Crazy Isn't A Destination: Minds Aren't Lost

Nikol Hasler is a writer, producer, and single mother living in Los Angeles. She was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma almost two years ago, and has undergone surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, with another surgery and more radiation still to come. An alumnus of the foster care system, her current work is focused on using her life experiences to assist foster children in a healthier transition to adulthood.

I was dating a man whose mother had gone crazy after the death of her husband. This man was a teenager at the time, and his mother held one of his friends hostage for several days, trying to force the friend to have sex with her. The man was from Spain, and this changed the way I pictured what happened. The light was a different color, the carpeting worn in Spanish ways, the knick knacks glazed and foreign, not the sorts of things you see in prefab homes in Texas. Even in Spain, when a mom holds a teen hostage and tries to have sex with them, there are bound to be knick knacks.

When he told me this story, he was calm about it, and not in the way a person usually reflects about trauma, matter-of-fact and slightly sad. He said she was just lonely. He said she was doing the best she could. He said that all of our parents were doing the best that they could, and we should all remember that.

"Not my mother," I said.

"Even your mother."

My memories of my own mother have a slightly foreign light to them as well, each marked by some phase in her life; a style she adopted. I never remember thinking she was beautiful, but I remember thinking that there must have been something about her that made all of these men barrel toward her with such intensity. As a small child, I held the mother spot passionately for her, but always with a level of fear for the moments that she'd lose her mind.

Picture things steeped in early 80's yellow, like Soderberg was directing, remnants from the 70's, giant sunglasses, one piece pant suits, and she's laughing, then she's yelling and hitting, then she's crying- all those thing happening the way most people breath. Punk rock moves in, the smell of leather, and we're dancing in the living room, and I'm helping her zip her pants, so tight she lays down and I tug the zipper, and her eyeliner is running in the bathtub later on as my step father yells things about her trying to kill herself, and we're out the door. Short shorts and tube tops and she's met a man who manages the carnival with their all night loud fights until that, like everything, is over. Then she's in all white with neon paint splatters, she's moved to Bakersfield, and though I don't know much about California, in the photos she sends, it looks like a pretty ugly place.

Then it's nothing for years as I go crazy time and again, lose my own mind in ways small and predictable. Those are the hospital years, paper pill cups and breakdowns in group therapy because they won’t let me have my clothes. Those are the years of crying, baby-talking, and making out with grown men, telling therapists that I wish I could have a room in which to smash a billion things and not have to clean it up. Those are the years of moving from spot to spot, cutting, overdosing, being crazy to replace the crazy that was missing. Missing her, trying to make sense of me.

And then she's back, and this time it's flowing floral print, her act is together, she's settled down now. She's sorry. She's better. She's medicated and stable. She's met a man, and this time he's legit. They met in AA. They're in love. And every time she says she's sorry it's with this face that demands forgiveness when I'm not sure I thought I had anything to forgive her for. And anyway, I'm in my own kind of style, with my own lost mind to keep track of.

Back then, in my memory of the times things were going well for her, there was a weird delight that she often took in my own breakdowns. I lived with her briefly when I was 15, and I'd come home after school to hear her talking on the phone to producers at talk shows. She'd be listing my issues- eating disorder, suicidal depression, molested, abused, uses drugs, why yes, I'll hold, why, yes, I'll try to get the people who molested her to come on the show, why, yes, I agree, she needs help. Thank you Jenny, Thank you Ricky, Thank you Jerry.

It was around then that people started to compare me to her, and around then that I started to resent the comparison. How could they possibly say that I was anything like this woman? She was self-serving in her madness, whereas mine was naturally occurring. I’d been hurt, dammit. I’d been raped and beaten and ruined. My teen angst complimented me well, some of the anguishes real, some amplified beyond their actual power.

But then, shortly after high school, I was a mother myself, and I couldn't give my depressions, my disassociations, my nervous breakdowns a rest. There were days spent laying on the floor as my child crawled over me, stinking of diaper. Everybody Hurts on repeat, and it was true and I knew that yes, Everybody did Hurt. There were times where I'd laugh and not stop, the sounds coming out of me like punches in life's guts, ruddy faced and empty eyed. There were years of cold bathtub water, overdoses, and blood, medications on medications, knowing I would jump out a window, knowing I couldn't stand it if I had to keep drawing breaths, knowing I was always going to be like that.

He said that all of our parents were doing the best that they could, and we should all remember that.

"Not my mother," I said.

"Even your mother."

"Not me," I said. And he didn't know quite what I meant.

A time had to come where I'd come to see that I wasn't doing the best I could. I was resting on my fucked-up-edness, accepting that I was just crazy, like it was a house I'd moved into, acting like my mind was so far gone that it excused the way I'd scream, run through my back yard like my head was on fire, smash dishes and stomp, collapse, repeat. A time needed to happen in which I thought less of how I needed to be able to lay in bed for days, and more about needing to live. I don't mean needing to be alive. That was never a thing that appealed to me. What I mean, is that since I was alive, I needed to know that I needed to- was able to- enjoy living. I had to give myself permission for that. I had to know that even if I loved my life, I was still the same person.

I didn't really stop having all the melt downs and break downs and emotional show downs until I was 30. Right before my 30th birthday I decided that I was going to stop taking medication, and that I would never cut myself again. My arms are road maps of sad, white and purpling deep gashes that make it impossible to go sleeveless. I promised myself, no more shock therapy, no more losing my shit. Keep it together, Hasler. It's time to live.

I am far from where I need to be, and that bothers me sometimes. Throughout THE CANCERING (I just now decided that from now on, I will always address it as such), the depression has really taken a lot out of me. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, all I can think about is how much I want to tell everyone to fuck off and let me die my own way. Sometimes the bills get overwhelming and it seems like suicide is the easiest and best option. Sometimes it strikes me as absurd that I spent 30 years trying to kill myself, my body is allowing me an out, and I can't take it.

What I do know is that right now, finally, I can honestly say that I'm doing the best that I can with the things that I've got. Those late night texts I send to my friends are not the same thing as a scalpel up my inner arm. Voicing my depression is acceptable, healthy, and normal. I will come back from this, just as I had before, and I will still find myself there, mind intact. Life progressing. I guess this is just one more way I am not letting my mutating cells mutate my life.

• [ocker3]

  There are many of us who struggle with such things, one way or another. How can you completely forgive such pain caused by someone who was supposed to be there for you? Even as I’ve gotten older and understood more, learned more, it’s still a pain that goes right to the core of my being.

• [Skeptical Surrealist]

   Damn, Baby.  Big Hugs.

• [Rhyme79]

  Damn! Great writing Nikol. It’s possible you might just be me, and I you.

• [zara2]

  Well written, thank you.  I was engaged to an otherwise very wonderful woman who had almost identical problems and cycles that you are speaking of.  We broke up a year ago (almost to the day) when her crazy caused her to become abusive towards my daughter from a previous marriage.  It helps me to know what it was like “on the inside” for her.  I wish i could have been more tolerant and understanding but I’m happy with the decisions I made, was forced to make, because of this. 

  Thank you.

• [Morgan Ladd Zealear]

  I was never a cutter, but I’ve had a few girlfriends that were. My pain became overwhelming when my longtime drinking became obviously inappropriate about the time I caught my DUI, helped my parents move out of the family house (evicted), lost my ‘fiance,’ and lost my father to Liver Cancer, all in about 6 months flat. Self abuse during that entire period, after years of training at it, was too much. 820 says sober. Feel free to read about it in My Notes on my Facebook profile. All friends welcome :-) https://www.facebook.com/mozealear?sk=notes

• [MandoZink]

  My sympathies for all of the unwelcome suffering in this story. However, as a cancer survivor, I often wonder why many cancers are often referred to as “Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma”.  It seems like saying “I drive a non-Ford” or “I work as a non-clerk”. I am not being critical, but I see this often and wonder why.

  • [nixiebunny]

     They do that just to annoy Dr. Hodgkins.

    • [MandoZink]

      Well, since Dr Hodgkins died in 1866, I guess it only annoys me now. I mean mean no slight to those must endure any type of cancer episode. I ended up on the positive side of survival statistics.

      • [Nikol D S Hasler]

        Non-Hodkins Lymphoma is a type of cancer. A lymphoma is either Hodgkin’s or Non.

        If one were to say Non-Ford, it wouldn’t be the same thing, since there isn’t a type of car called the Non-Ford.

        I hope this helps. http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/Non-HodgkinLymphoma/DetailedGuide/non-hodgkin-lymphoma-what-is-non-hodgkin-lymphoma

        • [MandoZink]

          Upon diagnosis, I researched all of the the types of cancer. The first one identified as a uniquely different ailment(first recognition of cancer) was Hodgkin’s disease, which was renamed “Hodgkin’s lymphoma” . After that, ALL of the subsequent blood type lymphomas discovered were lumped together as “Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma”. I have always been curious as to why. Your link did not help with that particular medical idiosyncrasy, but thank you nonetheless.

          The first mass-produced automobile was the Ford. By perfectly good analogy, those that followed might well have been designated “non-Fords”. Anyway, it’s not important. This article is. Decades ago, I seemed to have been the guy to go visit whenever a friend thought they were losing their mind. I’m not sure how, but I was always very sympathetic and somehow effectively comforting.  I was always able to compartmentalize my issues and avoid depression. I did this very well during my cancer episode.

          Unfortunately, I may be teetering right on the edge of that at this moment. In two weeks I will be sentenced to 6 months in prison for continuing to grow the same medication I used to abate my chemo nausea. I was able to help some people out, especially a 22-year old terminally ill young man who had no other relief. I’m looking at being locked up with people I wouldn’t hang out with, and I will have to do without my wife, my cats, my daily science research sessions on the net,  no mandolin to play and no access to the very healthy foods I now eat. This is a mental challenge I never expected to face.

• [Mikey Black]

  This woman is amazing, please feature more of her work :) 

• [giantasterisk]

  My heart goes out to you, and I hope you have compassionate people around you now.

• [James Ollinger]

  The internet loves this.

• [Chiquita Bonita]

  I know Nikol personally, and I can agree with Mikey black that “this woman” is definitely “amazing”. I’m happy to see that BB featured this piece of hers, and I really hope it continues. She’s an incredibly talented writer and BB should definitely make efforts to continue publishing her work.

  • [delicioustacos]

    Piling on here to say that Nikol DS Hasler is a literary genius and sex wizard, and in a perfect world, every web site would be just dozens of stories by and photographs of Nikol DS Hasler.  The dollar would be renamed “the Ha$ler” and churches would feature iconography of Nikol vanquishing wickedness.  All four faces on Mount Rushmore would be Nikol’s and anytime you did something worthwhile people would say “you totally Hasler’d, bro.”

    And her homemade pickles are unbelievable.

• [Spitty Sumo]

  “Right before my 30th birthday I decided that I was going to stop taking medication, and that I would never cut myself again.”

  i’m glad that worked for you.  i wish it would work for me.

  incidentally, one of the reasons i do not have children is because the buck stops here, as far as crazy is concerned, since mine is inherited.  if yours is also inherited (by that i mean organically occurring as opposed to being caused by your surroundings, upbringing, et cetera — which might explain, i suppose, why you didn’t really require meds), why did you have a child, knowing you very likely have passed it on?

  • [I_of_Horus]

    Wow, blaming the victim FTW!
    It’s great you came to your decision, Spitty Sumo, and we all applaud you for it (no, really). But purlease let’s not force everyone else in somewhat similar situations to take your POV. Thanks!

    • [Spitty Sumo]

       why don’t you just go ahead and call me a eugenecist for the godwin?
      (i can play the “stick words in someone’s mouth” game, too.)

  • [ocker3]

     I think there’s a link with the just finished high school thing. Did you know 40% of births in California are unplanned?

    • [Nikol D S Hasler]

      I also grew up in the Midwest and in foster care. My likelihood to have unplanned pregnancies was pretty high. 

  • [Nikol D S Hasler]

    Hey there. My choice to stop taking medication and not cut myself was not one that came easily. I do a lot of work to keep myself mentally healthy. I am not anti-medication, though. 

    As for my choice to have children, even given their predisposition toward mental illness, you’ll be pleased (I’d hope) to know that my children are wonderful. They managed to get a lot of positive qualities from me, and my own experience with mental illness makes me a pretty good sounding board for them. 

    • [Spitty Sumo]

      though i didn’t interpret your stance as such, it’s good that you’re not anti-med.  i like to think of meds as part of the toolkit those of us with mental illness can use in order to deal with life and living it — unfortunately, no matter how “well” things go for me environmentally, and how thankfully wonderful my parents and my upbringing was (in spite of my own mother’s mental illness) — it’s a tool i seem to be unable to do without, much to my own frustration.

      given what i’ve said, i acknowledge that i’m in a position of privilege insofar as my upbringing goes.  i’m certainly not a victim-blamer as another poster suggests.  children are, after all (and in spite of what certain politicians these days seem hell-bent on), a choice.  i sincerely hope that your children live without the pain of mental illness, though they’ll at least have a mother who knows where they are coming from — which is a wonderful thing.  i just personally cannot imagine doing that.  even my own mother said that, if she knew then what people know now about how such things are inherited, she’d've spared me the life experience.

      one more thing — and i only mention this because you talk about your scars making it “impossible to go sleeveless,” which i might — please forgive me if i’m incorrect — interpret in a way meaning that you’d like to go sleeveless.  depending on how deep yours are, and your skintone, you may find it worthwhile to look into laser  scar revision.  i’ve had some luck with that myself — they never go away (and it sure ain’t cheap), but it makes the landscape a bit less rough.

      • [marilove]

        Jesus, just shut up with your tl;dr  lecturing.

        People sometimes have kids in less than stellar conditions.  To be honest, I don’t think most people are EVER completely prepared for kids.  And sometimes shit just happens because life isn’t perfect.  For anyone.  Including you.

        And that’s the thing!  She has already had kids!  What is the point of this righteous screed?

        There is no need for you to give this clearly intelligent and self-aware woman a lecture because she had kids, something she can’t take back no matter how much you blather on about how terrible it is that someone who has a mental illness DARED to have kids.

        Plenty of parents who don’t have (obvious) problems end up having kids that have problems.  And people who grew up in less than stellar conditions or who have their own set of problems have kids that turn out great.  And even people who do have problems can turn out just fine, or be productive, happy members of society.  Including this woman!

        It’s insulting what you’re implying; that mental illness makes life so unworthy that you shouldn’t even attempt to procreate.

        Would you give this same lecture to someone who comes from a family with a high rate of breast cancer?  And what the hell gives you the right to point fingers at people and their choices?

        At 30, I don’t have kids and have -n-o desire to have kids, and I still think you’re being a self-righteous jerk.

• [Michael Birch]

  Kudos to you for being so open about these experiences. I know how hard it can be to do so.

• [amelia]

  thank you

• [K Vollmer]

  As someone who suffers from BPD (borderline personality disorder) I’d like to thank you for posting this.  It’s been a year since I last self injured, some days are better than others, but really it’s the best you have with what you’ve got.  I credit DBT (dialectic behavior therapy) with helping me take my life back.  Skills instead of pills.  :)

  I also have chosen to remain childless for the same reason.

• [I_of_Horus]

  Tears in my eyes.  Thank you.

• [wumples]

  I love reading everything you write. This was no exception. Thank you for writing, even when it’s not happy and simple. Your voice is so unique and important. 

• [Danika Varekai]

  Amazing. Thank you. would love to… buy a book from you? or something. bills suck & I would like to read more.

• [AbdulAlhazred]

  “Voicing my depression is acceptable, healthy, and normal.”
  I wish we lived in a world where this was commonly accepted and understood. I don’t think we do. But it was more than the poor reception that convinced me to stop voicing anything. It was seeing the people who actually did care become saddened and increasingly frustrated, because nothing they did or said helped. As time has passed I don’t think there is anything they *can* do. And so, with “talking about it” only meaning extending the suffering, I chose not to.
  It’s succeeded in easing the worries of people around me, which in practice makes things easier for me.

  This is not an endorsement of action or universal truth. Just an experience.

  • [bigomega73]

    The odd thing is that I never felt any kind of stigma in telling people I suffered from depression. It is only recently, with some celebrities “coming out of the closet” that they have depression, did I realize that there is some kind of social stigma to it. To me it never seemed something to be ashamed of, and helped explain my behavior to people. But, like you said, there is a general misunderstanding of what actual clinical depression is, and most people think it is like having the blues or feeling down BECAUSE of something. Most people want to help and think that they can just say or do something to cheer you up. But since there is not specific cause of your depression, there is no way they can help. I have shut myself off from romantic relationships because when I’m single and I get depressed, I can isolate myself from people until it passes. It doesn’t affect anyone else. When I’m in a relationship though, it affects my partner and that just heightens my depression because I can’t stand that I’m hurting this person or may be damaging them in some way. So I understand when you choose not to talk about it with people.

• [Cheese!]

  ‘Doing the best they/you can’ …has always seemed like a ridiculous sort of statement to me. How can anyone possibly know that they couldn’t squeeze out a little more ‘better’ with a few seconds more effort? Of course, everyone could. The whole concept of ‘best they can’ seems flawed, and is often used to simply excuse someone’s bad behavior, in my experience. Then again…

  • [Chiquita Bonita]

    And who the hell are you to doubt if someone’s not doing the best they can? And perhaps your experience with this is just that; it’s YOUR experience. Try not to shuffle your failures and setbacks onto other people.

• [Taza Guthrie]

  Kudos for your kind responses to difficult commentary.  (I am always amazed at just how quickly comment threads turn into blaming, name-calling free-for-alls!)  Your journey is very inspiring.  Thank you for writing about it.