― Nathan Filer
We are all struck with the deaths of the Reiner parents. Rob and his wife were killed by their son that they so deeply appeared to adore. Paricide is a term I learned today. It is when a child kills their parent.. in this case ‘parents’. Extremely uncommon.
It appears to me that the Reiner’s only real struggle in life was protecting their son from himself. Rob Reiner even said that was a parents only REAL duty.
We protect our kids from all the ouside forces in life…’Look both ways before crossing the street’, ‘Wear your seatbelt’, ‘Don’t hang around that friend’. But what if the danger is INSIDE your child? What if it is THEMSELVES that is the danger?
I cannot imagine (thankfully) what the parent of a child with mental illness endures. I cannot imagine what a child with mental illness experiences. It sounds to me that the ‘dark cloud’ that hovered over the family was years and years of hardship to the family. I imagine it was the first thing that Rob and his wife thought of when they opened their eyes each morning. It sounds to me that they tried to integrate their son into ‘normal’ life. They brought him to celebrity parties even. They didn’t HIDE him from their life. They lived WITH him and tried so desperately to be a normal family (whatever that means).
There is a saying that mental illness is acceptable in the very poor and in the very rich. Drive down the street and peek at the homeless population. There they are right out in the open while you sip your Starbucks at a stoplight. And OoOooh the very rich can be extravagant and ‘out there’ and we watch them ‘perform’. But to be inside the walls of the homes of a child that struggles must be raw and painful and consuming.
I imagine his 17 stints in rehab were in the best facilities. I imagine the drugs helped him quiet the millions of tabs that are open in his brain. I bet he thought it ‘helped’ him feel more, well, ‘normal’. I am sure that his self medicating was his only way of coping.
I don’t know anyhting about this subject. I have friends with family members that struggle with their minds. I am sure there was some undisclosed mental issues somewhere in my family tree. I think it is more common than we think. I am sure that the Reiners ENTIRE family loved their son/brother/grandson/nephew as much as they could (or as much as he allowed). I imagine it must be difficult to be the child of a celebrity regardless of your mental state. I imagine it is hard to see success when all you want to do is close some of those open tabs in your brain and quiet the noise. I imagine it is quite noisy in there.
“Trying to show that you have mental illness to somebody who’s never had it is like trying to describe a new color to the colorblind” is a quote that I read. They say living with mental illness is like constantly fighting a bear in a phone booth. I heard about the deaths of the Reiner’s I started researching mental illness. Losing your mind, which is what happened, is a terrible thing. I wanted to know what it must feel like. Sometimes these people ‘cure’ themsleves by self harming. Maybe the Reiner’s child thought that if he hurt himself it would destroy his parents. Maybe he thought he was a ‘bad child’ and was relieving his parents from his destruction. Maybe he didn’t think at all and just reacted. I have watched his videos and it is obvious that this strikingly handsome young man was awkward and uncomfortable. He knew it. Everyone knew it. But they tried to make him fit in. It sounded like that was all they ever did was TRY to make it better. Rob Reiner said in an interview that people with diplomas on their walls sitting at big desks more or less told him of the dangerous side of his son. He said, more or less, that they wanted to love the hurt out of him. They wanted to put their arms around him and do it as a family. And they did.
Families are complex organisms. You never know really what is going on behind closed doors and inside peoples minds. The Reiner’s tried…my God did they try. I am sure that sometimes it felt like it was working. I am sure that many times it felt like it never would work.
If your heart, lungs, or kidneys can fail, then a brain can as well. My heart goes out to the families during the holidays that are trying to make their family member fit in; to the families that are hoping that their child shows up to Christmas dinner; to the families that hope there won’t be a scene ‘this year’; to the families that hope that their child isn’t living ‘under a bridge’; to the families that have run out of hope. Desperation is LOUD. Sometimes you throw up your hands and say ‘well, we tried everything’; sometimes ‘it is what it is’.
I am convinced that what happens in the homes of families facing mental illness is much diferent than we imagine. I am sure with every head held in their hands thinking they are never going to change, there are always rays of hope and love. I hope that these families are surrounded by friends and family that understand their struggle. A famous producer bringing his child to a party full of celebrities tells me that his friends knew that they were just trying everything they could do to pull their son out of his own mind.
Sometimes you just have to love them and pray for the best. As for the Reiner’s I pray for the family left behind and their son that will most likely be living in a physical prison, although he has been a prisoner of himself his entire life. Love your family regardless of their imperfections; regrdless of their struggles; regardless of their illness and continue to try to love them to health; regardless of the outcome…I guess.
