Tanya Frank - Zig-Zag Boy: Madness, Motherhood and Letting Go

A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood

T A N Y A F R A N K

Zig - Zag Boy is a work of nonfiction. Dialogue has been reconstructed to the best of the authors ability. Some names of individuals have been changed, along with potentially identifying characteristics. The approaches, techniques, and remedies referred to or discussed in this book reflect the authors experiences and/or opinions only, are not intended as recommendations, and should not be construed to substitute for medical, therapeutic, or other professional advice.

Copyright 2023 by Tanya Frank

All rights reserved

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

ISBN 978-0-393-53188-6

ISBN 978-0-393-53189-3 (ebk.)

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

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For Zach and the elephant seals

Insanitya perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.

RD LAING

CONTENTS

Dear reader,

Zig - Zag Boy is a love story, an urgent tale of a fierce battle a mother wages for her child. I worry about telling such a personal story, one that isnt just my own, but I hope that sharing it will help others to feel less alone, to give those of us who contend with psychosis a collective voice. Families like ours live on the edge, in a no-mans-land, our voices often stifled or ignored by bureaucracy and archaic laws. Despite being the closest witness to Zachs suffering, I came to realize that I was often unable to advocate for him, to break through the barriers created by current mental health systems.

Psychosis is often thought to be genetic, or a symptom of brain chemistry gone awry, yet no disease markers show up in brain scans or blood tests. It may well be caused or triggered by the interplay of various factors we are just beginning to understand, from epigenetics to trauma to culture and environment.

For many years I despised Los Angeles, because that was where Zachs psychosis first presented, but now I know that LA didnt cause this experience any more than I did. Psychosis is more complex than this.

I hope that the simple idea of being with someone and not doing to them, of asking what has happened and not what is wrong, will resonate and proliferate. I firmly believe in the privilege of supporting each other in this way and will continue to advocate for such a basic philosophy, which will conserve money as well as lives and help to promote a more compassionate world.

Tanya Frank
February 2023

Z I G - Z A G
B O Y

I walk out to South Point. It is wild and desolate; the air smells of molted seal fur and guano. I take my binoculars so I can see her more clearlythe first elephant-seal mother to haul off. She is lumbering and clumsy as she heaves her body over the dunes and past the willow.

Early winter is birthing season at Ao Nuevo, the elephant-seal sanctuary in Northern California where I am training to be a docent. My fellow volunteers are eating lunch in the barn. I am alone out here. Walking helps. I make new footprints in the sand, my skin tingling in the salty air. I clench my fists and release them.

Out on Cove Beach, the surfers in their black wetsuits carve up the face of a wave. My boy used to surf, raising his limber body onto a shortboard. That was when he trusted the water and its purity. I didnt suspect that anything could get in the way of his dreams.

The mother seal dives into the water when the beta males arent looking. She knows that if she is caught they will try to mate with her, just in case she hasnt been impregnated by the alpha. It doesnt matter that she is spent and famished.

Somehow, she isnt spotted. Her skin shimmers like silver foil as she dips into the surf. She heads out into the deeper, darker water where she moves more easily and only has herself to think about. She doesnt look back at her pup, who lifts up his head and chest from the beach as he searches for her. This is the first time she has left her babys side since his birth. She has given him all of herself, even when the tides were wild and threatening, when the huge elephant-seal bulls rose around her, roaring and fighting violently for the alpha position, when she was empty from birthing and had lost one-third of her body weight from lactating and fasting.

Now something tells her it is time to leave him, to ignore her pups cries that carry on the breeze. He continues to call the way he has done for the last month, the sound that had always worked to keep her close and protective of him. But she is far away now, hungry for fish and squid, deep-diving, alone. Her blubbery pup is still too fat to swim, and his buoyancy would attract the sharks. He must slim down and learn when to take the plunge himself. I stare at him, stranded, rejected.

The pups have a fifty percent chance of surviving their maiden voyage, and even if this pup one day makes it back to Ao Nuevo, to the very same breeding ground where he was conceived and born, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that he and his mother will ever reunite. The mother will forget the scent of her pup, his cry and the bond they forged during their early days together; she will mate again, give birth and propagate. She is all instinct.

As I stand on the bluff I think about Zach, my youngest son, lying at home, curled up inside his sleeping bag, hands over his ears to shut out the voices only he hears.

My eyes prick with tears behind my sunglasses, and then I am crying more freely, fiercely, and it hurts my throat. I want to climb down to the beach and pick up the seal pup, to feed him myself, but the laws of nature govern here at the reserve. There can be no human intervention.

I leave South Point and make my way back under the low sky. The marine haze is still heavy on the northern side of the reserve. The other docents gather and take their seats in the old horse barn for the afternoon session. We are going to watch video footage of great white sharks, filmed by researchers at the University of California. I keep my sunglasses on and stand by the door, trying not to panic about the fact that there is no Wi-Fi or cell service here on this remote part of the California coast. I wonder if my son has woken up yet, frantic to reach me, if he will remember to call his older brother instead. I wonder if it is helping at all, me being here, trying to distract myself, trying to become a woman who isnt solely consumed by looking after her son, trying to put him together again.

The shark expert starts his commentary about shark feeding habits, their evolution. It is hard to concentrate, the lecture sounds muffled and the room is airless. I hear something about the bad reputation that great whites have, how it is our responsibility to explain to park visitors why they dont deserve to be feared and hated. It is important to him; I can feel it in the urgency of his delivery and the quiver of his Adams apple. I recognize that desperation to set the record straight.