Tom Davis (c) sits with his mother, Dorothy “Dede” Winans Davis and son, Tommy. Tom Davis’ new book, “A Legacy of Madness,” details his family’s multigenerational struggle with mental illness. Dede was the first family member to receive medical help. I gnore it, and it will go away. That is how Tom Davis’ family dealt with mental illness when he was growing up.
“In a way, it was a family tradition,” the Metuchen resident wrote in his memoir, “Legacy of Madness: Recovering My Family from Generations of Mental Illness.”
Davis grew up in Point Pleasant with a mother who suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, though she would not be officially diagnosed or treated until many years later, and a father who didn’t have the tools or understanding to cope. In childhood, Davis learned through experience that it was better to stay silent than speak up.
A teenage Tom Davis (standing, third from right) with his cross-country team at Point Boro High School. These days, however, he has a different approach. He no longer ignores mental illness; he has tackled it head on. A veteran journalist, he has written extensively about mental illness and he taught a groundbreaking course at Fairleigh Dickinson University on mental health issues in the media. He was awarded a Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship in 2004 and used the funding to write about the treatment of people who are mentally ill in the prison system.
Today he continues his successful journalism career and is a professor at Rutgers University. He lives in Metuchen with his wife, Kathleen, sons Tommy, 13, and Jonathan, 9, and daughter Anna, 5.
Recently published, “Legacy of Madness” was three years in the making but had been on Davis’ mind for a long time prior. The book tells his family story going back several generations. It’s a form of therapy, he said, and a way to get his story “out there.”
At one time he thought his story was unique, but when he opened up and began to tell it, he found out that many people had a similar story.
“Mental illness is something that affects everybody,” he said in a recent interview.
His early memories are of a mother who would compulsively wash her hands and obsess over the thermostat. She would repeat things over and over, often demanding reassurance from her family — “Do you love me best of all?… Promise? Promise to love me forever and ever?”
Her father was an alcoholic who would shower several times a day. When researching his book, Davis would find out that his greatgrandfather, Edward, killed himself in 1933 using gas from his oven. Five years earlier, Edward’s mother and brother had committed suicide together in a similar manner.
Davis did not emerge unscathed from what he described as his family “curse.” He showed signs of anxiety early on, and in high school he developed an eating disorder, which he battled on and off for 17 years until his diagnosis and treatment in 2000.
“The idea that I could be going through something like Karen Carpenter was going through at the time didn’t register in my mind,” he said. “Of course it’s sexism, too. You think this is only an issue with women.
“But I started to think about it more. … Is this bulimia? The thought crossed my mind, but then I would dismiss it. … You don’t associate that kind of thing with yourself, or with your gender. You don’t know what you are going through when it happens. And that’s part of the ignorance that exists with mental illness. People don’t think this can happen to themselves.”
By telling his story, Davis hopes that others can learn from what he learned about his family. “We’ve got something out there that can be read by a mainstream audience,” he said.
The book, he said, is a way for him to “break the curse” that has plagued his family.
“The whole discovery process of my family, I felt and other people [in the family] felt, was more interesting than the actual book. Uncovering all these issues about my family and going back generations, it was like, ‘Wow,’ ” he said.
Davis’ relatives had been cooperative while he was writing the book, but as the publication drew near and people started hearing about it, one of his relatives became embarrassed by it. The stigma about mental illness, which discourages many people from seeking help, still exists, Davis said. He admits that sometimes he wonders if it affected him job-wise. It “creeps in my head that maybe [a potential employer] read something somewhere. … You don’t know, maybe it’s the one thing that tips the scale if it’s down to a tight decision between you and somebody else for the job. Did that employer see your column about your eating disorder and say, ‘I don’t want that person’?” Davis said. “I still feel that exists in some respects.”
But overall responses to his book have been “overwhelmingly positive.”
“I get a lot of…‘I know somebody just like this,’ ‘I have somebody in my family,’ ‘I’m going through this,’ ” Davis said. “I’ve been getting that over and over again.”
He has been promoting his book at various book signings, and the best reception was in his hometown of
Metuchen.
“People I know have been supportive across the board,” he said. “It’s all been very positive.”
In “Legacy of Madness,” Davis wrote, “My book was an open wound that needed to be healed.” When asked if the wound has healed, Davis responded, “It’s in the process.”
One part has healed, he said; writing about it, getting the word out and connecting with people has been healing.
“The entire wound is something you manage over time,” he said. “It changes, and you have to start dealing with the next generation, maybe issues you see in your own children.”
“Writing is therapy,” Davis said. But it is a journey, and he is still “battling certain issues.”
He is currently on anti-anxiety medication.
“I always remember,” he wrote, “where I was when I first needed [medication] and why I continue to take them.”
“Legacy of Madness: Recovering My Family from Generations of Mental Illness,” published by Hazleden, is available online and in stores. For more information, visit www.legacyofmadness.com.