Mental illness. Is it something that resides within people? Or is it a dark beast that takes up residence on the shoulders of those who are labeled mentally ill? Is it strictly a faulty neurobiological mix? Or is it partly a reasonable response to feeling marginalized, elbowed into the corner by dominant social paradigms?
If you don’t see your lived experience reflected anywhere, or if your reflection tells you you’re “bad” or “defective,” wouldn’t you begin to feel depressed? If you feel you don’t have a voice, or if your voice is invalidated, what do you start to look like as years pass?
If you were a woman who felt confined during the Victorian era, perhaps you were labeled “hysterical.” Anyone remember the post-partum protagonist from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper? Her physician husband took her journals away and banished her to a single room in a bizarre attempt to confine her “slight hysterical tendency”…until she really did descend into postpartum psychosis, “seeing” other women trapped in the yellow wallpaper.
This short story is considered one of the first feminist literary works because it dared reveal what happened to women who chafed within the social constructs of traditional womanhood. If they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, they went crazy, died, or were simply forgotten.
Like the subjects of this post: Rosemary and Mary Kennedy.
Rosemary Kennedy
JFK’s “retarded” younger sister was lobotomized on the down-low by Papa Joe and cloistered far from Hyannisport. Remember her? I didn’t, until one of my astute readers wrote me about the similarity between the ostracized Kennedy daughter and the latest ostracized Kennedy wife.
So I surfed over to Wikipedia, where I learned some interesting, and profoundly sad things.
It is suspected now that Rosemary did not have a low IQ, but an average IQ of 90 — that, when compared to the high IQ’s of her siblings and parents, seemed low. Growing up in an immensely competitive and high-achieving family, Rosemary knew she couldn’t match her siblings or please her father, to whom she wrote: “I would do anything to make you so happy. I hate to disappoint you in anyway.”
Reportedly, Rosemary suffered from an “agitated depression” marked by tantrums and rages. But I ask you: if you knew that your family was trying to keep you from view because you embarrassed them, would you not be given to tantrums and rages?
Or, as Kennedy biographer Robert Kessler writes:
“I think it’s likely she was somewhat slower than the others. Then she was treated as if she was retarded. Then it becomes reactive depression, including rages and loss of control. That is mental illness. … The reason she got depressed was that she reacted to being treated as a lesser member of the family.”
When Rosemary died in 2005, she was buried apart from the rest of the family, without a discernible grave marker. Even in the 21st Century, she was still considered a blight on the family’s record. For what? Being a slow student? Being depressed? Being depressed because she was cast off from her family? This is worse than addiction, philandering, bootlegging, blackmailing and any other assortment of abuses of power?
Here’s what Joe Kennedy wrote to the superintendent of Rosemary’s institution, thanking him for hiding the nuisance that was his daughter:
“After all, the solution of Rosemary’s problem has been a major factor in the ability of all the Kennedys to go about their life’s work and to try to do it as well as they can.”
Now. Couldn’t this statement apply just as easily to that other female Kennedy cast-off?
Mary Kennedy
I don’t know if she had borderline personality disorder. I don’t know what happened in her home. I don’t know if her mental health issues precipitated her marital problems, or if her marital problems led to her mental health issues. But here is what I do know.
There is NO good reason the court documents from her custody battle should have been publicized. None. The decision to broadcast those lurid details, true or not, is heinous and classless.
The woman is dead. She can’t tell her side of the story. And because of this, she is now the poster child for borderline personality disorder.
So let’s have a look at the DSM-IV criteria for BPD. Let’s apply them to Mary Kennedy and try to tease out what her bag came packed with vs. what got packed in her bag.
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
I’d say the abandonment was as real as it gets! The woman was losing her husband, her children, her home, her livelihood, her social circle, and her reputation. Given all this, how could she NOT be frantic?
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
I’ve only read about her relationship with her husband. But how could she NOT idealize a Kennedy? Our entire culture idealizes them — AND devalues them.The Kennedys, and our reaction to them, embody borderline phenomenology: they represent both the pinnacle and the underbelly of American success.
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
I don’t know what her self-image was like before her husband filed for divorce, but I do know this: for a woman, the prospect of losing custody of her children is core-shattering. When a father loses custody, it’s devastating — but he’s still a man. When a mother loses custody, she’s a social pariah: a half-woman, a non-mother, someone we don’t know what to do with. So any “identity disturbance” Mary Kennedy might have felt would have been completely justified in light of a custody battle.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
Okay. According to reports, Mary was hospitalized for anorexia. She had an eating disorder at one point in her life. So did I. So do bunches of women. When I was in college in the 80s, it was not uncommon to walk into the bathroom and hear someone barfing. Not every woman with an eating disorder is borderline! And as for substance abuse and impulsive sex — these behaviors also describe Mary’s husband.
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
She hung herself. We all know that. Did she make prior attempts, or threats? Who knows? Here’s a radical suggestion: perhaps not every person who contemplates suicide is mentally ill. A quote from my friend “Cynthia,” who was devastated by her sex addict partner’s betrayal:
“I was at the brink of suicide with the sociopathy and acting out behaviors so I well understand the despair that such predators can visit upon spouses. It wasn’t that I wanted to die as much as I wanted the pain to stop. I do not have a history of depression or mental illness (or drinking or drug abuse) but Mary’s situation might have been more than I could have handled. And I am one tough cookie.”
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
News flash: going through a bad divorce, hellacious custody battle, a lawsuit from American Express, and reading your ex’s celebrity girlfriend’s tweets about the fun she’s having with your kids would probably give you “affective instability.”
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness
A scorched-earth divorce will leave you feeling empty. For a time. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
I don’t know if Mary hit Bobby. I do know Erin Nordegren went after Tiger Woods with a golf club when the news of his sexploits hit. Does that make her borderline too?
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
Again, let’s put this in the context of living with a serial cheater and someone who may have been emotionally abusive. Read what my friend “Lesley” said about her final days with her sex addict ex:
“Once your spouse, the person who typically looms largest in your life, or a powerful male in your life unequivocally declares you crazy or hysterical or depressed or whatever … then there’s shame and embarrassment and secrets … it’s so awful. I didn’t tell anyone the things [my ex] was saying about me, I felt ashamed. What if they were true? What if someone believed him? He was completely unwavering.. I went to therapy for my “depression” and it was kind of a joke because I was pretty happy. We talked about writing and my husband mostly, but the woman I went to didn’t help me see that what I was dealing with was possibly his disorders. Would have helped so much.”
Was Mary Kennedy Borderline and What Does It Mean if She Was?
Marsha Linehan, a psychologist and the creator of DBT — a treatment model created specifically for BPD — says that borderlines are victims of trauma. She knows, because she was one. Yes, they enter the world with a hyperreacative neurobiology, but if they feel contained by a loving family, they’re generally okay. If they meet with a harsh, invalidating environment, they’re cooked geese.
And if they can’t regulate themselves, they are likely to say and do crazy things that invite more invalidation that then exacerbates the trauma.
Cathy Meyer, who writes a popular divorce blog Divorce Support, says this about Mary Kennedy:
Borderline. Trauma victim. Booted out of the dominant paradigm. Perhaps they’re three different views of the same mountain.
It’s time to sidestep this dominant paradigm, this red herring of a conversation — “Mary Kennedy was mentally ill!” — and talk about this instead:
Mary Kennedy, like Rosemary Kennedy, was having a sane reaction to an insane situation.
Pauline — As always, a deeply insightful piece. I read the book “Kennedy Women” many years ago and was appalled at how Joe treated Rosemary (I thought, from reading it, that she was actually the oldest child? Or at least first-born girl?). The lobotomy was decided upon after she showed an interest in boys — the family was concerned she didn’t have enough impulse control to stop herself from having sex and they didn’t necessarily want her to procreate.
It’s absolutely disgusting that the Kennedy machine has allowed this information about Mary out. What, was there too much sympathy for her in the media and they had to go for a second assault on her character? Does anyone in that camp see that they look desperate — so desperate that rational people might come knocking at the door to see what (else) they’re hiding? What if it wasn’t Mary who was mentally ill, but someone else?
And, EVEN IF Mary was mentally ill, and I agree with you that one’s reaction to a horrible, traumatic divorce can mimic or even lead to a psychosis, it doesn’t give anyone license to treat her memory (and her KIDS’ memories of her) like it’s dirt. Like she was as undeserving, simply for not making grade, as Rosemary.
What a great post. I wish I was a fly on the wall in the homes of these people. People in these high status positions tend to forget about “basic needs.” There is a hierarchy of needs that must be met for a person to be “highly successful” and “mentally healthy.” Let’s begin with a human beings most basic need of trust, and security. You can have the money and power in the world but if you are missing that part of the foundation, your tower is just waiting to crumble. The more limelight you recieve the more you being to feel marginalized until it’s too late. A human can only take so much. I am not a mental health professional by any means but I do know that providing safety, trust, security is critical for a person to have a “sense of belonging,” Whether your family is part of the 1% or a part of the 99, we all have the same BASIC needs. We are all playing the same game here…. just different levels!
Excellent article Pauline. Thanks for the quote and links. There was also another Kennedy woman, Joan who was labeled “mentally ill” and an alcoholic. Of course she had no problem with either until her husband drove his car off of a bridge and killed a young woman.
There is a history of Kennedy men behaving badly and then accusing their wives of having “problems.” The sad thing, they seem to marry women who are willing to take responsibility for their bad behavior. Mary and Joan Kennedy both were fragile women who married men with a sense of entitlement.
Joan Kennedy herself said, “rather than get mad or ask questions concerning the rumors about Ted and his girlfriends, or really stand up for myself at all, it was easier for me to just go and have a few drinks and calm myself down as if I weren’t hurt or angry.”
Excellent article Pauline. Thanks for the quote and links. There was also another Kennedy woman, Joan who was labeled “mentally ill” and an alcoholic. Of course she had no problem with either until her husband drove his car off of a bridge and killed a young woman.
There is a history of Kennedy men behaving badly and then accusing their wives of having “problems.” The sad thing, they seem to marry women who are willing to take responsibility for their bad behavior. Mary and Joan Kennedy both were fragile women who married men with a sense of entitlement.
Joan Kennedy herself said, “rather than get mad or ask questions concerning the rumors about Ted and his girlfriends, or really stand up for myself at all, it was easier for me to just go and have a few drinks and calm myself down as if I weren’t hurt or angry.”
Neither of these women were mentally ill in my opinion. They were causalities of marriages to a Kennedy man.
What a sad statement by Joan Kennedy — and how many other women have said the same thing?
I hadn’t heard the connection between timing of the lobotomy and RK’s sexual development — makes perfect sense. Yeesh.
I had a close relative who fit ALL of the criteria you list for BPD. It is very elusive and difficult on everyone, including the person who has it.
My heart breaks for Mary, her family, and her children.
My Ex groomed me for years with scenarios of how crazy his partner’s ex-wife was. She was mentally ill, raging, dangerous, demented. I didn’t get it until he dumped me and initiated me into the crazy ex-wives’ club.
Thanks for another great post. The background on Rosemary is so different from the typical media spin.
And you probably believed those cliched stories, right, Denise? They seem so plausible taken out of context, when you don’t know any better.
Kennedy men are educated scumbags, always have been, always will be.
“Mary Kennedy, like Rosemary Kennedy, was having a sane reaction to an insane situation.”
Again, you are trying to play therapist to a patient that not only did you never know but what is even worse is that you base your analysis of her on pure gossip and here say gleaned from the so called media, who also never knew her, and never spent a moment of time with the domestic setting where all this trauma took place. What you seem to be very good at is placing all the blame on her husband who clearly you also do not know and again you base your judgements on the tid bits you read on the internet. You place additional blame for what ever the late Mrs. Kennedy was going through on the circumstances of her divorce, because that’s all you can focus your attention on, I guess because that is the focus of your little “how to get through divorce” blog.
You have the audacity to go as far as use terms like “serial cheater” & “emotionally abusive” in reference to her husband, and unless you can substantiate this? You have some knowledge that others do not of his calling his wife “crazy” or “hysterical” ? I do believe you are wandering into very dangerous and libelous territory. Who are you to make such accusations based on what you read on the internet or in the National Inquirer?
And let me pose a question to you about your several references to the custody of those children, who you clearly no nothing about. Do you think it would have been a good idea to leave 4 minor children with an actively alcoholic mother who on Easter Sunday fell down a flight of stairs. Perhaps let her get in the car with them and drive around the neighborhood? Is that your idea of good parenting skills, do you do that with your children Pauline?
Here again you make these idiotic judgmental comments about a situation you have no knowledge of and really you should be ashamed of yourself for propagating this kind of nonsense in a public forum. Let me tell you a fact; Mr. Kennedy never once requested custody of those children, they were taken away from her by the court who saw her as a danger to them. Did you know she abused all of them, hit them, wrestled with them, punched them, pulled their hair out, is this a practice you recommend as a parent? You would honestly leave minors in a traumatic and volatile situation like that?
As for your other comment with regard to American Express, let me assure you Mrs. Kennedy was receiving a rather large monthly income from her estranged husband and simply refused to pay the bills she was responsible for, the AX being one as she opened that account in her own name a year after the separation.
For you to make assumptions that this divorce action was somehow related to her personality disorder does a clear diservice to those who might actually need the help she never got. What you should be focusing on my dear Pauline is the fact her family, siblings were told on more than one occasion and by more than one source, in fact many many people, that their sister was a danger to herself. They choose to ignore it, and they now choose to deny her illness and the reason she killed herself obviously feeling very guilty about not intervening when she was alive.
The only responsible party for her death is those brothers and sisters who were told on countless occasions what was going on with her but they believed the academy award performance their sister put on for them rather than looking behind the curtain more closely. Had they done that, asked the house keepers, the children, and any other friends she had left, they would have seen what was really going on rather than the facade she struggled to put on for them when ever they did inquire, which I might add was not often.
So, I think before you rush to judgement in public you should have your facts straight and do some due diligence, especially as a practicing therapist. I really would have expected much more from someone who claims to be a clinician and have a working understanding of mental illness. The way this article comes across is simply dismissive to her personality disorder and insinuates it is a manifestation of the trials and tribulations of a divorce proceeding. I assure you it was not the divorce and that the diagnosis is correct and I am a clinician with the experience to back up the diagnosis.
Why don’t you just stop discussing an issue and a person you don’t know and will never know? Why just stop all the hypothesizing and pretending to know stuff you’ll never have the answers to. Do you think this helps your readers in some way with their personal divorce journey?
Or if you were a really brave clinician talk about how to prevent something like this from ever happening again. Why everyone, all people, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers should take threats of suicide very very seriously and not wait till someone puts a noose around their neck and finishes themselves off.
I’m approving this comment after considerable hesitation since it is, quite franky, obnoxious. I’m not sure how you know the things you have written are facts, and I’m surprised you write as if they are since you excoriate me for taking what I’ve read, and have been told by sources, too seriously. The purpose of this piece was to examine a different narrative, not the “Mary Kennedy was just a nut” narrative that is taking up all media space. You are free to disagree, but not to disagree in such a disrespctful manner. Not on my blog. If you do it again, your comment will go in the trash.
Hmm. This is an interesting take on it…
As the husband of a BPD wife, whose going through a divorce from her, I can attest to the symptoms of BPD. Unless you are actually living in that situation, you can never truly know how painful and tumultuous it is. Mary’s husband contributed to the situation with his infidelity, but truth be told…BPD is an internal problem that is always there, whether in a marriage or not.
In a society where female psychosis is just not spoken much about, it is easy to jump to conclusions and blame the husband for her mental illness, but in fact BPD has nothing to do with anyone else. The symptoms listed by the court papers (fear of abandonment, up and down emotions, the violence, etc.) are clear signs of BPD.
It’s horrible to be in a relationship with someone who has it. Pure and utter hell.
I agree with much of what you said about BPD, however there’s an assumption that the court documents contain only the truth. Many people lie during custody battles and what concerned me about the release of the documents was that HER affidavit was not released. THere also is no mention in the media of a toxic dynamic formed between Mary and Bobby. His behavior is minimized while hers is maximized and thus, distorted. I think we need to be careful about equating BPD with psychosis. Traditionally, psychosis is a thought disorder found in schizophrenics or Bipolar I people in a manic state. BPD’s have affective lability which can look like psychosis, but it’s not the same as a thought disorder. Plus, There are levels of BPD, and psychosis is not necessarily part of milder versions. But I agree with you, living with someone who has a severe personality disorder can be a nightmare. And divorcing someone with a personality disorder can be more damaging than being married to that person.
You’d think the family would be more understanding. I can only think of Patrick Kennedy who talks openly about his depression and addiction. If the rest of them could come out of the mental health closet I think we’d have more respect for the Kennedy’s.
More from the Women-Are-Always-The-Victim/Mommies-Can-Do-No-Wrong Brigade!
Gabi,
I’m not sure the Kennedy’s are really looking for your respect. Just in case you forgot many in that family have, as you mentioned Patrick, have served their country in more ways than I bet you have, and one died for this country during a military mission. I am sorry that does not deserve your “respect”
I think folks here should read an opinion that gets it right on the money found below, if Pauline deems this post fit for your viewing pleasure. She deleted my other response, which was considerably toned down, oh well so much for freedom of speech!
http://www.shrink4men.com/
OK, Crawford, I am posting your comment, but I have to say that read the shrink 4 men article and found it absurd propaganda. I could go on, but I’ll leave it at that.
Jason, that is a very simplistic reading of this piece. In fact, it is an erroneous reading of my piece. If you read my blog, you should know that I’m on the side of justice. What bothers me is abuse of power, whether the abuse comes from men or women. To prove my point, here’s a post about my husband, who was the victim of parental alienation by his ex-wife.https://perilsofdivorcedpauline.com/divorce-custody-and-parental-alienation/how-atticus-got-his-son-back/
“absurd propaganda”
How so?
Rings very true to me and I should know.
“Mary Kennedy, like Rosemary Kennedy, was having a sane reaction to an insane situation.”
No words could describe my OWN experience better, and so I would add the name ‘Deb Kennedy’ to that sentence. The psychiatrists that examined and questioned me for hours after my husband called a 5150 on me and had me hauled away from my home in handcuffs by the sheriff said exactly that to me: ‘There’s nothing wrong with you – unless you stay in this situation and let them keep treating you this way’.
Thank you for this thoughtful article, and the insightful way you have ‘deconstructed’ the labels applied to these women by the MEN in their lives. I recently read an article about Mary Kennedy online, and had some of the same responses you did to ‘the facts’…
So sorry to hear you went through that, Deb. I hope you’re in a better place now.