Living Under Hyde Pt. 1

O.K., I did finally clean my house and it felt GOOD! Still haven't gone through shit, but that'll come, that'll come.

I just finished having dinner with a friend who had many questions about Hyde and what happened. I obliged her with a full re-count, including the condensed version of events that led up to Hyde's 10-year period of recovery that lasted from 1992 until about 2003.

Recovery was initially forced upon him. Mom and Daddy moved into Mom's parents' house in 1981. About 2 or 3 years later, Hyde appeared on their doorstep, on the lam from we never knew what. He needed a "safe" house. Yet another mystery in the life that was Hyde's. Needless to say, showing up suddenly, in desperation and in fear, with no explanation except that he needed a place to stay, spoke volumes about his frame of mind and state of his life at that time. It also pretty much put the kibosh on anything even resembling a pleasant visit with Mom and Daddy for years to come .

One good thing that came of him moving in was that from that point on, Jeckle and Mr. Wizard were "forced" to let me stay with them when I came in for a visit. Up until then, they operated in a fairly insular fashion but now they HAD to let me in! It was the beginning of a long road to forging bonds between us all that have stood us in good stead, particularly during these past five years of major family upheaval.

Anyway, Hyde moved in and, for a short period of time was kind of hanging on to his sanity. I think he was trying to either finish school or find a job, or both, the two activities that consumed most of his adult life. It seems there was at least one incident during this time involving losing a job or something. I say incident because Hyde never JUST lost a job. There was always some drama, some mystery, some accusation, something sinister that came into play.

At any rate, something triggered his insanity and it just got worse and worse. He often sat holed up in his room, 2 different T.V.'s on (with aluminum foil "wings" coming out of the sides of one), tape recorder playing over and over a phone conversation he'd made to some tele-evangelist's headquarters, listening and watching intently to either capture the messages he was being sent or to figure out who was reading his mind. If he wasn't holed up, he was wandering around, muttering to himself, or out terrorizing the community with ranting and raving.

I tried to have a conversation with him once during this period. He got extremely agitated with me because I was acting like I didn't know what was wrong, didn't know what was going on. He knew I could read his mind so why the hell was I acting like I didn't know why he was upset?! I was clearly in on the conspiracy and faking concern. (He had a particularly nasty way of sneering, "Oh, right. I know. You're CONCERNED about me. You LOVE me.")

The situation devolved to the point where he wasn't bathing, he was yelling and cursing, slamming doors, screeching down the driveway and screaming out of the window and, finally, making threatening statements and calling Mom a bitch. It got to the point where even Daddy could no longer ignore what was happening. That's how bad it was. Daddy had managed to ignore and deny a lot over the course of 30+ years.

So, Mom did the required legwork. She got a court order. The next time something big happened, she called the police. Daddy came home from work. Maggie left work and went over. Mom's brother went over. The police came. Fortunately, one of them knew how to handle the situation. Hyde was escorted to the psychiatric unit at the hospital. He underwent an evaluation. He was told that IF he started meds and therapy, he would not be hospitalized. He grudgingly acquiesced.

I found out later from him that for the next year he was just "playing along," biding his time, waiting, basically, until the "truth" came out and he would be vindicated. No one else knew this, of course. We all thought he was on the road to recovery.

That same year coincided with my last year of living in N.Y.C. In the middle of that year, I left N.Y. and showed up on my parents' doorstep to live until I found a place of my own. I was NOT unannounced, however; they knew I was coming. I remember Mom totally made up a place for me in the basement (the basement is huge-not dark or dank or anything-it was nice, once upon a time) with a bed, bedside tables, chifarobe (I don't have a clue how to spell that and even tried to look it up to no avail), rugs, desk. She was happy I was able to stay there.

I got a job with the Parks and Rec Department. All was good, except I was living under Hyde. Literally. And, of course, he wasn't really in recovery. He was still crazy as a loon and harboring much resentment about me being there (remember: my being born ruined his life).

What happened next? Stay tuned for the next installment of "Living Under Hyde."