A divorce and a religious environment spark a mental breakdown
White remembers his sister's commitment to a mental institution. She erupted into cries of "I don't wanna go to Hell," and soon thereafter found herself in Durham Regional Hospital. White believes that his parents' divorce affected his sister's emotional development.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with William E. White Jr., October 29, 2000. Interview R-0147. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ASHLEY CROWE:
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And then, a couple - twice I think in our last interview you mentioned
your sister as crazy. What do you mean by that?
- WILLIAM E. WHITE, JR.:
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This goes back to the Charismatic Renewal. When I got involved with it,
the standard routine - and I'll ask God about that when I see
God. But when you're first baptized in the Holy Spirit is
what they call it, you're just obnoxious, I mean you want to
go climb up on the rooftop and yell to everybody. And a day rolled
around when my mom, I think my great aunt Omi, and I were in the den
part of the very large kitchen-dining-den area, and we were talking
churchy stuff. And my sister was at the dining table, and the next thing
we know she is pounding the table with her fists, screaming, "I
don't wanna go to Hell, I don't wanna go to Hell,
I don't wanna go to Hell!" We're going,
"What is this all about?"
And it got worse to the point where we put her in the Mental Health part
of Durham Regional. And they didn't do much there, except
keep her drugged. And when her insurance ran out we had to take her to
Butner. And the hardest thing I've ever had to do was let
this great, huge, big, butch, burly nurse take my sister into a locked
ward. I mean there were twenty or thirty people in that area. And all I
could do watch as they closed and locked this great huge heavy door. I
don't think my mom and I said two words on the way home. And
that was tough.
Most of this, I think, started when Pat was twelve and my parents had an
extremely nasty divorce. I'm talking screaming and hollering
and most everything else you can think of. And for some reason Pat tried
at twelve years old to single-handedly put her parents'
marriage back together. Which obviously didn't happen. And my
thinking is that somewhere along the line when Pat should have been
developing mentally and emotionally, she was so
sidetracked by the divorce that she didn't start going
through what regular teenagers do until she was in her twenties. And
that's a little tough when you're trying to be an
adult working person. And Pat has kind of emotionally spiraled down to
the point where about the only thing she can do is house cleaning and be
on disability. I think it may have been a blessing for Pat that she had
to have a kidney removed from cancer because that put her on disability.
And so - she is getting better. But like I said, if I didn't
think like her I wouldn't understand at all.
- ASHLEY CROWE:
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Right.
- WILLIAM E. WHITE, JR.:
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So that's how she's crazy.
- ASHLEY CROWE:
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Was there ever an official diagnosis of any sort?
- WILLIAM E. WHITE, JR.:
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Oh sure, they used the catch-all. It was schizophrenic, no paranoid
schizophrenic. Like, "Sure isn't every
one." It's kinda like going to the E. E. N. T.
doctor and he says "Oh you've got a deviated
septum." Everyone that goes has a deviated septum. Well that
was a paranoid schizophrenic. I lived with some of those in Atlanta
believe me, she was not a paranoid schizophrenic.