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

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

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Meg Kissinger's memoir, While You Were Out, is a heartbreaking exploration of a family besieged by mental illness. Growing up in Chicago in the 1960s, the family faced a harsh reality with a heavily medicated mother, a violent father, and children with bipolar disorder and depression. The memoir explores the consequences of shame, botched public policy, and the hope offered by new treatment strategies. It is a powerful, candid, and surprising memoir of one family's love and resilience in the face of great loss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Sep 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9783755453550

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Summary of

While You Were Out

A

Summary of

Meg Kissinger’s book

An Intimate Family Portrait

of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence

GP SUMMARY

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

By GP SUMMARY© 2023, GP SUMMARY.

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Author: GP SUMMARY

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This is an unofficial summary & analysis of Meg Kissinger’s While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence designed to enrich your reading experience.

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Author’s Note

The author shares a personal story of their family's traumatic experiences, revealing their family's willingness to help others and share their humor as a coping mechanism. The author, an investigative reporter and journalism professor, relies on a variety of sources to provide accurate information. The author interviewed various individuals, including doctors, social workers, family friends, neighbors, relatives, and lawyers. However, the author acknowledges that even the most vivid memories can be fuzzy due to the chaotic family life and the effects of trauma. The author uses quotes from documents or taped interviews, while those from memory or family stories are included without quotation marks. The author also mentions their brother Billy's participation in a basketball contest, but no demands are made.

PART I

Loving What Is Mortal

The Tiger Pit

When the author and their sister Patty were young, they would pretend that ferocious tigers lurked between their twin beds, waiting to rip them to shreds. Their mother, Jean Kissinger, spent her days rubbing ointment on babies' blistered bottoms, wiping snot off their faces, plastering cowlicks with her spit, and dripping warm medicine into their infected ear canals. Her father, Bill Kissinger (who we called Holmer), sold advertising space to companies that manufactured tranquilizers and other ethical pharmaceuticals to harried mothers of the baby boom.

The Catholic Marriage Manual warned against choosing a small family as their way of life, as it was seen as expressing ambition for material luxury rather than spiritual pleasures. The author's mother did not do anything to contradict these single men telling her how many children she should have and how to raise them. She and Holmer gamely produced five girls and three boys from 1952 to 1964, each one feistier than the last. Their favorite game was Teddy Bear, where one kid jumps on top of another on the playroom floor until someone farts or begins to turn blue.

Mary Kay, the oldest member of the family, was famous for her avant-garde fashions and refused to go on annual ski trips because she said her vacation was getting a week away from all of them. The author sometimes slept in the spare twin bed in her bedroom, hoping some of Mary Kay's swank would transfer to the author by osmosis.

In 1953, Nancy and Mary Kay were glamorous and took beauty seriously in high school. They modeled and preened their hair before school, and Nancy and Ellen won the school's eighth-grade science fair for their project on extrasensory perception. Nancy also tried to lighten her hair with Clairol Summer Blonde dye, but the author's dark hair turned orange.

Jake was an observer/inventor who made impossible-to-prove pronouncements about modern culture. He brought a backpack full of maps, almanacs, and notebooks with him, making pronouncements about modern culture that were impossible to prove. When Jake was in seventh grade, kids beat him up on the St. Francis playground, and the author was bitterly disappointed for being so weak.

In 1957, the author's bedrooms were full, and they slept in a bassinet by the front door. The author's left side of their face was swollen, and they had plaster casts on both legs and baby shoes affixed to a metal bar to keep them straight. The pediatrician examined the child, and it was determined that she would probably be okay socially.

Patty was the author's wingman, who worked hard to please them and everyone else. She was named editor of her first-grade newspaper, The Happy Times, and maintained a strict policy of not reporting anything that might embarrass anyone or hurt their feelings. By May, Patty abandoned journalism altogether and settled on a career in nursing.

In 1961, Billy was a smart, funny, handsome, athletic, and rascal who was often compared to his namesake, Holmer. In 1963, Danny was born on Billy's second birthday, and the family was drawn to him for his sweet disposition and sweet nature. However, the family was concerned about Danny's potential trouble.

In 1964, Molly was born, but the family decided to keep her in the maternity ward due to her exhaustion from having children. The mother took the Pill, which was prescribed by her doctor, a Catholic father of ten, as she believed it would be against the natural order of God. Official Catholic doctrine held that all birth control went against the natural order of God, and any woman who took the Pill would be committing a mortal sin.

As the news broke that oral contraceptives were intrinsically wrong, Pope Paul VI declared that they could not be used as a means of regulating the number of children in a family. The mother was desperate to have more children, fearing what might happen if she had to keep having them. She pleaded with Father Welsh, the young associate, to grant her the dispensation, but the priest conceded the point and granted her the dispensation.

The story highlights the struggles faced by the family during this time, including the mother's mental health issues, the impact of the Pill on her family, and the challenges faced by women in their faith. The story highlights the importance of understanding and respecting the unique experiences and challenges faced by women in their lives, as well as the importance of maintaining a strong connection with one's faith and beliefs.

The text describes the struggles of a family with depression and anxiety, as well as the efforts of their mother and father to maintain a happy home life. The mother would start each morning strong, singing to Tippy, their beagle, and canary, and would take care of the children at St. Francis Xavier School. She would also deliver breast milk