While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence

In the summer of 1986, Meg was pregnant with her first child and terrified of what childbirth and parenthood would be like. She sought her mother’s advice but found that Jean couldn’t remember her experiences raising children. Kissinger believes this was due to her mother’s medication and heavy drinking and adds that Jean, like most women in the 1950s, was medicated during childbirth and didn’t remember it. Still, when Meg’s son, Charley, and then her daughter, Molly, were born, Jean became a hands-on grandmother. Meg and Larry moved to Milwaukee so they could be nearby.

Visiting her parents’ home one night, Meg came across her old yearbook and found dozens of Nancy’s doodles and messages inside. She was suddenly overwhelmed by how much she missed her sister, who was intelligent, witty, and mischievous. Meg decided to write a piece about Nancy for the newspaper, including how she found the drawings and explaining Nancy’s life and death. Holmer opposed the article at first, but Jean defended it, knowing that it was Meg’s way of releasing her grief over Nancy’s death. Meg knew that “Nancy deserved to be remembered for the way she really was, not for how [they] wanted her to be” (157).

Meg’s parents moved into a smaller house, and Jean started showing signs of illness. She was diagnosed with lymphoma and spent several years battling it. While in the hospital, Jean cut her wrists, which made Meg angry because of all the effort that everyone was putting in to help Jean live. Jean’s cancer came back in 1992, and Molly, Meg, and Patty were there with her when she died. They surrounded her bed in the middle of the night and held her hands as she took her last breaths. Meg told Holmer that Jean had died, and he cried in her arms. Nobody could find Danny at first, and when they finally did, his reaction seemed understated to Meg. She was unaware that Danny had depression.

Danny fell into more legal trouble for harassing customers of his lawn care business, claiming that they owed him money. He called one woman 50 times in a single day. Danny never believed his life would amount to anything and lived in denial about his mental health condition. His siblings encouraged him to visit them or to talk about what bothered him, but he remained closed off. One day, he surprised Meg by saying he had thoughts of suicide. She didn’t know how to respond, so she brushed it off.

Danny went to a doctor and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He took his medication for a couple of weeks but then convinced himself that his problem was an undiagnosed blood disorder like diabetes. He punched a police officer and wrote harassing letters to the judge who had sentenced him years before. Holmer saw no other option but to move Danny home with him, where Jake, who also had depression, still lived. Meg thought it was a terrible idea, and after a short time in a prison psychiatric hospital, Danny agreed to take his medication again. However, he only did so for a couple of weeks.

Danny was prescribed risperidone, which relieved his symptoms but turned him into an apologetic and faith-obsessed stranger. Meg received a letter from Danny apologizing for the past few years and got the feeling that he was preparing to die by suicide. She told Holmer to keep a close watch over him. One day when neither Holmer nor Jake were home, Danny hung himself by a cord in the basement. He was later found by Jake. Meg got the call at work and almost immediately rushed home to be with her family.

Meg and her siblings began to believe their family was cursed and wondered who would be “next.” When Meg’s boss asked her to write a piece about Danny’s death by suicide, she was reluctant at first. She came to believe that grieving a death by suicide is different from other forms of grief. She wanted Danny to be remembered for his efforts to improve his life. After the story was published, Meg started receiving calls from readers whose family members had mental health conditions. Many reported being unable to find the help they needed or to talk openly about what was going on. Meg realized that she needed to understand more about mental illness and ways to treat it.