Mothers, Music, and Mental Health
3.28.2020
If you’ve learned one thing about me from the narratives and declarations on my site, it is that growing forward is important to me. Unsurprisingly, this mind frame gets a fair amount of “easy for you to say” pushback, and assumptions that if you have a positive-grow-forward attitude that you came from pure light, and it’s easy for you to sit on a high hill and tell others how to be. In my case, you couldn’t be more wrong.
This essay is an attempt to explain where I started and how far I've come. It was never easy. My past is full of abuse, hills, stumbling forward, and publishing this past has opened up a fresh flame of abuse denial, but it is unfortunate truth and precisely why I’m so laser-focused on setting the best example for my son.
The purpose of shining light on old wounds is to illuminate that one can come from pain and still spread light. Far too often, I hear souls wail that some-manner-of sad thing happened to them and it is the reason they can’t do XYZ. That is a fallacy. Most of us have suffered some form of setback: the important part is how we take that experience and grow over it.
Not “get over it”, never that; but it is imperative that you grow over that pain or you’ll waste your life in standstill, poking a wound that will never heal.
First, let’s start with the fact that I readily acknowledge I have a Second World existence. Wait, isn’t America a First World country? Nope, we lack universal health care (causing many souls to die in sickness or go into debt in the pursuit of proper care), we are one of only 2 countries that fail to offer paid maternity leave for mothers/fathers to bond with and take care of their children, and our poverty gap is staggering and heartbreaking.
However, us Americans are free from bombings, wars on our own soil, most of us have fresh drinking water, and we have access to food...though far too many of us can’t afford it.
My family crawled out of poverty through hard work and my parents were able to spend their middle-aged years in comfort, but when my brothers and I were growing up everything was tight budgets, stretched food, bargain-bin clothes (which the kids at my paid-for-by-a-scholarship Catholic School had no bones bullying me about), and a mother who had two frequencies: fun and furious.
My father was always teaching, performing deacon duties (at church, but also visiting folks in nursing homes, volunteering, etc), and playing tennis, so we were often on our own with our mother and he was unaware of how things shook out in his absence. I’ve spent the bulk of my 37 years trying to sort out why she was so angry (The stress of raising 3 kids? The embarrassment of being poor?) but eventually I learned that her temper had been honed since childhood and it had nothing to do with me or my brothers. Before us, it had been directed at her siblings. The seeds of her temper were sought early and were hers to control or not. And if you’re thinking: “Jeanne?! That sweet soul had a temper?!” you surely did not know her well enough, because even cashiers were subjected to her wrath.
For us elder three, we knew her physical abuse well, and some of it she even relayed as “humorous” stories. (Raise your hand if you’ve heard her gasp in laughter while relaying a car trip with my brothers where they were fighting over something in the back seat and she used their Masters of the Universe sword to rapid-fire beat them about the head, and then “HAHAHAH! That sure shut them up!”) I guess that one was funny to her, but she kept silent about the daily terrors. If she was angered, she would roar until her face was red and foamy. She was prone to kicking, slamming, slapping, shaking, grabbing, pinching, and throwing things at you.
One second she could be having fun, but if something upset her (and this could be any slight thing you could never imagine would be an issue) she could quickly cut to pure white hostility; as such, my earliest memories were fear, anxiety, and the perpetual feeling of being on eggshells. If things were good, it was only going to be a matter of time before something set her off.
For some kids, it is a relief to get out of the house and be at school; but by kindergarten, it was was acute that we were not comfortable or even rich like my classmates, and that people are cruel enough to mock you en masse for your appearance and for your clothes (they could care less if that makes a fellow kid cry; in fact, I was often CHASED while they continued to hark on how ugly I was, and that sort of uncharitable Catholic School fun went on K-8).
All of the above (poverty, public scorn, comparing physical appearances) embarrassed my mother so terribly she couldn’t navigate through it to relay that this was all inconsequential nonsense in the grand scheme. Instead, these things brought her misery, deep embarrassment, and I was told that the opinions of others were very important and a reflection on my failings. Case in point: when I first told her about that bullying (as a KINDERGARTENER), she stated that I really was quite awful to look at, annoying (because I talked so much), and it was my own fault other kids didn’t like me.
By 5, you may have been wishing on a star to have a toy, a pony, whatever; but my earliest wishes were:
"I wish someday someone will love me and I’ll feel safe.”
All that said, I actually consider myself lucky that I escaped childhood without sexual abuse --some of my dearest souls were not so lucky-- and that the physical abuse was not as bad as some (again, I have friends with stories that would rip your heart right out), but I can say that it is a confusing and heartbreaking swirl to have a mother who physically abuses you, repeatedly tells you how embarrassing it is to have such an ugly daughter, says more than once “I see nothing in you that I respect or love”, and yet finds ways to be kind and loving to the sibling who arrived 8 years after you. Your earliest thoughts are that something is wrong with you and that you are unworthy of love.
My friends from elementary through college saw it clearly. I used to hide in my friend Liz’s basement, weep on the shoulders of my friend Mary (whose mother also knew about this, tried to talk to my mother about it, and the response was that I was no longer allowed to go to their house after school. The Nichols’ home was my harbor and safe space, so this was a crushing blow), and it was all seen keenly by my longtime good friend Gertner. He had grown close enough to the family for my mother to show her true side in front of him multiple times, and he summed up our dynamic perfectly: “It’s like she doesn’t want you, but she doesn’t want anyone else to want you either.”
A happy memory: after a bad breakup in college, my parents took me with them to the Corning Glass Museum.
All of us souls are complex, however, and as previously stated my mother had a light side that could be fun and generous. She had the capacity to be caring and warm to strangers: she single-handedly spear-headed a spaghetti fundraiser for our church organist and choir director as he was dying of cancer, she invited all sorts of souls to eat at her table, she made mounds of cookies to share with others, she trekked cars of kids to the movie theater, and she had a penchant for handing out coupons to strangers.
She had a soft spot for her first son, a silly-streak with her second, she was very protective and loving with her other daughter; and with me she liked to relay stories behind the songs we were always listening to via Lite Rock stations in her car. She cultivated in me a deep love of music, lyric, and storytelling.
Once my parents were comfortable enough to do so, she was also incredibly generous with their money. She bought presents, trinkets, and made bounties of food for all sorts of souls. Sharing was something she loved doing.
I say all the above, because it is important to relay that a person’s wrath is not their only feature, even if it is the most searing. We all have varying sides to us, bits we may show our closest kins and keep hidden from others: even our father had no idea, because the few times I would try to tell him of something that occurred, he’d obviously discuss it with her, and then as soon as he was gone I got it a thousandfold worse. I learned to keep quiet.
For my brothers, the abuse petered out early and our caboose sister was mostly spared (for reasons I’ll never know, yet spent far too much time ruminating over); but for me the psychological abuse lasted until she died, and the physical abuse lasted through my first year of college.
Though college?! Yes. Here is one that is still seared into my memory because it came at me so swiftly I had no idea what I had done wrong and didn’t have enough time to protect myself:
She had given me an envelope that needed to go to the financial aid office. I worked in the Union next to Culkin (the building with the Financial Aid Office). My shift started before Culkin was open, and went long enough that Culkin was closed by the time I got out, so I put the envelope into inner-office-mail so that it would be delivered in time. When I got home, she asked if I had delivered the envelope. I stated that I had put it into inner-office-mail (and explained why), and she started screaming and hitting me. Now everyone would know that I was on financial aid. How could I embarrass my family like that? How could I be so stupid?!
It had never occurred to me to be ashamed about financial aid. We had always struggled with money and many people were on financial aid. I considered it a fact and not something to be embarrassed by, but that was obviously not how my mother saw things. When she was done berating and beating me, she gave me the silent treatment for days thereafter.
To further complicate matters, and for reasons I’ll also never quite understand: my mother told many purposeful lies about me to friends and family. Why “purposeful”? They had no bearing on fact, and appeared to be told with the intent of getting people to dislike me, and to see me through a completely distorted lens.
There are many many examples of this waste of breath, but the sad thing is that the lies and manipulation went on until the day she died. The last wounding wallop was a tale that Ian and I had sought money from her to go to Kauai with his parents: “when they always knew that it was a place I wanted to go, but instead they are taking Ian’s parents.” Again, I heard about this through multiple family members who were enraged by the audacity of my inconsideration and entitlement.
The truth? WE NEVER ASKED HER FOR MONEY FOR THAT TRIP. Ian won a workman’s compensation case for a back injury caused on a solar site. His parents have a lifelong friend who lives on Kauai, and they had wanted to go for years but had no funds to do so. Ian took the money that he could have squirreled away for retirement (because our jobs have never equated to savings-for-retirement) and paid for his parents (and us) to go to Kauai because the family friend was diagnosed with leukemia, and Ian didn’t want this soul to die before his parents could see him one last time. We even offered to pay for my mother to come too, but at that point her sarcoidosis was so bad she could not make the journey.
She could have told that story: a story of her son-in-law sacrificing money for the betterment of other souls, but instead it turned into a twisted tale of me asking for money just to taunt that I was going to Kauai without her. Why??? I’ll never know. What I do know is that it caused ire, pain, and more hate aimed in my general direction for a gain I can’t fathom.
Catharsis in the form of singing with my friend Tom in college.
I’d like to say that the abuse is what finally convinced me to move out, but it actually all came down to music.
Ironically, it had mostly been through my mother that I had cultivated a love for music. Both my parents were music lovers but in slightly different directions. Through my father, I learned to love live music: choirs, Music Halls full of various genres, and theater. He never could have known how much “Castle on a Cloud” would split my heart right open, because my mother kept the bulk of her cruelty away from him.
My mother’s musical education was via pop music and local Lite FM stations. If she was driving, she was listening to music, and this meant you either got the sound of her singing or the story behind the artist or lyrics. I loved it all. She was happiest when listening to music and the feeling felt mutual and safe.
Early on, music became my therapy. I loved singing so much, that in first grade I got into repeated trouble for accidentally singing out loud when I was supposed to be doing silent work. I learned to keep it quietly in my head, and also that it was a catharsis that could be brought out in moments of terror. There were times that my mother would get so wrathful that she’d slam the door to my room, jamming it so bad I couldn’t get out. I’d wait for hours until she had calmed down enough to open it.
It was music that first calmed me. It sounds trite and overused, yet it is true: music can take you anywhere. In my head —no matter how hard the physical present was— I could revel in the harmonies of Boyz II Men (I was a super big nerd for that harmonic crew), my blood could bubble and buzz with the reverb of Weezer (I had them on cassette and then bought them on CD, and a bulk of my hearing loss can be attributed to how loudly I loved it all), I could wail like a forlorn harpy to Alanis Morrisette, disintegrate into the smoky tones of Sarah McLachlan, wrap myself up in the beauty of Nickel Creek, wallow in the poetic-depression of Counting Crows, feel mutual weirdness with Radiohead, the list goes on. I collected songs, sounds, words, harmonies; I clutched them to my heart like precious jewels and pulled them out whenever her roar sent me into a spiral, or the meanness of others was too much to bear.
Nickel Creek was the only band I ever loved enough to go to concerts entirely on my own. They were peaceful, cathartic, love-filled folks and every concert was a swirl of prowess and heart-lift.
It wasn’t until my eldest brother brought me to my first Guster concert that I discovered a band that had the ability to make me feel better, not just pacify a wail with a I’ve-been-there-too lyrical stream. Guster concerts were silly, they were boisterous, and there was a collective joy about them.
Looking for an album that will pep you right up and set your body to bouncing? Check out Guster On Ice, a live album (and DVD) shot over two days in Portland, Maine. My friends Bill, Josh, Emily, and I are part of that raucous crowd of happily sing souls.
These days I rarely listen to Guster (with the exception of that album I just mentioned); but I used to LOVE them —and luckily for college-me— they were popular enough to be perpetually touring. I started driving with friends to concerts far and wide. Their concerts were cathartic, therapeutic, and bursting with joy. I’d never been a soul comfortable with physical activity or anything akin to dancing, but you could not keep me still in those concerts. I came to those live shows weighed down with thoughts of sadness and abuse, but their whole vibe made me feel so happy I couldn’t stop myself from bopping. I eventually became friends with the drummer, and he’d told my anxiety-riddled, unloveable soul: “When I look out and see you dancing it, it always makes me play better.” (<---was the kind of safe and nerdy friendship where we played Uno, thumb-wrestled, and discussed other bands we liked that were better than Guster.) Everything about that band brought me peace and a lighter spirit.
This happiness must’ve bothered my mother; because in the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore year of college, she approached me and said that I needed to stop going to so many Guster concerts, or they were going to be forced to send me to get psychological counseling.
This mental-health care had never once been brought up when I was depressively anorexic in highschool, and it had never been mentioned any of the many times she discovered I’d been cutting (<--- Her actual response to that? “You better cut that shit out before your sister sees it and thinks she should too.” Not “Are you ok? What can I do to help? What’s going on?!” Maybe because the answer would have been her abuse.) Actually, at the time I was finally starting to feel like I had a grip on my depression and had been proud of myself for doing so without cutting or starving myself.
It was astounding to me that counseling would now be suggested for the simple fact that I was using my hard-earned money to go let off some steam and bop along with one of the nerdiest bands on this planet. It rang with a wail of that Gertner quote: she didn’t want me, she just didn’t want others to want me and for me to be happy with them.
The abuse should have been the straw, but it was music. I could not fathom living in a house where I couldn’t listen to music in peace, and would be threatened with counseling for the healthiest outlet I’d ever had. I promptly moved out.
Blurry Guster photo. I was always in the front row and I rarely took photos because I was usually dancing.
This concert, however, was a top-five favorite EVER and an absolute dream come true because it was Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds, then Guster. College J could not have been more heart-happy and my concert companion was my little sister.
This meant for the next several years of college (sophomore through my second senior year <---because I changed majors) that I would work no less than 60 hours a week (ON TOP OF A FULL-TIME CLASS SCHEDULE) to pay for my apartment, my car, food, and the occasional concert. I opened coffee shops and bookstores, worked various campus jobs during the day, and I tended bar at night.
When her family members asked where I was, she made up lies about how I wasn’t really working so much, I just didn’t like spending time with them. That’s another fun lie I got to hear rumbling on down the grapevine.
You’d think that maybe through all of this I would have cut that hostile, poisonous soul from my life, but that’s not how mother-daughter love works with this lady. Until the day she died, I was still trying to twist myself into a form that would make her love me.
Through college, I was that enthusiastic nerd bringing my mom to Trivia Nights at bars because she was really good at trivia (if we lost, she’d get mad at me and eventually she stopped wanting to come), when I made a windfall bartending I’d call her up and treat her out to lunches (the discussions were usually about how disappointing I was, or her venting about other souls that frustrated her), when we lived in the city I was perpetually begging her to come down for visits (she said it was too exhausting, but would then hop in a car to OH to see one of her other kids), when we were going to get married and my father was unable to walk me down the aisle (because he was performing the service) it was my mother who I asked to do the honors (this was despite the fact that she was so mad at me for not serving macaroni salad that she’d hung up on me and told my aunt how insufferable I was), the list could go on and on.
The fact was: I loved her dearly despite it all, and forgave her years ago. I was just not her type of soul. It took a long time to realize that sometimes your mother doesn’t like you, but it doesn’t mean you are a bad person. It also doesn’t equate to her being a terrible person: she had the ability to mother other children better, she was warm with many of her friends, and she was a gentle caretaker of her father (whom she loved dearly, as did I.)
It must’ve baffled her daily that someone so different could have come from her, and coupled with the stress of life and her own mental health issues (you don’t have a temper like hers and an even-keeled mind), she was ill-equipped to mother me with kindness.
Very first photo taken of me with Q. Not very flattering, but shows the immediate, protective love despite complete exhaustion.
It is just before 3PM, I had started contractions around 2AM the previous day, they’d gotten to under 5 minutes apart by 5PM, they were every 3 minutes apart through the night and until about 11AM when they decided to administer pitocin thinking that’d speed things along, but it just meant body-shaking contractions every 90 seconds for several more hours. All of this without any pain medications because I was concerned they’d hurt his delicate body and brain. Eventually, they realized his head wasn’t going to make it, so I was rushed into an emergency C-Section, whereupon my primary concern was making sure he was held and given love as soon as possible.
You may think a childhood like mine would push me far away from motherhood, but I’d had many years to contemplate how I would do things differently and I was determined to do it right. I’d heard far too many times that abuse begets more abuse, but I knew better. It is a choice.
It took us many moons of crying before we got our son, but as soon as he arrived I set to being the sort of mother he could love, trust, and be proud of. I’d had years to contemplate the aspects of my mother that were positive and worth repeating (her love of music, her ability to tell you backstories, her powerful raconteur flare, her generosity, sharing food), and which parts were harmful setbacks best avoided.
This means: showing him daily love (never once raising my hands to him), reminding him that he is a valuable human being (not worthless and told there’s nothing in him to like or respect), acting the same way to him that I act to other souls (or he’ll think duplicity is the way to be), speaking truthfully about him (not spreading lies to make people hate him), explaining that I can be disappointed in an act but will never love him any less (you can be firm without being cruel), and finding new ways to grow forward every day.
None of us are perfect and there are always things to improve on; and with the state of our earth (and the impact of animal agriculture upon it), our current Cappello growth arc is focused on leading by example and showing people how their actions harm themselves and the planet my son (and your kin) will inherit. (No time left for anyone to remain in standstill/non-growth, wailing about how hard their past was, when the earth needs you to grow over that pain and go fight for it!)
With that in mind, motherhood in this house is also forward-movement toward things that bring you light and peace: breaks to enjoy the beauty of life (we love hiking together), the glory of music (we listen to music and discuss lyrics and tones DAILY), embracing silliness, and the simple joys of dance breaks.
Cosmic full circle? Before she died, my mother was able to tell me that she was proud of how I mothered my son, and it was the dearest gift she ever gave me.
My son has never once been uncomfortable in his own skin, and he LOVES to dance, which means I am now often his dance partner, because (just like it was with my mother) it is often he and I alone together. One of his favorite dance jams? The latter half of Guster’s “Come Downstairs and Say Hello”. This song right here was the apex of my happiness that fateful it’s-time-to-move-out summer and it can still cause a swell of emotions.
It fit the time perfectly: lyrics that reflect a soul navigating depression and a mid-song break of determined, declarative forward movement. No more excuses.
To tell you the truth I've said it before
Tomorrow I start in a new direction
I know I've been half-asleep
I'm never doing that again
I look straight at what's coming ahead
And soon it's going to change in a new direction
Every night as I'm falling asleep
These words repeated in my head
When it crescendos around 2.30 and Brian eventually breaks into a percussive swell, it used to (and still does) set my heart to pure happy flame. I never could have imagined I’d have a son who’d one day holler in pure joy “Wow! There’s something about this that just makes me want to dance! It makes me so happy!!!” yet here we are and I couldn’t be more thankful.
Some wishes really do come true.
Had a parent, a friend, a partner who set you back on your heels by erroneously stating you have no worth? They are wrong.
Within you is the capacity to grow over that hurt and become a soul filled with light and kindness. While you’re at it, start learning about how plant-based whole-foods can heal your body, the howl of mental wailing, and the earth, and then start spreading that positive signal far and wide, because it is louder than past pain and far more important. <3
