what do they call that before you start your period when you get all moody and hormonally?

PMS?

Yeah. I thought maybe that was the problem. Um, and then… um, I also just thought it was normal teenage blahs sometimes. Uh, it just… didn’t ever entered my mind that it might be a mental health issue.

Did that kind of continue for a while? Like how… at what point did you kind of realize that it might be that?

Um, not until about 1993 when (insert name of husband) said, “you know, I think you need to see somebody”. Um, it just… it just didn’t ever cross my mind that there might be something going on like that.

Um, has it like… the way that you have experienced it, I mean, obviously medication and therapy are very, very helpful… Um, I guess has it… but like in the moments when you feel depressed, does it feel any different from when it… when you were younger or does it feel kind of like a similar thing or…?

No, it’s very different because I know I will get through it. You know, a lot of experience getting through the bad times. So that is extremely helpful. This too will pass. This time of year especially, I have a lot more trouble with the shorter days, um, and not being to be able out… be outside as much as I want to be. And you know, and that’s the same thing. I know this too will pass and just keep busy with other things. Um, and I… I’ve learned a lot of self help over the years with just having a project to do or taking a class or something that I have to drag myself out of the house and do. Uh, and that’s very helpful.

Are you… so you’re taking Zoloft, are you still doing therapy? Like are you doing both at the moment?

No, I’m not. I go up and I seen my psychiatrist just about once a year. She’s up in Denver and um, you know, if I run into something, if I feel like something is going… in a direction I don’t like, I will call her and talk to her. But uh, yeah, I haven’t had a lot of therapy. I think… I think I can usually figure stuff out pretty well. You know, lived with it for a lot for a lot of years so… (Bev laughs)

For, um… for the anorexia, like what was the process like of coming back from that? Because I know that that’s something that a lot of people struggle with, is like, unlearning those habits.

Um, it was getting out of a horrible situation. I was in a very bad abusive marriage and, uh, once I was able to get enough… oomf behind me to get out of the marriage, um, it pretty much resolved itself. Yeah. It was just… I think I didn’t want to be where I was at. I really didn’t and I didn’t know how to get out of it.

Yeah. Um, and I imagine that must’ve really affected the depression for you?

(Bev laughs) Yes

Um, we’ll probably talk more about that in the… in the gender section. Um, but so what’s… in kind of like struggling with depression and with anorexia, what’s the thing that you’re proudest of?

I think getting away from the drug use. Um, I self medicated for many, many years and I think being able to… realize that it was a problem and… and stopped. I think that was… that was huge. That was huge.

Was it in a response to being depressed that you were… taking these or…?

I believe so. According, you know, talking to my psychiatrist, she says that a lot of people that like the amphetamines are people that have depression. There’s just something in the brain that doesn’t quite work that the amphetamines seem to either mask it or fill that need.

So you said you started kind of like as a teenager, at what point did you get off them? Like what was that like? How did you go about it?

Let’s see… I was about 33, 34 when I just completely cleaned up my act. Um, and I just stopped cold turkey, you know, like you said, I was in a small town and there wasn’t a lot of help for anything out of the ordinary. Um, so I just stopped because I had met (insert name of husband) and realized that there might be some reasons to keep going.

So you think the drug use was another form of self destruction even though it was kind of self medication. But it was also…?  

It was, it was, and it also just made me forget. I didn’t thinks about stuff as much. So yeah, I think that was a big part of it. Yeah.

Um, in terms of like, how you’re feeling right now, is there any specific thing that you’ve kind of struggling with?

Right now it’s the short days. Um, I have (Bev laughs) quite a desire to nap a lot, so I fight that. Um, but I’ve done a couple of different things. I’m working on as far as our projects and uh, I just make myself do it. When you raise a child, you can’t really give into a lot of this. You got to keep moving and doing stuff. So yeah, that’s… that’s kind of what I do. I don’t have a child to worry about now, but I just have my projects going on.

Yeah. So in terms of like the clear, actionable things that make you feel better, it’s a lot of like working on projects?

Right. Yeah. A lot of art stuff, a lot of furniture refinishing and… rock hunting. If I can go look for rocks I’m just happy as a clam. Cause I’m outside and I like rocks (Bev laughs).

Is the art the furniture refinishing or is it a different sort of art or…?

It’s just… just kind of re imagining things. Got some, some old windows that I made into picture frames. I… we finished the chair, painted it, put a new seat on it, um, uh, I’ve done dressers in the past. Um, just different things like that. I don’t know if you’d call it art or not, it’s just… it’s just… it’s just a creative thing to do.

Yeah. I like to talk to people who do creative things who deal with these in terms of like, whether there’s a connection… like is it, do you think there’s a connection in terms of like you are creating beautiful things to put out into the world and change the world? Or is it kind of just more like, you like doing things with your hands or do you think there’s any…?

I do it for myself more than anything. And some things I give as gifts and I hope it makes people happy. Yeah. I… I don’t know. I don’t think about it too much. I just like to do creative things. It fulfills something in me. Yeah. Keeps me off the streets (Bev laughs).

Um, what is… you said short days, but, um, aside from that, what are the sorts of things that make you feel worse or did used to make you feel worse? Like any… what sorts of situations?

Worry about my children or my children getting into trouble. That’s the joy of depression (Bev laughs). There doesn’t have to be anything there.

Um, were there any specific sorts of things before you had children?

Um, relationships, high school type of stuff… wanting to get through high school and do a good job. Uh, my family was… um, my parents were very controlling and we couldn’t make any decisions for ourselves. They took care of us that for us and that I think sometimes really got to me, seeing what my other friends were doing and some of the freedom they had. I think, yeah, that was, uh… not knowing generally as a teenager, not being where I wanted to be, but not knowing what I should do. And I knew I wanted to go to college, but I didn’t have the money to pay for it. And my parents really never gave us any ideas how we would pay for college so I got married instead, uh, just to get out of the house.

So kind of the… the things that have triggered the depression over the years have changed to different sorts of things?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s usually fairly big… uh, big life events. I retired early from my job because it was making me very unhappy. It took away my smiles. So, um, it was… it was time to do that. I haven’t encountered anything since then really. No. Overall I think, you know, that’s…. that’s about it as far as triggers.

How have you, um… I guess balanced… taking care of yourself with taking care of… of children because that’s a position you’ve been put in?

Um, I always put my children first, um, and just muscle through it. My family also was one of those families that, um, you know, if you don’t have a broken bone sticking out or you’re not bleeding, you know, you can just carry on and do what you need to do. And so their welfare was always put first. Um, especially for my son because he was involved when I was in the abusive marriage. And, uh, I really tried to make sure that everything was taken care of with him. (insert name of daughter), not as much because I did have (insert name of husband), um, to help out and he… and he’s an excellent parent. He’s much better parent than I am, I think (Bev laughs).

What… I guess what sort of effect did it have on you to have to like do this… that reprioritization in terms of your mental health state, whether good or bad?

Yeah. I don’t know, cause I didn’t know any different, so I don’t know that it really had that much of an effect. Um, y’know occasionally I’d see friends that didn’t have children that were… seemed to be having a little more fun than I did, but, um, it was just… I just felt like it… that was, that was my life and I had to deal with it. Yeah. If I’d known the other side I would’ve been different.

Um… (Cassandra clears throat) Sorry, I have a little bit of a cold. It’s like seven degrees here in Chicago. (Bev makes a noise of disgust) Yeah. That’s about how I feel that, that each too.

I bet it’s cloudy too isn’t it (Bev laughs)

Yep. Um… but so people use different metaphors to talk about.. um, mental illness. And I think those are useful because I think they show how people position themselves in relation to it. So like, whether through metaphor or anything else, like what did your depression or Anorexia feel like to you?

The depression is a very dark, heavy fog. Um, the Anorexia was more mania, more, uh… things were sped up, more hyper. This feeling of going about one and a half times as fast as it should have been.

Just as kind of like.. a very like, energetic compulsion almost?

Yeah. It’s very intense. Yeah. Yeah. And I know… I just always felt like I was trying to cover a lot of bases. Uh, I was busy, but I don’t know what I was busy doing.

Um, and so you said kind of the role that it felt like it fulfilled for you was self-destruction. Like that was essentially what it was?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Pretty much.

How conscious or explicit was that in your mind?

It really wasn’t. Um, other than occasionally, y’know when I’d sit down to eat, I’d realize that I couldn’t swallow my food. I just couldn’t physically make myself do it. Uh, I didn’t think too much about it. People would say, “oh, well you’re really skinny”. And I thought, well, you know, that’s cool, I like being skinny, that’s not a problem. But looking back now at pictures of myself, I was a little bit too skinny.

So it wasn’t like…  counting calories like, “I have to lose weight” sort of thing. It was more of a… a feeling unable to eat because the state you were in?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Physically my throat would close up. I don’t know, it’s just food would not go down. It was not a conscious thing.

Um…so how much do you talk to people around you about dealing with depression?

I am an open book. If people are interested in talking about it, I will talk about it. I have no… no shame, no hesitation about sharing my experiences with other people. I think it needs to be out in the open. I think we’ve hidden it too long. Um, so yeah. Anytime anybody seems the least bit interested, I’ll talk about it.

Do you feel like… because you got diagnosed, and that’s kind of when you realized…in like, 93. So did you… were you always this open or was it kinda like a path to feeling this open?

It was probably, uh, more of a path but I have never been a closed book. I’ve always shared a lot. I think it’s a reaction to my family who doesn’t talk about anything ever. (Bev laughs)

So you’re… not gonna do that.

Yeah. It’s under the rug. “Oh No, no, no. You’re wrong. He didn’t, he didn’t, he wasn’t an illegitimate child”, no, no (Bev laughs). Um, but yeah, I… you know, I’ve become way more open over the years as… as people are more accepting. Um, there was a time when it was not acceptable to, uh… to have a mental problem. I guess they call it “mood disorders” is what my psychiatrist has been calling it and I think that’s the latest term.

Yeah. I think there are a lot of different words um, depending on like… and I think people have different preferences about what they want it to be called.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, did you talk to your children or about it or was.. was that kind of not something you really…?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Um, when you talk to people, whether your children or otherwise, like what do those conversations look like? Is it like a, “Hey, I’ve been having a hard time right now?” Or like how do you tend to approach it?

It depends on the situation. Um, yeah. If I’m having a hard time, I will definitely tell whoever it’s going to affect. Um, but a lot of times it’s somebody that brings something up themselves and then I respond. I don’t… unless somebody has said something that makes me think that they’re interested in… in a conversation about mental health issues, I won’t… I won’t bring it up.

Okay. Um, how… do you feel like it affects the way you approach people at all?

Sure, sure.

How so?

Um, one of the biggest factors with depression with me is a lack of confidence. Never feeling good enough. And I don’t know, maybe that’s something everybody feels, I don’t know.

Is that in any specific sphere of your life or like, just in general?

Just in general. Just in general. Yeah.

Um… sorry, my cat’s now trying to jump up on the bed. Um..

Yeah, mine is watching me too (Bev laughs)

Um, what sort of general reactions have you gotten from people and has it changed? I guess because the… the social discourse about mental illness is very different from how it was in 93 so like, yeah. What sort of reaction to people given over the years?

I think people are more understanding now than they were. Um, you know, the place we live now is very redneck and very, very conservative. So they are still big believers in “pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move on” they don’t believe in mental illness at all. Um, so I don’t have conversations with those people. But I think the world as a whole is a lot more understanding.

When they weren’t understanding, like what sort of… what sort of responses… was it like, “oh, this is just in your head?” Like what sort of…?

Yeah. A lot of, um, or… or you know, just, um,” just get up and do something happy and it’ll go away” or you know, “you’re imagining it, you’re always complaining”. That was… that was one of them was, “you’re always complaining”. Um, and really I wasn’t (Bev laughs).

Um, and I guess… how do you tend to approach other people with mental illness?

Um, I think I’m understanding. I don’t let that identify them in my mind. That’s just part of them… it’s not a big deal. Got a couple of friends that are… (Bev laughs) kind of interesting. We’ll just say that. And it doesn’t define them to me.

Um, and so now we’re going to switch topics a little bit and talk about gender. So the same way that you gave a personal history with depression, what’s been your personal history with like, being a woman?

That’s an interesting question. I don’t know how to answer that. Well just, you know, I grew up as a girl and that was the identity that fits me. So there’s never been any doubt in my mind about that. I feel that as a woman, when I was younger, I was taken advantage of and overlooked in job, and um, family situations. I don’t think I had as much worth as a man a lot of times, as far as other people looked at me. I feel like… well, that marriage where my husband was so violent and so abusive, I feel like… that he would never have been that way with a man. I think that was part of….you know…. the whole female thing is that “we can overpower you” and y’know I was raped a couple of times and that….

By him or by other people?

Both. Both. Um, and so I don’t know that that affected my, uh, self… uh, picture of my gender, but it…

How did that interact with the depression?

It didn’t help (Bev laughs), but also I didn’t put a lot of emphasis on it in my life. I didn’t let it become very important. I never talked to anybody about it really until much later. It was just a thing and… and it was over with. So, um, and then, you know, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten much stronger. I celebrate my femaleness I… uh, I like being a 64 year old woman. Uh, cause I know more and I’m tough and I know that I will… I will…. be okay. I will survive.

What does it… what does it mean to you to be a woman? Like, would you say like, tough is a quality that you would describe in your… your personal definition of womanhood or like what are the qualities that you would attribute to that definition?

For me or for others?

Just for you, like not as a universal definition, but just for you.

I still see us as a little more nurturing and caring…. for myself anyway. I tend to mother the world.  And I am strong, have gotten stronger over the years. Yeah. I’ve never thought about it this way. I hope I had joy. Um, and I don’t know if that’s a gender thing or not, but… I feel as… as a woman I am joyful.  I think the biggest thing really is the nurturing and the caring. Um, and not, you know, not putting up with anything, especially if it’s directed at my family or my friends… being supportive. That’s… that’s it. Yeah. Being supportive.

Um, has your experience as a woman affected the way you experience, um, intimacy in any way? And I mean intimacy in a very broad term. So like familial or platonic or physical, like any type of intimacy, it seems like… kind of this, this nurturing element is like one segment of that.

Yeah. I… you know, and I think it does have an impact because even in a platonic relationship with the opposite sex, I… don’t get real close because it is someone of the opposite sex. Someone that I could be attracted or somebody who would misconstrue that I was attracted to them. Um, so that… it does have a big effect on there. I have a couple of close male friends, but they still are at a bit of a distance compared to my women friends.

And do you feel like there’s been an interaction for you between the Depression and… and gender? So it would seem like probably your abuse… abusive relationship would be like one segment of like… that was a gendered experience that contributed negatively.

Yeah

Um, do you feel like there’s been any other interaction?

Being taken advantage of the jobs, in situations… um not being listened to because I’m a girl. It still… still, that happens. You go get your tire fixed and it’s all, “sweetheart, you need… you need a new tire, you can’t fix that by yourself”, you know, and that kind of nonsense just aggravates me (Bev laughs). Um, so yeah. Um, yeah…

Especially since like you said, that part of your depression is not feeling like confident that that would… that’s a fairly invalidating experience.

True. True. Yeah. Yeah. Um… not applying for work that was considered men’s work just because I’m from a generation where women were not getting into things like welding and fieldwork and what have you. Um, uh, gender definitely had, uh…. a issue on that… cause there’s things I really would’ve liked to have done….

Yeah, I was going to ask, what…

Like welding (Bev laughs)

Like welding very specifically (Cassandra laughs). It seems cool.

But you know, I didn’t… I didn’t pursue it just because my generation just didn’t do that.

Do you see… I guess kind of watching the younger generation, like do you… what do you see about the way that gender is changing?

I see that… the lines have become a little more blurry between, uh, what men can do, what women can do, uh, how men should act, how women should act. I think we’re moving towards a point where we’re… one day we’re all going to be considered people instead of, you know, male or female or whatever. I do see some growth with, uh, acceptance of homosexuality, bisexuality, uh, non binary, whatever, you know, I see more acceptance, but that’s still got a long way to go, I think, especially with our current administration (Cassandra makes a face, Bev laughs). Yeah, we don’t talk about that (Bev laughs). Talk about depression. (Cassandra laughs) Actually, when you asked that… that is one thing that really, really, really caused some problems for me a couple of years ago. Kind to forgot about that. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Several people have listed the 2016 election and the Kavanaugh trial as being like…

I know, yeah. I forgot about that. I think cause we’ve been living this way for so long, but yeah, exactly. Those were to two huge factors (Cassandra sighs, Bev laughs).

Um, and so everyone obviously has like a lot of different identities, whether that’s age or race or socioeconomic class or even more like… identities in regards to like, the roles they serve in life. Um, so I guess are there any other identities that you have that have, um, interacted with your experience, either gender or mental illness?

I’m not quite sure how to answer that question. Um, I don’t know, Sarah. I don’t know how to… I just don’t know how to answer that.

Like there’s a question of like, um,  like being a teacher, like, has that… has had any, um, intersection with either with either mental illness or with… with gender or like being 63…

64

64, like being 64, has that interacted at all? Um, like I guess, and they don’t have to, but it’s just like, taking each identity and looking at… the way that they… um, changed the way, uh… each other’s experience or the way that they’ve kind of like bounced off each other.

Okay. Yeah. Well being… being older, being 64 actually, has probably made the depression better just because I have survived. I’ve managed through an awful lot. Um, and being a female that… that even makes me even more proud because, um, as… as a woman, there’s been an awful lot of crap in my life. And so yeah, that… that definitely has an effect on me and my identity. Um, but I also see myself as an artist, which I think… is really linked to the depression. Um, and I can’t tell you why, but I feel like the art is an outlet and… I don’t know how to put that into words. Um, the art is more… maybe a cure to the depression. Uh, not so much an outlet, but, uh… if I can act on the creativity, it’s… it helps. You know, wife, mother, sister, daughter, all of those… those are definitely gender related labels.

Um, did any of those like… change for you what it meant to be… like prior to being a mother, did kind of… your feeling of what it meant to be a woman… was it different?

No, it was the same.

Um, okay. Um, do you have anything that you want to talk about that you haven’t had the chance to address in any of these questions?

I don’t think so (Bev laughs). They’re some pretty in depth questions.

I try to… I try to be as thorough as I can. Um, so I… I… it’s very important to me that these are like, a little bit more like conversations than flat out interviews. Um, so I just want to give you the chance to ask me any questions if you want to. You don’t have to, but it’s just so it’s a little bit more of a back and forth. So if you have any questions either about the project or if you want to turn any of these questions back around on me, I want to extend that offer to you.

Um, yeah, I had wondered why you have chosen to go into a mental health aspect of your artwork. Have you had some issues that have caused you to want to do that? Or is it just… you’re just fascinated by it?

Yeah, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety about… six years ago now. Yeah, I think I was 15. Um, and that’s been very, very major part of how… because even before I was diagnosed, like I think as early as sixth or seventh grade, it was very much a part of my life and has been a large part of my experience. And so I think I’ve just continued to write about it and continue to do art about it. Um, and so… and I kind of… separately of that have also been dealing with a lot of feminist issues and like, trying to grapple with those. And so I think, um… I don’t entirely, like I… the application to do with thesis was competitive. And so I kind of turned it in on the last day and I was like, I don’t know what I’m going to do (Bev laughs). I’ll just write down, “art installation about the intersection between mental illness and gender” because I was like, that seems to be all the things that I’m interested in and then I thought about it and it was like, no, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Because I do very much feel that there is a huge intersection. Even historically, like if you look at women’s mental illness, there’s a whole history of hysteria, um, back in like the earlier part of last century and there’s… and the way that, for example, like gendered violence interacts with… and causes trauma that makes mental illness worse. And there are also positive aspects, like how I think there’s more societal permission for women to form very like, intense communities that can be supportive about mental illness and they can communicate about mental illness in a way that they don’t really give permission to men. And so I think there’s like a whole bunch of different interactions that I’m like, very interested in. And so that was kind of what’s been inspiring this project.

Good. Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’m glad you’re able to find a good outlet for it. Follow your passion. That is so cool.