Tiffany Jenkins and her relationship with her dad, who has Schizoaffective Disorder
Before reading my story, please read the poems above Growing up as an only child, my dad was my best friend. When my mom was busy working to support us, my dad would be there, always wanting to talk with me about any and everything. As a kid, his mental illness was never very apparent to me. Maybe it's because when you're a kid you let your mind dream as big as it possibly can and you let your imagination run wild, before society starts telling you that you have to be practical and think about the future. With my dad, anything was possible. He was going to be a famous rap star, and I was going to be the next Hillary Duff. It wasn't until my parents divorced when I was about 10 years old, and I had to help my dad every weekend with his business ventures (buying and selling used furniture and DVDs) that helped him pay his bills, that I started to realize how much he struggled. I realized that his dreams were really delusions, and little things he'd always done started bothering me in ways they never had before.
Then, when I was a teenager everything changed. The economy worsened and my dad's mental illness worsened with it. He stopped taking his medication, and despite our family's best efforts, he would find himself in one mental health crisis after another. He was in and out of mental hospitals, never quite getting the care he needed to stabilize his disease, and his illness got worse and worse. It got to a point that I could hardly recognize the person he'd become, so lost was he in a sea of delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations, that I feared he would never recover and the dad I knew and loved would remain lost forever. It wasn't until he was almost killed one night during an altercation with the police, in which he was charged with assaulting a police officer (a felony), that we were finally able to get him the help he so desperately needed.
Although we were all happy about the court order that required him to be treated and monitored, we were terrified that he was going to be deported back to England (the country he was born in, and the only country he had citizenship in). The legal ins and outs lasted years, but finally with the help of my aunt, his sister who had recently finished law school, we were able to make sure that didn't happen. I remember my aunt asking me to write a letter to the judge, and wondering how I could convince them not to put my dad in prison before shipping him off to a continent I knew almost nothing about besides what I'd learned in AP European History. Gradually over the following years he got better, but he never truly recovered. I believe he suffered irreparable brain damage, that left him with slowed cognition and more advanced illness than he'd had before, making it virtually impossible for him to hold down a job and provide for himself. Luckily, my aunt and uncle were able to take him in, but his recovery was always tenuous, and I'd frequently have to assist them (as his mental health power of attorney) with making sure his life didn't descend into chaos once again. (I became his mental health power of attorney shorty after graduating high school so that I could help advocate for him, and so that our family would retain the right to be informed about his medical care.)
Soon, I was graduating college, getting married, and preparing to move thousands of miles away to start medical school. Two weeks before my wedding he had the worst break down I'd seen in years. When I saw him as I walked into the locked admission room of the local mental hospital (to watch him while the hospital prepared for his admission), I felt I'd been transported back to the last time I saw him before his altercation with the police. I broke down and started crying because I couldn't see how he'd be able to walk me down the isle in two short weeks. This agitated him and he started punching the seat I was sitting in and a nurse, concerned for my safety, told me I should leave. I didn't want to, but then when it happened again and he grabbed my arm tightly, concerned for my safety, I decided to take her advice. After I left the room they wouldn't let me see him until he was discharged. By some miracle, during that stay they were able to stabilize him and two weeks later he walked me down the isle as I balled my eyes out, so over come with joy that almost everyone I loved was able to be there for that special moment.
Since I moved to Seattle for medical school things haven't been perfect. During orientation my aunt and uncle called me saying they urgently needed me when I had to spend all day in class trying to perfect the art of the physical exam. I felt guilty and frustrated, and overwhelmed, because I could tell that it was my having moved thousands of miles away that was causing his illness to worsen. He always told me growing up that the reason he never killed himself (like his mother had in 1999) was because of me, and I wondered if he'd do anything drastic. My aunt and uncle eventually got him the help he needed, and for a while everything seemed to be okay. I would monitor the severity of his mental illness in the voice mails he'd leave me, and would try not to worry too much about it outside of that. Then he decided to mess with his medications and move out of the shelter of my aunt and uncle's house, where he could be monitored and kept safe. I didn't know where he was going to live, and worried that he'd end up becoming another "crazy" homeless man living on the streets. Thankfully he was in an illegal housing arrangement, needed a place to live, and begged my aunt and uncle to take him back, giving them the bargaining power to require him to take his medications under their daily supervision if he was to live under their roof. This worked for few months.
Near the end of my surgery rotation, I got the news from my aunt that my Dad had been taken to jail for having stabbed his best friend multiple times while paranoid and not taking his meds. Once a year my uncle goes back to Cape Verde (where he was born) to recenter himself and take care of his own mental health. My uncle used to act as my Dad's main caregiver because my aunt, my Dad's sister, has crippling anxiety. My uncle was on his annual vacation when the incident occurred. He asked my Dad's best friend (who was living with him at the time because he would have been homeless otherwise) to watch my Dad while he was gone. Before I moved across the country for medical school, I used to step up and take on this role. That was no longer an option. In addition, my Dad was no longer on LAI (injectable antipsychotic medication which lasts for ~1 month) because he had developed a delusion that it was "eating away" at his muscle. A few months before this incident, his psychiatrist had put him back on oral antipsychotic medication against my family's wishes. In summary, it was a perfect storm.
Initially I didn't know if my Dad's friend would live. Would my Dad be labeled a murder? My Dad's friend was rushed to emergency surgery while I was learning how to sew people back together. Thankfully he survived, but my Dad was charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and domestic violence; all very serious charges which could land him in prison for up to 21 years with deportation thereafter.
While he wore orange scrubs behind bars, I wore blue scrubs down hospital corridors. During breaks between writing notes on my psychiatry rotation, and delivering babies on my OB/GYN rotation, I gave my testimony to investigators and a forensic psychiatrist who worked on his case. I emailed with his public defenders, and video visited with my Dad - which was our only mode of communication. (Due to his mental state he was unable to figure out how to use the phones, and in the jail he was held in even if you visit the jail in-person you are forced to do video visitations. Additionally, all the cards I tried to mail him were sent back to me because they were deemed "contraband" or they were accompanied by some other new excuse.) Each video visit from home cost $7.50 for 25 minutes or $16.50 for 55 minutes. Most of our visits had connection issues, so I never spoke with him for the full allotted time. Multiple times I wasn't able to connect with him at all. Additionally, you are allowed only one visit per day, and you must schedule it a day in advance. And finally, every visit is recorded; his public defender advised me not to speak of things which could be used against him in court. During our visits he paced, never sat down, and told me how he was depressed. Over the months I watched his depression and anxiety wax and wane, and his weight drop. For the last 4 months of his incarceration his recording room changed, because he was on "suicide watch," which is solitary confinement. (During which time he was locked in his cell all day, alone, except when he was taken out of the cell briefly to bathe.) After his release to the state hospital, he told me this happened because he had attempted suicide by drowning himself in a toilet.
Regarding his case, the state wanted my Dad to spend time (8 years) in prison and be deported thereafter. Fortunately, my Dad had been assigned excellent public defenders and over ~20 months we were able to prove that he needed psychatric treatment, not imprisonment. He was sentenced to 7.5 years of treatment in the Arizona State (Psychiatric) Hospital, where he now resides. There he receives primary care, and care from a psychiatrist (which was not available in jail). He cannot leave the hospital. Additionally, due to COVID-19, I have not been able to visit him. As his mental health power of attorney, and main caregiver, I am now fully responsible for him. Every time he calls or I call him, I am always hyper aware of how he sounds, and I monitor his mental health. Most of the time I feel like a parent when I talk to him instead of his kid, and it literally brings tears to my eyes when he's stable enough to give me his version of fatherly advice, because it's so rare it's a gift.
Although I don't know what the future has in store for my dad, I know I'm grateful to have him in my life, schizoaffective disorder and all. Sometimes when we talk on the phone he says the most profound things that really touch me. And listening to his fantasies and hallucinations can be really fascinating and inspiring. My journey in medicine really all began with him, and without all his crazy ideas and dreams, I don't know if I'd have been crazy enough to dream big enough to become a doctor.
(To read Tiffany's bio, go to the Founding Leader's page)