Thank you for talking to PMH Mark. Tell me about your mental health history.

I was isolated as a child, raised by my mother, who worked full-time in retail after divorcing my father. I started kindergarten at age four, which made me the youngest child in school. At age six, I came home after school to an empty apartment; I wore a key fastened to a shoelace around my neck. I saw my father once or twice a year; I would often get terribly sick when I visited him. During elementary school I was bullied, and kicked in the groin by older kids who wore pointed, cleated shoes, which left golf-ball sized black-and-blue marks. During the summers when I was out of school and my mother worked, I stayed at my grandmother’s house. My grandmother cleaned her house daily, though she lived with my one brother who was 11 years older than me. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt - my grandmother often saying: “All they do is sh*t and eat, sh*t and eat!” My brother would tease me, tell me to go to bed a 7:00 p.m. in the summer and call me a ninny. The children in the neighborhood saw me as an outsider and made no attempt to befriend me. My shyness didn’t help.

When I was 11 years-old my mother remarried her second husband, who was an alcoholic and verbally abusive. Between her two marriages to him, he had married someone else, who committed suicide - a gunshot to the head - after he decided he would divorce her and marry my mother for the second time.

My mother and I soon moved into the same house, and she slept in the same bedroom where the tragedy occurred. Nothing more needs to be said to explain that my mother had some mental health concerns, which I never processed until later in life -  I was afraid of nearly everything; swimming, roller coasters, girls, being alone, and I avoided after-school activities.

I never had a date in high-school, though I often fantasized of having a girlfriend. I ate alone in the school cafeteria. Perhaps this was the first hint of having Asperger’s syndrome. I jokingly report that my wife diagnosed me several years ago. I grudgingly disagreed when she first brought my Asperger’s symptoms to my attention. Today, however, I recognize she was correct - it isn’t easy for a partner to live with someone who has Asperger’s. Although I was never clinically diagnosed, I clearly suffered from depression and anxiety.

After I started working in a restaurant my senior year of high-school, I was involved in two unhealthy romantic relationships. Having felt unloved, these relationships exposed my co-dependency and control issues. I smoked marijuana nearly every day, consumed alcohol at least twice a week. It was not until I reached my mid-twenties before I began to understand how I had been incubated in my mother’s fears. I yearned to be wanted.

I married my first wife when I was 21. After we were married for about a year, my wife was raped by someone she knew. She did not tell me immediately. We went through counseling, which didn’t help. Neither of us fully acknowledged the impact the rape had on both our lives,. We didn’t have a chance of saving the marriage. She started going out three or more times a week with friends, stayed out late, came home intoxicated. Sometimes she would go to bars alone. Our marriage went on like this for years, and we eventually divorced.



What did you to cope with your isolation?

I started meditating at age 26. I frequented meditation groups and formed a circle of friends. I was fortunate to find a solid job in the transportation industry which gave me economic security and confidence. I went on to explore the mysteries of the Great Pyramid, travelling to Egypt and Greece, amongst other spiritual adventures. When I was 30, I went to northern Georgia for a spiritual retreat. We were situated in the mountains, with plenty of trees and a vibrant river. A group of 12 attended, who came from all areas of the country. One exercise was this: find a tree and ask, “Tree, how am I like you?” What came out of me I can only describe as automatic writing. In another way, I felt it was poetry. It was an exhilarating experience. I had never thought I this ability to express myself in this way. After the retreat, I explored all kinds of writing: short stories, novels, non-fiction, and poetry. 



Is there a history of mental health issues in your family?

I never knew my father’s side of the family. He ran away from home in Pennsylvania when he was 16,l and started working in a factory in Cleveland, Ohio. He was known to be quick to anger. My mother may have had what we recognize as Asperger’s syndrome. She was always nervous and depressed, never slept well, had ulcers. She was habitually in a state of nervousness. My sister had behaviors indicative of bi-polar disease. She had manic highs and depressive lows throughout her life. She would excitedly start a new project and rarely finish it. She would go on shopping sprees, only to return most of the items a week later. After she died two years ago, she had a closet full of new clothes with price tags on them. My wife carried 15 wreaths and six Christmas from the attic. My oldest brother had a gambling problem that cost him one marriage. One brother was divorced four times, another brother divorced twice. I grew up as if I were an only child; I never lived with any of my siblings, save my one brother for one year. My mother’s alcoholic second husband’s first wife was committed to a mental institution, “asylum” as it was called decades ago. My mother said more than once, “His first one is in a mental ward, another one killed herself. I wish I had the guts to do so.” 



Do you find writing helps your mental health?

Writing poetry is the one thing that truly makes sense to me. I joke that because I can’t sing or play an instrument, that writing is my default setting. I never read poetry outside of the little taught in school. In my freshman year of college poetry did not call to me. I had no clue; I couldn’t connect with it. 

After writing mostly poorly-written poetry for a few years, I began to read contemporary poetry. I went back to college while working full-time. I recall my mind being stretched while I was reading Keats, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Blake. I studied major poets, both contemporary and from the Romantic period and learned that all of them were readers of poetry when they were young. From that point forward, I read closely and prolifically, not solely for enjoyment, but to expand and strengthen my work.



What is your writing process?

I write early in the morning before work. At worst, I manage to write for an hour. When I first started writing I can came upon an interview of a local painter. I remember her answer to the question, “Do you wait until you are inspired to paint?” “No, I sit down to work and then the inspiration comes.” I’ve been fortunate to have many ideas for poems. In the beginning, often a line from a poem I recently read would create an idea. On days when no inspiration came, I would revise old work. It’s only been the past year or so that I have put together full-length manuscripts and sent them for publication. I’ve been published in many journals, a good amount of them no longer in existence. 

I have been working in the mental health field for the last four years. It’s no accident mental health themes have integrated into my work. What has been more significant is my work has evolved to writing full-length manuscripts. I strive to have each stanza stand on its own as a separate poem, and also in harmony within a section. Reading long poems, whether or not they have relevance to mental health, has been helpful. The long works of Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery may not be “mental health” driven, but they do investigate the psyche.



What advice do you have for people going through significant mental health challenges?

I would tell them to find a behavioral health clinic and enter into treatment. Individual and/or group therapy offers much support. A number of the members on my caseload have no support whatsoever outside the clinic. Many are friendless, have no one who believes in them. Most often, they simply need to be listened to. It’s what I have learned most working at the clinic. It is so important to be totally present for them. I have one member who meets with me primarily to read poetry. Finding a creative outlet can be of great help. Making something is empowering.