Manic Panic Psycho Single

“What would you do if I died?”

TWIM didn’t have the tools to know how to do life without a man.

We would hop congregations every week in search of a cult husband. She would introduce herself after the cult sermons, dragging me around by the hand, treating me like the sidekick I often was to her. Her usual stranger-charm would pour out like honey from a bee’s nest. Sweet, but get too close and you’re likely to get stung. I remember always wondering where that funny, light-hearted person came from because I rarely saw her.

Despite the cult-hopping, she struggled to meet anyone who matched her artsy, eccentric personality. The cult was mostly stuffy, conservative, fearful of anything that might suggest too much connection to what they called “This System of Things.” So for an actress-artist type, you can imagine how challenging it would be to find someone who was both whimsical and flamboyant, while also maintaining rigid rules and a relationship with god. She was lonely and stuck with me.

Or at least that’s how I felt most days.

We were moved pretty far from her own mother, the only family she had left, and the only semblance of a “circle” she had was the cult members. Occasionally, elders would drop by to comfort her or lead her in prayer, we would go into ministry with random people in our order, but other than that, TWIM didn’t have a lot of substantive people in her life.

I was a junior in high school when she fell into a deep depression. Several weeks went by when she didn’t leave her room except to go to work. She became reclusive and wasn’t getting out of bed much.

I remember one night she called me to her room.

“I want to talk to you about something,” she said in that way that makes your heart rate accelerate from zero to 60. “What would you do if I died?”

My face flooded with fear as I stared at her, somehow expecting her to say more things. “What??? Why would you ask me something like that?”

“I want to know. Who would you stay with if I was no longer here?” she pushed.

“I HAVE NO IDEA BECAUSE I DON’T THINK ABOUT THINGS LIKE THAT, SO WHY ARE YOU?” I pleaded for an answer.

The truth is, I don’t remember what her response was. I assume that’s because her question had more to do with dropping the drama mic loud enough to get attention from me. Like: “Don’t you dare cross me because I’m fragile and could take my own life at any moment. You don’t know.”

The thing is, I did feel sorry for her. I understood that she was lonely and sad about where her life was at the time. I knew how hard she was trying to put food on the table and be a single parent. She succeeded in pulling me into her darkness so I felt obligated to take care of her. I made sure I was doing everything she expected of me: read my scriptures, prepare for ministry, do my chores, make dinner.

A few days later, I came home one day after school to a note on the kitchen table: “I’m in the hospital. Not sure how long I’ll be. Just stay put till I get back.”

Who does this? Who just casually writes a note like this to their child without any explanation or phone calls or details? I didn’t even know where the hospital was because we had just moved there.

She came back that night and still wouldn’t tell me what happened. I assumed she had a nervous breakdown of some kind, but this was what my mother did. Any time she felt like she needed sympathy or escape from accountability, she would use one ailment or another to get it. (You know, instead of communicating like a normal, emotionally regulated person.)

So I spent the next few weeks tip-toeing around her, careful not to upset her or do anything to rock the boat lest she decide that was the day she would remove herself from this world.

Of course, this never happened and shortly thereafter it was like nothing ever happened.

But once again, the elders came a-knocking to support her in her emotionally fragile state.

Meanwhile, I’m in my room at 16 years old wondering what I’d do without a mother, and why nobody ever came knocking for me.