Bibba: An Unordinary Life

By Carolyn Carter

In this memoir, Carolyn Carter, tells the story of what life was like being raised by her mother, Bibba, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. She offers a disturbing, but true account of the abuse, domestic violence, and infidelities her family endured and takes you down a path of consequences, loss, healing, forgiveness, and ultimately... love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carolyn Carter
• Release date: Jun 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201457969

Carolyn Carter

Carolyn Carter is a native Floridian who grew up in the Pacific Northwest. She pursued her writing career upon retirement from the healthcare industry and has written four books of various genres; a crime novella, Constellations; YA/children's book, Firefly Dreams and My Name is Nikki; A Feline Tale.

Book preview

The paranoid is never entirely mistaken

~ Sigmund Freud

Preface

I began writing this book ten years ago at the suggestion of one of the many psychiatrists I have seen throughout my adult life. At the young age of eight, I discovered that journaling served as an effective release of the joys and sorrows I experienced during my childhood. During my sessions with therapists, I shared stories of what it was like to be raised by an abusive mother whose mental illness was undiagnosed and untreated from before my birth until my late teens. They were impressed with my mother’s character from a clinician's viewpoint and listened with great interest as I described what they knew was classic but complex, paranoid- schizophrenia.

I decided to complete this memoir after my parents passed away 90 days apart in 2019. My father, who had been healthy all his life, was diagnosed with and died from multiple myeloma, which may or may not have been caused by chemical exposures while he was in Vietnam. He was 89.

My mother had a stroke in 2016. Home health workers could not tolerate her, and she would not stay in a care facility, so I became her in- home caretaker. Imaginary friends and voices in her head convinced her that she was perfectly healthy and to refuse the medications that treated her hypertension, diabetes, and psychoses. A second stroke killed her in 2019, at the age of 92.

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Psychiatrists remained interested in my mother’s condition, especially the chief of Psychiatry at a prominent hospital in Tacoma, Washington. According to him, if my mother exhibited paranoid-schizophrenic behavior into her 90’s it would make the medical journals, because as we get older, those symptoms parallel with dementia. The irony of it, however, is that when she was given the cognitive tests to diagnose dementia, she passed it with flying colors every time.

I have always operated on a need-to-know basis and inquired about things that were unclear to me. I studied every psychology, sociology, and humanity course my community college offered. I was an advocate for homeless women and children and provided help to victims of domestic violence. However, nothing was more rewarding than to sit alone with my mother and listen as she talked about her childhood, my relatives and what it was like for her to grow up in the South.

My hope is that this autobiographical memoir can assist students of psychiatric medicine as well as people who are coping with the mental illness of loved ones. I also wish to shed light on battered husband syndrome; a subject of the physical abuse perpetrated on men, which is ignored and goes unnoticed in many families.

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June 2021

1

PART ONE | AT FIRST SIGHT

Voices

The bus hissed as it came to a complete stop, then lowered its front half like an enormous horse taking a bow. Some bus drivers did this to make it easier for the passengers who had a little trouble walking struggled to navigate the steps. Mom moved at a slow pace and took her time as she gathered all her belongings, while ignoring the line of impatient riders that had accumulated behind her. She shuffled with tiny baby steps down the aisle and toward the door and grabbed every safety bar along the way.

No running on the bus, The bus driver said with a smile.

You don’t have to worry about that, she said. 

They both laughed as she exited the coolness of the air-  conditioned bus and stepped into the humid weather that waited outside. The white sun shone overhead and bared down hard and unleashed immense heat onto all who dared to venture outside that day. Mom wiped her forehead as she waited for the crosswalk signal to change. The turquoise parasol she used to protect her from the afternoon sun, shadowed her face in a bluish-green tint. Pretty little pink, white, and yellow oriental flowers swirled around the umbrella in a cheerful design and added a delightful ambience.

"Global warming? What? Aw, shit—you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Some shit you heard on TV. You’re such a stupid motherfucker!" she said to someone who was not there as she crossed the busy intersection alone. It’s just summer, that’s all. It’s supposed to be hot in the summer!

Mom talked to herself often. She had done this for many years, but now it had gotten to where she couldn’t hide it in public. Or maybe she didn’t care if people stared. She believed someone was next to her and they had conversations, most of which became angry, argumentative one-way dialogues that involved heavy cursing, name-calling, and accusations. She had taken prescribed medications over the years, and some had quieted the voices, but they also turned her into a walking zombie.

Since she lived alone these days, she said she wanted to wake up without the groggy effects and stay alert all day, so she refused to take any pills. Nobody could convince her that the shadows which followed her during the day and the tugged at her feet as she laid in bed were not real. The messages she got from the airplanes as they flew overhead were real in her world, all of it was real—and everyone else was crazy.

At ninety-one years old, my mom held the adage black don’t crack to be self-evident. She didn’t look a day over sixty. Even as she frowned, worried the tiny balls of sweat surrounding her face were going to turn her hair back to nappy; her smooth, caramel-colored skin bore no wrinkles. She said it was because she never smoked. She used to pretend to smoke cigarettes in her younger years, but never inhaled, instead held the smoke in her mouth, and released a cloud into the air to make it look like she did. It gave her the opportunity to show off her white gold and diamond rings and perfectly manicured nails.

Gwen and I tried to convince her to put a straightener in her hair, but she was afraid the chemicals would make her hair fall out. Instead, she used her hot comb and hot curlers—and refused to give them up.

No one presses their hair with a hot comb anymore, Mom, we told her, yet she continued to place them on the red-hot burners of the stove no matter how smoky they made the entire house.

Mom had always been progressive in style—she never dressed age appropriately. She wore six-inch spiked heels, leather and rhinestone-studded bustier, miniskirts, and leggings with circular cutouts that showed her skin well into her eighties. She kept her two-inch-long fingernails painted, and her reddishblonde hair braided with long extensions.

Her round, brown eyes were smaller now than they used to be and unable to carry the weight of mascara. She couldn’t see well enough to apply false lashes anymore, but she continued to wear foundation and lipstick. But she could still draw perfectly even eyebrows with a dark pencil to give her the Elizabeth Taylor look that she had always desired.

Ain’t nobody gonna catch me wearing dresses down to my knees and flat shoes, she would say after my siblings, and I told her how much she dressed like a hooker. It relieved us when her doctor told her she could no longer wear high heels because of her heel spurs and the arthritis that bean to settle in her knees. She reluctantly relented, but she refused to get rid of her shoes. Instead, she stored each pair, together with its matching purse, neatly away in her closet. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was going to get back into her shoes, someday.

On this Monday afternoon, it exhausted Mom to run her errands on the military base where she loved to spend time. As she approached her apartment and looked up at the fifteen steps she had to climb to get to her door, she let out a sigh. My mom used jog upstairs when she was sixty-five; now she had to stop midway to catch her breath before continuing.

As she opened the door of her apartment, a wave of heat bathed her face, and she felt as if she were going to faint.

Didn’t you open the goddamn windows? She started her usual one-sided conversation.

Nah, shit! You said you were going to do it.

Why you gonna sit there and tell that lie?! she yelled at herself. Bastard! I never told you that!

She immediately went to the kitchen and took a huge gulp of the crystal clear, ice cold water she had waiting for her in the refrigerator. As she sat at her kitchen table to remove her tennis shoes, she realized that the bus rides to the military base were getting harder to endure. The summers were becoming too hot and the winters too cold. But she had to make the monthly trips to pick up her insulin.

Out of her four children and five grandchildren, she knew she could count on any of us to help her with her errands, but her pride would not allow her to ask. She wanted to prove that she could get around on her own at her age. Longevity ran on her mother’s side of the family. Her mother had lived until she was one hundred and five years old, so Mom felt that she had several more years to be independent and was not yet ready to give it up.

She checked her blood sugar, then ate some collard greens and fried catfish that she’d brought back from the hospital cafeteria on base. After she tossed the container in the trash, she made her way to the coolest part of the house, her bedroom, where she had left the fan blowing earlier that morning. The air felt cool across her chest and down her back as she removed her favorite Yes We Can—Barack Obama for President T-shirt. She never thought she would live to see the day this country would elect a Black president, so she wore that T-shirt often and with great honor, admiration, and pride.

What!? Ain’t nobody talking to you with your dumb ass. Mind you own business! she said. Her words came out of nowhere as she glared angrily into the face of, nobody.

She crawled into bed. The faint humming from the fan comforted her like a lullaby, and soon she was fast asleep. But it wasn’t long before she tossed and turned. Her legs and feet twitched as if she were running in her sleep. Muffled words fought to escape through her slumber, and she thrashed her arms about in her attempt to fight off the frightening demons that tried to awaken her.

Oh, GOD! she yelled. She jolted straight up, though still half asleep. Go away, please! Please, go away! she cried. Why don’t you leave me alone? What do you want from me?

She quickly laid back down and covered her face with her pillow and hoped the hallucinations would go away. The images that haunted my mom that had eyes as dark as olives and a voice that only she heard, frightened her so much that all she wanted to do was go back to sleep.

They seemed to visit her during the night when she was in her bedroom. Many nights she laid awake in bed and cursed the images until the sun came up. Often, she told herself they were the spirits of her twin sister and other relatives who had passed away years ago; that seemed to make her feel a little less afraid so she could fall back asleep. In her slumber, the demons left. When she slept for long periods at a time, they disappeared altogether.

Sleep was a dominant source of healing for my mother in so many ways, both physically and mentally. During those times of healing rest, she dreamt of the place where she grew up. Dreams of her home comforted her. Memories, though some were painful, helped her feel safe.

Florida

When my mom dreamt of ‘home’ she was back in Crestview, a small town in the Northern Florida panhandle that sat just outside of the Alabama state line. This was where most of my family was born and where my grandmother and most of her family had died. It is where mom went to visit many times, but never wanted to live there again. Our relatives made up most of the population nestled there deep in the southern woods where men worked on the railroad or as farmers and women held domestic jobs as caretakers, housekeepers, cooks, and midwives.

Fifty years post Jim Crow, separate but equal, continued to be an acceptable normalcy to most people in the south. They preferred to live, play, and work amongst their own races.

If white folks don’t want me in their face, that’s fine by me. I don’t want them in mine neither, my grandmother, Gertie said would say. It’s enough that we have to clean up behind their trifling asses for mere pennies, I don’t want to live up under them, too. All up in my business.

Black people in Crestview had their own restaurants, clubs, churches, schools, and funeral homes. The hard-working people of Crestview lived poorly but cohesively. It had the small-town appeal in that no one was a stranger, and everyone knew everyone else. If you were lucky, they made your home of brick, which was inexpensive since they constructed bricks in the south. Built far apart from one another, it allowed for large acres of land in between each one which made it perfect for farming, raising chickens, distilling moonshine, etc.

My Grandma Gertie not only travelled for several hours by bus to the city where she cleaned houses and cooked for white families, but she also dressed their dead family members for funerals and delivered their babies. So, it was no surprise when she had no concern about the people who leaped from tall buildings to their death because they lost money in the stock markets during the depression. Her concern was singlehandedly raising 13 children. One of which was my mom, who was born in the spring of 1926, when the winds of change blew through the country with the same ferocious mischief that grew within her spirit.

Bibba, get outta my skirt! I ain’t had a chance to wear it yet and now you got your behind in it! yelled my mom’s sister Eva.

Mama, make Vera take off my new skirt! she cried.

Stop hollering like that, Eva! yelled Gertie. "

But I worked hard keeping all of Ms. Bates’ spoiled kids to get the money to buy that skirt! Mama! Tell her to take it off!"

Auntie Eva and my mom were fraternal twins with very few similarities. Auntie Eva had more of a cheerful disposition than my mom. Her caring ways and empathy for others lead her to a nursing career when she grew up.

She sat on the step and cried into the palms of her hands. My mom ran out of the house and was halfway down the dusty road before Grandma Gertie could grab her. Later that evening when she came home, she got a beating with a switch so severe that she couldn’t leave the house for days. Grandma Gertie struggled to tame my mother’s wild, sassy spirit. On several occasions people told my grandmother they saw my mom hanging out at the local ‘juke joint’ carrying on with this man or that.

My mother was a beautiful young woman with a perfect, thin figure, small waist, and shapely legs. She had thin hair that she wore in a French twist when it was long. When it was short, soft curls framed her narrow, heart-shaped face. Her large almond-shaped eyes gave her a sultry, exotic appearance that stood out from most of the girls in town. Although she had little, she made the best out of what she had and always looked her best. She flaunted, flirted, and teased any man that looked her way; having learned early on that a woman’s sensuality could charm most men into giving her whatever she wanted. Mom welcomed any opportunity to be in the company of men and loved the attention they gave her.

It rained little in Crestview that summer. Fall crept in, bringing with it just enough moisture to release a fresh, sweet woodsy aroma from the trees. The taste of dust permeated the air once the rain wet the roads of red clay.

One morning in September, as raindrops rolled off the branches of pecan tree branches and hit the fallen leaves below in a with a rhythmic beat, Gertie paced back and forth in her kitchen. She had been up all night waiting for my mom to walk through the door. She threw on her hat and coat and headed out into the misty early morning, walking from house to house, bars and restaurants trying to find her.

Have you seen Bibba? she asked, brandishing a strong, willowy switch. She didn’t care who saw it.

That girl worries me to death! When I catch her, I bet she won’t stay out all night again! Grandma Gertie told mom’s siblings as she walked through the door. She searched the entire town to no avail. Two days past and there was still no sign of my mom. Grandma Gertie went to the local sheriff to report her missing, but they showed little interest to help find her.

Woman, we have more things to worry about right now than to spend time on a 16-year-old runaway. They told her. It was 1942, and Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The impending war and the draft were on everyone’s minds.

Eventually, and with my grandmother’s persistence, the sheriff conducted a search throughout Oskaloosa County and notified nearby jurisdictions of my mother’s disappearance.

Still, months went by with no sightings of her. Grandma Gertie made a weekly trip to the sheriff’s office to check if there was an update on the search.

Months turned into years. The war had brought different families to the small town. The population increased and more businesses helped provide more jobs. Some folks stayed to make it their home, while others simply passed through as they searched for other places to settle into.

One day Grandma Gertie walked from the corner store with two of my uncles. They noticed a group of characters loitering in the front of her house. They were gypsies, who traveled in packs of 20 or more with their livelihoods on their backs. The clothes they wore smelled of musty clothes, spices, and fragrant oils. They were olive-skinned with bold, gruff dialects and aggressive personalities. There were men and women with children and grandchildren in tow. They survived by begging for food and offered palm readings, fortune telling, and even sex for money. Neighbors chased them out of town just as fast as they came through, often with valuables they had stolen. Most believed they practiced witchcraft and magic and could steal your money out of your home by just passing in front of it. Gypsies were families of ruthless travelers who went through towns on their way to set up camp in nearby woods.

Boy, get up to the house and make sure everything is locked up, Grandma Gertie told my uncle. Panic and fear consumed her body, and her legs and knees ached as she tried to run down the dirt road. Her groceries bounced up and down in her arms. One of the elder gypsy women approached her.

Would you like you fortune told? she asked.

No, thank you. Get on out of my way. answered Grandma Gertie.

Are you sure? I can tell you the future of you and your family. Maybe I can help you find your lost child. She said with raised eyebrows and a slight turn of her head, never losing eye contact.

Gertie halted and dropped half of the groceries. Although she was warned to never look a gypsy directly into their eyes, she took her chances and gave this stranger the consideration and attention that the situation called for.

How do you know about that? Have you seen my child? asked Grandma Gertie as she fought back the tears that welled up in her eyes. For a second, she wondered if someone had sent the woman to her. Curiosity brought up many questions, such as, what if she really was magical and knew about my mom? What if she would never have this chance again?

The woman with sun damaged skin and tobacco-stained teeth smiled as she held out her hand for money. Captivated by this woman’s dark, but caring eyes, Gertie reached in her pocket and handed her a few dollars, but she kept her hand out.

I will give you more after you tell me what you know, Grandma Gertie said.

The woman knelt and used her finger to draw something in the dirt.

Every morning looks east while you say the 23rd Psalm. Soon things will fall into place. The person who took your daughter will never come back this way with her, for he has already planted a seed, he will travel north. A creek that runs East and West locates her. Before you cross the creek take two branches and make an X, this will protect you from danger, explained