Filed under: Birth Order, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., Suicide, Violence
A couple of weeks ago a 19 year old College Student named Abraham Biggs, Jr. committed Suicide from his Father’s home and broadcast his death over the Internet. The stories don’t mention whether he was a Child of D but the fact that he was “living in his Father’s home” and text massaging his Mother indicates that the parents are separated. If I’m jumping to conclusions I will have to delete this later on. Since there have been a couple of other similar suicides broadcast over the Internet that have been connected with Divorce in the family there might be a connection.
Abraham was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and obviously wasn’t being helped by the meds — to an extreme degree — because he killed himself with them. Biggs had tried to kill himself twice before. I don’t know why the Medical profession isn’t more careful with psychiatric “treatments” but, what do I know?
The especially horrifying part of the story that is being covered in the media is the fact that the other members of the Internet forum were simply watching Abraham take the pills. They were apparently goading him on and making fun of him. I tend to think that this might be a Child of D type phenomenon. Humiliation is probably not felt as strongly among Children of D simply because they are expected to cover up and buck up under the circumstances of their childhoods. Getting swept up in hatred is a normal part of divorced family life. And asking for help? That might make a parent feel guilty or threaten a therapist’s ego who simply refuses to believe that Divorce has negative effects on Children.
For a Child of D,putting one’s problem out into the public domain is not as extreme a behavior as it is for kids from intact families. You grow up with so much more awareness of your parents’ personal problems that problems don’t seem like a private thing. The relationships, the idea that everyone is replaceable, the money bartering, the fighting, the worthlessness, the extra responsibilities, having to repress your needs for your parents’.
Something else I’m beginning to notice about kids and divorce is that the younger children seem to get pulled under from the stress much worse than the eldest or the only children. In all the cases of these Internet deaths the person committing the crime was a younger child. Siblings in Divorce usually stick together. They share a special set of secrets. When the oldest one leaves the house, the youngest have to deal with the stress by themselves. They actually act as a stable, non-strange part of the family that the eldest can always return to. The parents become the satellites who provide meals and quality time (if the kid is lucky) but are dependent emotionally and probably not considered reliable.
In this way, the youngest has to take on a lot of extra responsibility and as the youngest this responsibility is never acknowledged. There is also the possibility that, as in normal families, the youngest is spoiled with material possessions and is allowed to run around free. Just as likely, the money runs out by the time the youngest is ready for prom dresses, regular meals, cars, college. Divorce isn’t the most sensible experience from a financial standpoint unless one of the parents is just completely irresponsible and is cast out.
Either way, I hope that Abraham Biggs, Jr. will rest in peace. I don’t wish his Parents anymore insults if they are indeed Divorced. They certainly don’t need it right now. But in the event that the parents were split I would like to raise awareness for others that this may be a problem for other kids.
******
The other American Webcam Suicide that I found was also a Child of D. Brandon Carl Vedas, Age 21, who committed Suicide publicly on the Internet on Jan. 21, 2003 in Phoenix, AZ. His parents were divorced and both were remarried. His older brother has set up a very nice memorial website for him.
An Englishman, Kevin Whitrick, hanged himself while being goaded over the Internet through a webcam on Mar. 21, 2007. I can’t find information about his childhood. Whitrick was a 42 year old Engineer, Divorced with 12 year old twins. Apparently he was upset over his Father’s recent death.
There was a 3d death which was listed on Wikipedia but I couldn’t come up with any information regarding the family.
To balance out the last blog entry about conservative political mastermind Karl Rove, I’ve found an example of a liberal political mastermind in the strategist advisor for Barack Obama. David Axelrod is also a Child of Divorce.
Here’s a quote that Axelrod made of Karl Rove:
This, Axelrod says, is what Karl Rove understood about George W. Bush. “One of the reasons Bush has succeeded in two elections,” Axelrod says, “is that in his own rough-hewn way he has conveyed a sense of this is who I am, warts and all.”
The descriptions of Axelrod don’t make sense to me right now. He is said to be very involved and personable with reporters. And he is described as hunched over and exhausted. He describes himself as idealistic. And he is described as “cut-throat”. “He can do it very delicately, to the point that you may not realize he is slicing your head off.” At any rate, nobody has described him as Bubbly.
Axelrod was born in Manhattan, New York to a journalist Mother and a psychologist Father. His parents divorced when he was 8 years old.
Axelrod’s Father killed himself at Age 19. Axelrod didn’t ackowledge this for another 30 years when he is said to have written an article about Depression.
Axelrod graduated from the University of Chicago with some difficulty. Seems he had to spend an extra Semester completing courses he had left incomplete. (described in NY Times article linked to above).
Axelrod has been married since 1979 and has three children.
Although on completely different sides of the political fence both men went through severe traumas concerning their Fathers at Age 19. They have both become prominent for extreme intelligence and understanding of human nature. And they both work as Advisors in extremely successful political campaigns. Rove is described as extremely competitive and Axelrod is described as extremely aggressive at the political level. You grow up watching a Divorce, you understand the basics of human nature at a very intense scale.
Filed under: Abandonment, Bad Children of Divorce, Mentally Ill parents, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Parents and their Dates, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., Suicide, Violence, money
This movie, Savage Grace, completely destroyed my week-end. It’s the most miserable story in the world. Julianne Moore plays a rich socialite nymphomaniac who is murdered by her son. It’s based on the life of a woman called Barbara Baekeland and I don’t know how much of it is true. Barbara Baekeland married and was dumped by an heir to a Plastics fortune. She developed an abnormally close relationship with her son which can probably qualify in modern terms as Parental Alienation Syndrome, along with Incest and just plain old creep out. I sort of wonder if Incest (between parent and child at any rate) is sometimes connected with Parental Alienation Syndrome.
The Son, Antony Baekeland, was Gay and his Mother seduced him in order to try to convert him to normal, not that she’d have a clue what that was. The Father left Anthony to take care of his Mother alone as she descended into depressions and eventually a suicide attempt. There is a really great line in the movie where Anthony is writing to his father telling him that his only inheritance was taking care of his mother. Really interesting line in a family where inheritance and money seem to have caused so much trouble. The Father apparently did nothing to help his Son, typical behavior.
According to what I read on the Internet (sorry forget to get any links) Tony (Antony) was released from jail eventually and went to live with his Mother’s Mother. After a week he stabbed her. So, he was permanently destroyed. He eventually committed suicide in jail.
I have no idea how closely the movie follows what people know about the real story but I’ve found that movies are highly fictionalized. I don’t know if I recommend this to anyone who grew up in a difficult Divorce or suffered Incest or Suicides. Unlike the movie “About A Boy” which is partly about a boy witnessing his Mother’s suicide attempt, there’s no redemption to this story, made all the worse because it’s based on real life. Some of the reviews that I’ve read say that they don’t even believe it could be a real story, har har. The movie is based on a book by the same title.
Filed under: Alcoholism, Books, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Marital Success, Suicide, Uncategorized
I went through the rest of the Guardian’s Top 100 Intellectuals of 2005 list. This was a pretty interesting section of the list as it contained Intellectuals with all kinds of ideas about the modern Family “situation,”especially social factors & economic factors. I didn’t read anything much in depth but it seemed that mostly the Intellectuals think that the broken homes are not a good sign for society. I didn’t read any who seemed to have creative ideas about the positive impact of such a huge population in society and how it can possibly morph into a new type of better society. So far, it’s only morphed into a billion dollar pharmaceutical and psychotherapy business.
I found one more Child of Divorce on the List, E.O. Wilson. He’s sometimes thought of as being the “Father of the Environmental Movement” to balance out Rachel Carson’s role as Mother. Wilson’s scientific philosophies and researches seem concerned overall with Synthesis, using scientific thought as a unifying element in the world, sounds like some real Child of D. dreamwork… but what do I know.
Wilson began as an entomologist and developed philosophies about human behavior from years of studying the social life of ants. He’s the guy who discovered that pheromones work as a basis for chemical communication in ants. Wilson strongly promotes the idea of “Sociobiology” which says that biology/genes are responsible for all social behavior. This has gotten him into much debate with others who feel that social and environmental influences also play a part. At any rate, it’s interesting to study a Child of Divorce taking part in the Nature v. Nurture debate.
E.O. Wilson was born in Alabama in 1929. His parents divorced when he was 7 years old and he spent the rest of his childhood moving around a lot with his Father and StepMother. The same year his parents divorced Wilson damaged one eye in a fishing accident. He had been interested in Nature studies very early on and the reduced eyesight caused him to concentrate on studying insects.
Wilson was raised in a religious environment and experienced being Born Again when he was in his teens. He since then drifted away from his religious roots but is looking for ways to unify the Creationists with the Scientists. I can’t find any information about Wilson’s Mother. He’s written an autobiography called Naturalist. There’s an excellent article about him online in Seed Magazine which says that his Father was an alcoholic who committed suicide when Wilson was 21 years old (http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/10/the_synthesizer.php).
Wilson decided to be an entomologist when he was 16 and began to collect all the Ants of Alabama. He went on to college in Alabama and then to Harvard where he received a Ph.D. He taught at Harvard for his entire career. He’s had the same assistant for 40 years.
Wilson is married and has a daughter.
Wilson has written a lot of books which explain his different interests and has received 2 Pulitzer Prizes along with many other honors and awards.
Here’s a link to a link of E.O. Wilson giving a speech at TEDBlog, an Intellectual FunFest where the greatest minds are allowed to give an 18 minute speech about whatever they wish. Wilson received one of their grand prizes so was maybe given a bit longer to expound.
Actually, TEDBlog is where I need to search for my Exemplaries from now on.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/04/eo_wilsons_drea.html
Filed under: Alcoholism, Birth Order, Books, Stepfamilies, Suicide, self-absorbed parents, separate households | Tags: Drug Abuse, Half-siblings, Successful Children of Divorce
Liza Minelli is the daughter of Judy Garland and Vincent Minelli. She was 5 years old when her parents were divorced. Lorna Luft is 6 years younger and is the Daughter of Judy Garland and Sid Luft. She was 9 when her parents Divorced and 16 when her Mother died. Both have been interviewed extensively about their childhoods, their Parents’ Marriages and Divorces and their Mother. The two half-sisters don’t seem to have a close relationship. This is a comparison of what they’ve said about their parents’ divorces.
Liza Minelli’s description of growing up in Divorce:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_1_34/ai_112482981
- IS: Talk about feeling naked! You’re actually very good at showing how vulnerable we all are. Do you think your parents” divorce when you were little had anything to do with that?
- LM: It gave me two wonderful outlets. My mother was an artist and highly strung, whereas my father was much calmer. He wasn’t like that on the set–evidently, he was Caesar on the set [Sischy laughs]–but at home he was sensational, and so was Mama. But Mama was stricter: I had to wear this and I had to do that. She was really kind and loving, but I used to be so happy to go to my father’s house. He was looser, and he fed my dreams.
- IS: How?
- LM: Well, I would go over to my dad’s house on a Saturday, and I would tell him everything, and I’d ask his advice. At the age of 6 or 7, I was like, “Well, what should I do?” And he’d say, “Do what you think.” Which made me realize that I had to think for myself. He would always talk to me like a very sensible human being. And then after he’d lay something like that on me, he’d say, “Who do you want to be today?” And I’d look at him and say, “Spanish dancer.” And he’d say, “All right.” And we’d get in the car and drive to Rexall on La Cienega and Beverly Boulevard, and we would buy crepe paper and a big box of safety pins. Then we went home, and because he’d been a wonderful costume designer and set designer in Chicago and in New York for Radio City Music Hall, he would create a Spanish dancer’s dress on me. He would pin the crepe paper with the safety pins and change my whole world. And when he was finished he would sit down and look at me and tell me how beautiful I was, and how wonderful, and then he’d say, “Liza, what does a Spanish dancer do?” And I would say, “Dance.” And he’d say, “Yes,” and he’d put on the music, and it was always the right music. I don’t know when he found the time to find the right music for what I had wanted to be, but he did, and suddenly I could dance, and I could find a whole world of dreams and the possibility of becoming somebody else. I’ve said it before, but it’s absolutely true: My mother gave me my drive, but my father gave me my dreams. Thanks to him, I could see a future.
Lorna Luft, younger half-sister, wrote a book, Me and My Shadows, about growing up in the same household. This is from Booklist review on Amazon:
- Luft, often identified as Judy Garland’s “other daughter,” steps center stage to describe what life was like as the child of an icon. For the first nine years of her life, Luft was protected from the vagaries of her mother’s prescription-drug abuse and downward-spiraling mental health. But after her parents’ divorce, Luft found herself in the role of chief cook and bottle washer–in charge of cleaning up her mother’s messes. The horror stories from this period include breakdowns, breakups with almost everyone who was close to Garland, paranoia, and even knife-wielding episodes in which Garland went after her young son. After Luft had her own breakdown at 16, she left her mother’s home and never saw Garland alive again. Despite all the horror, Luft is kind to her mother’s memory, seeing the star as sick, not evil, and remembering all the many loving times shared between mother and daughter. Sister Liza Minelli doesn’t fare quite as well. Although Luft has many nice things to say about her, Liza’s drug abuse has left the pair estranged. Oh, yes, Luft had her own life, too, but not unexpectedly, her affairs with even the likes of Burt Reynolds and Barry Manilow and her own drug problems don’t make for nearly as fascinating reading as her tales of Judy and Liza. Dishy–and sure to be popular. Ilene Cooper
There are many interviews out there by Lorna Luft discussing her parents. I like this one in particular:
- “You don’t really know your parents until you are in your 40’s,” she said.
- “In your 20’s you have no idea, in your 30’s you start to get to know them and in your 40’s you have had some of the experiences they had and it is just a natural understanding that comes from being this age.”
from www.aussietheatre.com/news.htm “Growing up Garland: Lorna’s incredible Life.”
Judy Garland died of a drug overdose at Age 47. She had attempted Suicide previously.
Filed under: Abduction, Alcoholism, Bad Children of Divorce, Birth Order, Custody, Mentally Ill parents, Parents and their Dates, Suicide, money, self-absorbed parents, separate households
Marlon Brando’s troubled Son, Christian, passed away yesterday in Los Angeles, California. He had been hospitalized for pneumonia. Christian was 49 years old. May he Rest in Peace.
Christian was the eldest of Brando’s nine children. His Mother, Anna Kashfi, was also an actress. She separated from Brando when Christian was 5 months old and the couple divorced on Apr. 22, 1959 (can’t vouch for any dates here). The couple remained in a custody dispute over Christian until 1972 when Kashfi abducted the 13 year boy and took him to Mexico. She was sent to jail and subsequently lost all chance for custody. His Mother had drug and alcohol problems.
Christian dropped out of High School and held minor acting jobs. As can be expected he had emotional problems and ended up killing his sister Cheyenne’s boyfriend while arguing over whether the boyfriend had beaten his pregnant half-sister. He spent 5 years in jail for the murder. Cheyenne gave birth to the baby but hanged herself at Age 25. Christian was recently divorced for violent behavior to his wife and her daughter.
This is a description of his childhood from www.astrotheme.com. (Date of parents’ separation is different from one mentioned in obituary in newspaper (www.mercurynews.com):
Kashfi turned to barbiturates and alcohol and the couple divorced a year after Christian’s birth in May 1959. Christian was passed between the two as their relationship became more and more hostile and abusive. The author Nellie Bly claimed that “When the Brandos quarreled, Anna displayed a ‘frightening’ rage,” and that “Anna left baby Christian alone in her car parked on Wilshire Boulevard while she confronted Brando in his office, ‘beating at him with her fists, in a frenzy of rage.” There was a protracted custody battle between Kashfi and Brando until he eventually won custody of Christian aged 13 after an incident when Christian was taken out of school to Mexico by Kashfi without Brando’s consent.
Christian had little good contact with his father, being raised by nannies and servants, moving between Hollywood and the private island near Tahiti. A reluctant witness to his father’s sexual exploits and bizarre behavior, Christian complained that:
“The family kept changing shape, I’d sit down at the breakfast table and say, “Who are you?””
Filed under: Alcoholism, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Mentally Ill parents, Raised by non-relatives, Stepfamilies, Suicide, money, self-absorbed parents
Jack London is the famous writer of White Fang and The Call of the Wild. One is a story about a wild dog who is taken in and tamed and the other is about a tame dog who becomes wild. You can see the Children of Divorce theme all the place in these themes.
London was born in San Francisco, California to a professional Astrologer and a Spiritualist in the late 19th century. His birth was unwanted. His Father abandonned his Mother when she announced her pregnancy. She had suffered a childhood illness which left her weak both physically and mentally. She resented London’s presence and passed his upbringing over to an ex-slave. She remarried and Jack London took his stepfather’s name. That couple had two children. London was taken out of school at the age of 10 and put to work for 10-12 hours a day. Eventually he found the Public Library and educated himself. After owning his own fishing boat and losing it among other adventures, London returned to High School and graduated. He went to college for a year but dropped out due to financial problems.
London was the most commercially successful writer of his time. He was married twice, once divorced and had 2 daughters. He considered his 2d wife to be his soul-mate. London was an Alcoholic and a womanizer and he was accused of plagiarizing some of his works. He tried his hand at owning a Ranch and failed. Already suffering from Kidney Failure, London either overdosed on his medication or committed Suicide at the age of 40.
Filed under: Bad Children of Divorce, Suicide, indifferent parents, self-absorbed parents, therapy
I suppose “Problematic” is a fairly gentle term for some of the screws up that spawn from Divorce. Not all Mass Murderers come from broken homes, but, frankly, I’m sort of surprised that more aren’t. Here’s one. He wasn’t even on psych drugs. But he did tell his therapists that he wished his parents loved him. Robert Hawkins is the mass murderer who entered a Shopping Mall in Nebraska last month (Dec. 5, 2007, Omaha) and killed 8 people and himself. His parents divorced shortly before he turned 2 years old. Hawkins and his older sister lived with his Father. His sister is 4 years older and reportedly doing very well in life.
Both parents remarried new partners when he was 4. His Mother went through a second Divorce when Hawkins was 8 years old. His Father divorced his StepMother when Hawkins was 17. Hawkins had one birth sister, 4 years older, and 4 half-siblings, all younger. He had been receiving therapy since he was 6 years old. His Mother fought for custody about that time saying that the Step-Mother was verbally abusive. Hawkins was put into a Mental Hospital on or the day after his 14th Birthday for threatening to kill his Step-Mother. After that he was made a Ward of the State and lived until Age 17 in State Facilities or in Foster Homes. His Mother visited him for the first time after 2 1/2 years in July, 2005. At 17, Hawkins moved back in with his Father who was going through his 2d Divorce (not the best timing but I guess Daddy felt lonely), then dropped out of High School. Hawkins was detained a couple of times while in Foster Care for dealing marijuana. At the time of his death he had just been fired for stealing money from McDonalds, had broken up with his girlfriends and was having legal problems for alcohol and drugs.
The Director of the Facility where Hawkins was kept says that his Treatment cost $245,000.
Description of Hawkins’ life: http://omaha.craigslist.org/pol/511019475.html.
Filed under: Exemplary Children of Divorce, Mentally Ill parents, Suicide, self-absorbed parents, therapy
Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were sort of like the Prom King and Queen of Generation X. This was a generation that sort of grew up stunned by Life. They were the first kids to talk about growing up in Divorce.
Kurt Cobain’s parents divorced in 1975 when he was 7. He lived for a year with his Mom and then moved in with his Dad and after that shuttled around. His Mother said that the Divorce completely changed him. He became out of control and after a few years when Dad couldn’t handle him he bopped around between family and friends’ houses. He dropped out of high school and lived for a while under a bridge. Cobain’s saving grace was that he started playing guitar at Age 14. I guess an outlet for expression helps. Unfortunately it doesn’t fix anything. He seems his health was frail his whole life and he suffered from depression, Scoliosis, bronchitis and stomach problems.
Cobain started using drugs when he was 11 and was hooked on heroin by 1986.
From what I’m reading Cobain became the voice for Generation X and for the Grunge style of Rock. The Grunge style certainly seems to fit with growing up in a chaotic household. Cobain celebrated instant celebrity as lead singer for Nirvana and struggled with his success. He married Courtney Love in 1992 with whom he had a daughter.
Cobain killed himself on Apr. 8, 1994 in Washington state, Age 27.
Courtney Love was born in San Francisco to highly dysfunctional parents. Her Hippie parents divorced when she was 5. Her Mother gained custody by telling the court that Courtney’s Father had fed her pills when Courtney was 4. Her Father continued to feed her drugs for the rest of her childhood. Her Mother remarried twice more and had two more daughters. Courtney’s Mother is a therapist and says that Courtney became magically screwed up on her own at Age 2. Courtney was given an insulting nickname as a child, Miss Pee?, because her clothes were so filthy. One can see where the Grunge look originated. She has since become a Fashion Icon who is known for a sloppy, but stylish look.
Courtney’s Mom sent her to therapy when she was 6. That worked well. They spent much of Courtney’s childhood years traveling around the World. When Courtney was 8 the family moved to New Zealand and left her behind because she fought with her Mother. Courtney was eventually brought over but was sent back. She ended up spending most of the rest of her childhood in Mental Hospitals, Foster Homes, Detention Centers and Strip Clubs.
Love became the Lead Singer and Lyricist for the group Hole. She met Cobain in 1989 and they married in 1992 when Courtney became pregnant. Cobain committed Suicide and Love has somehow managed to keep her career going although fairly messed up by the drugs. In addition to her music she is a really great actress.
Love’s latest album is called “Nobody’s Daughter.” It looks like maybe Rehab worked this last go round at least. Rolling Stone has called her “the most controversial woman in the history of rock.” While Courtney was at the peak of her worst problems, The Mother took advantage of her Fame and published a book telling all about Courtney’s messed up family from the point of view of a rational therapist. I’m sure that helped her daughter. Where do these idiots come from?
