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Have you ever peered into the lives of fellow mental health consumers and their families? Do you know what it is like to be in their shoes, to know what they really think? Sometimes I am so closed off from society because of what I perceive to be my freakishness that I do not see that there are people in society just like me, with the same hopes and dreams for normalcy.
Katharine Noel’s novel, Halfway House, is about a young woman with bipolar disorder. To read it was, in a way, cathartic. The pain of being ill gradually lessens with the realization that someone else is experiencing it too. Noel writes of a family and each family member’s struggle to deal with the daughter’s mental illness. This book tells us that we, as mental health consumers, are all living with the same struggles, and that we can regain a sense of independence and normalcy in our lives. To achieve this goal is difficult, but not impossible.
Angie is the character who is suddenly held hostage by a manic episode. She revels in the excitement of being so high, but over-reaches the bounds of normal behavior in public. As a result, she is sent to a hospital and a halfway house to help her stabilize and get back on track. Like anyone who has a mental illness, she improves, relapses, regresses, and is back to square one because she loves the intensity of her manic states. Can we learn from her mistakes? Hopefully, yes. But if not, this book promises a true depiction of life with severe highs and lows.
Without skipping a beat, Halfway House peers into the inner lives of each individual family member. The brother is the most affected by Angie’s illness; he is defined by it. Everyone he meets knows he has a sister with bipolar disorder because it has changed him so profoundly. His sister, once his best friend, is no longer there for him the way she once was. Now he must take on the role of caregiver to his older sister.
The family falls apart, but Noel does not relate this occurrence to Angie’s illness. Each family member drifts apart in a different direction. Marriages and families fail from lack of communication or the complacency of living with bad habits. This novel touches upon an American family that has failed to keep its center intact. There is a sense of isolation in each family member, an innate knowledge that each one digs his own grave or fights for a better life. We are reading into the harsh reality of life where there are moments of happiness and moments of sorrow.
This novel is also a window into the mental health twilight zone, the halfway house. Residents of a halfway house live differently, with a general acceptance for each other’s quirks, but in order to grow, it is a place that one must move on from. The halfway house is a transitional place. In the end, Angie breaks free from its safety and security so that she can live more fully.
We, as readers, are left with a sense of optimism that Angie, or any one of us, can regain our lives. Perhaps we can never regain what we once had, but we can build something similar that is just as fulfilling, and maybe even more so. We are also able to feel compassion for who we are and each other’s struggles with life. In addition, we are filled with compassion for the normal ones who also struggle with life’s trials and tribulations. After reading this novel, I cannot help but think that we are all the same, mental health consumer or other.