What is the experience of having a mental patient
in the family?
My aunt was born in 1975 and is 41 years old this year.
She’s been crazy for over 20 years.
Grandma gave birth to six children, five daughters and one son.
My mother is the oldest, and this aunt is the youngest.
Perhaps, for the grandmother’s family, the aunt is a disgrace to the whole family.
My aunt has not done anything to corrupt the family, but for a decent family, her madness is a dark side forever. Of
Grandma’s six children, except for my aunt, the others are doing well. My
only son, my uncle, is the richest man in my grandmother’s village. The year before last, my uncle donated 300,000 yuan to build an ancestral temple in the village. My two aunts are also among the wealthy class in the countryside.
My aunt went crazy when she was a girl. I
remember when I was in primary school, every time I went to my grandmother’s house, I was always assigned to sleep in the same bed with my aunt.
If I accidentally touched my aunt when I turned over, she would kick me with her feet and curse me viciously, scaring me to curl up in the corner of the bed and dare not move.
My aunt was kicked around by her family like a ball and married several men in succession.
Once my aunt took me to the market to buy clothes. She was gesturing with underwear in front of a stall selling underwear. Suddenly, she put the underwear directly on her coat and tried it on.
At that time, people were coming and going in the market, and my young face was red with embarrassment, and I wanted to find a crack in the ground, but my aunt looked light.
At that time, the whole family thought that she was just introverted, irritable and difficult to get along with.
At that time, I always had an inexplicable fear in the face of my aunt.
When I grow up, I will recall carefully that my aunt was able to try on underwear in full view of the public as if nothing had happened, as if she was completely intoxicated in her own world, indicating that her mental state at that time had deviated from the normal track.
As I grew older, my aunt’s madness became more and more serious. First, she didn’t do any housework and lay in bed all day doing nothing. Then, she quarreled with my grandparents violently every day. In the end, she even cut my grandparents with a kitchen knife.
At that time, my grandmother’s other five children were all married, and only my aunt lived with my grandparents. My aunt was white and fat because she didn’t work every day, and my grandparents were over 60 years old. My aunt’s round arm swung over, and my grandparents had to stagger back a few steps, not to mention that my aunt liked to cut people with a knife.
At that time, all the metal products in Grandma’s house were locked in the cabinet.
My aunt’s madness is intermittent. When she doesn’t attack, she is like a normal person. Once she attacks, she will talk nonsense and her behavior is out of control. There seemed to be a demon in
her heart, and like Aladdin, she could summon this terrible demon at any time.
Grandpa and grandma live in fear all the year round.
My mother said that my grandparents were responsible for my aunt’s madness. First, my grandparents did not let my aunt study for a few more years. Second, my grandparents paid too little attention to my sensitive and introverted aunt with too strong self-esteem. Every time
my mother talked about when my aunt went to school, she used a very proud tone: Your aunt had very good grades when she went to school, and she studied very hard. Now I remember that she studied with a small oil lamp every night until midnight! However, my aunt’s sensitive and introverted personality hurt her. When
she was in the third grade, the teacher always put her in the last row because she jumped too fast. She thought that the teacher was not good to her and was deliberately targeting her, so she said she couldn’t go to school.
Grandpa and grandma let her drop out of school without any persuasion.
My aunt was the youngest child in the family. At that time, the economic conditions of my grandmother’s family were not bad, so there was no problem for her to go on studying.
My mother said that if her grandparents had found a way to let her continue to go to school and read more books, my aunt might have been more open-minded.
My mother thinks that people’s mental problems are caused by their brains getting into a dead end.
Maybe my mother’s analysis is reasonable.
I remember when my aunt was not crazy, she liked watching TV very much and giggled when she saw her favorite programs, which contained a yearning for a better life in the future.
I guess she must have had a dream, maybe she wanted to go out and see the debauchery of the big city, maybe she wanted to be a glamorous woman in formal clothes.
But my aunt is only in the third grade, she has no education, no skills, she can only be trapped in the countryside, like other rural girls, cutting firewood, carrying water, washing clothes, cooking, doing simple housework day by day, but also often face the criticism and scolding of her grandmother.
The heart is higher than sky and the life is thinner than paper, which may be her true portrayal. When
my aunt was crazy enough to cut people with a kitchen knife, my uncle sent her to the local mental hospital for treatment. She stayed there for a year or two, and her mental state stabilized a lot after she came out.
Because the antidepressants contained a lot of hormones, my aunt was like a fermented steamed bun, so fat that there was only a slit in her eyes. After coming back
from the mental hospital, the spirit is much more stable, but the temper is still repeated, will not take a knife to cut people, but will always quarrel with grandparents.
The old man has taken care of the madman’s aunt for nearly ten years, and has already been physically and mentally exhausted. Now both of them are in their twilight years, and the aunt has become a heavy burden for her grandparents.
My aunt was twenty-five or twenty-six years old at that time, which was the marriageable age. The whole family tried to find a family for her to marry. There are not
many matchmakers, because all the villagers in the village know about my aunt’s madness.
However, Grandma’s family found a man who was willing to marry her in a town a little farther away. When
talking about marriage, Grandpa and Grandma directly explained Aunt’s mental condition to the man. At that time, the number of attacks of Aunt’s madness was very small.
The man’s family was very poor, and he was divorced with a son, so he was lucky to be able to marry a girl with a yellow flower, especially because the economic conditions of his grandmother’s family were good, and his uncle and aunts were all rich relatives.
If the little aunt’s crazy disease does not break out, the man is certainly earned.
So the man married his aunt with a little luck.
My aunt’s wedding was very grand in the village. Grandpa and grandma specially gave my aunt a big car of beautiful furniture as a dowry, and also gave my aunt a huge sum of money at the bottom of the box. On the
wedding day, the little aunt put on beautiful makeup and wore a big red flower on her head. The little aunt wearing a red veil was carried by her uncle in the wedding car. The red veil dangling around could not hide the bride’s shyness and joy.
Half a year later, the aunt was sent back by the man, and even returned, as well as the car of beautiful dowry furniture.
It is said that my aunt began to go crazy three months after she went to the man’s house. The man began to dislike my aunt, which was not good for her at all. My aunt often called my grandparents to complain, but my grandparents advised my aunt to be patient and so on.
Later, the man began to beat his aunt, who often ran home black and blue. Grandpa and grandma advised her to be patient and considerate of her husband, and then sent her back.
Probably in the countryside, the husband’s scolding and domestic violence against his wife is not a big deal.
My aunt and her family were able to endure the man’s domestic violence against my aunt, but the man finally couldn’t stand my aunt’s madness. The man insisted on divorce and sent my aunt back. In the
next two years, my aunt was married two or three times, either by herself or by the man.
Aunt was like a ball, kicked back and out.
From one house to another, it is like a swallow building a nest temporarily under the eaves of others.
She has become a worry for the whole family, and perhaps only when she gets married can this worry be relieved. In
the past few years, some middlemen who specially introduced girls to other provinces for marriage appeared in our rural areas. After the man decided on the marriage partner, he would happily pay a generous betrothal gift to the woman’s parents, and the middleman would draw an intermediary fee in the middle.
It’s like a business. It’s like pimping. It’s like human trafficking.
The only difference is that it’s all consensual. The main provinces of
marriage are Jiangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and other places, all of which are relatively poor rural areas.
It is said that it is difficult for men in these poor villages to get a wife because of the high price of the local bride price.
These bachelors found that in some places in other provinces, the bride price is very low, and the cost of marrying a wife from other provinces is much lower than that of a local wife.
Thus, it gave birth to this special marriage market.
However, there are still very few people willing to marry their daughters to other provinces, because those people come from poor rural areas, where the mountains are high and the roads are long and the people are dangerous, and most people do not want their daughters to marry and suffer.
Those who are willing to marry to other provinces are women whose families are very poor, or whose appearance is too poor, or who are too old, and who have no marriage market in the local area.
My aunt was also introduced to Jiangxi by a middleman. My mother knew in her heart what it meant to marry
far away, and my grandparents, uncles and other aunts all knew, but no one raised any objection.
Aunt has been like a hot potato, waiting for some unwitting take-over man to pick her up, perhaps the farther the better. A few days before I
went to Jiangxi, my mother specially took my aunt home to play. When I came home from vacation that day, she stood by the windowsill and greeted me with a smile. The sun shone on her fat face, enveloping a layer of loving and soft white light. I thought she looked like Maitreya Buddha.
At that moment, I felt that my aunt was no longer the madman who chased my grandparents with a kitchen knife, and that her illness might be cured, I thought. During the
meal, my mother nagged my aunt at the dinner table that she should be diligent when she went to her husband’s home in Jiangxi, take the initiative to do housework, and be nice to her husband. She promised, very docile.
A few days later, my aunt followed the introducer to Jiangxi with her luggage on her back. In the
first year, my aunt would often call back and say that she wanted to go home. Of course, without exception, everyone advised her to be patient. Every time
my aunt said she wanted to go home, my grandmother’s family would be worried for a while.
But now my aunt thinks it’s not so easy to go home by herself. The mountain is high and the road is long. My aunt doesn’t know many words. She has never traveled far alone. She can’t even take a train.
Later, my uncle stopped my grandmother’s landline, but my aunt would call the landline next door and often say that she wanted to come back.
Later, the neighbor’s landline also stopped, and it was popular for everyone to use mobile phones.
Without the landline, my aunt could not get through the phone, and she lost contact with her family completely.
A few years later, my aunt was removed from her grandmother’s household registration book as a missing person.
Slowly, aunt in everyone’s heart, like a wound sealed by a band-aid, once bloody and painful wound, hidden under the band-aid gradually better, no one remembers that there was blood here, once the pain grinned.
More than ten years have passed, and there is no news of my aunt. When
my mother mentioned my aunt occasionally, she always said, “If only she had died outside, I would rather she had died early, so that she would never have to suffer in the world again.”. After I
graduated and started working, every time I saw a ragged vagrant woman on the street, I would think of my poor aunt. Was my aunt driven out by her husband’s family after the onset of madness, or was she sold to several families, or was she wandering in an unknown place?
More than ten years have passed, perhaps in everyone’s mind, she has already starved to death or frozen to death in a street.
Except Grandma.
Grandma is a very superstitious person. She believes in Buddhism and some fortune-tellers. Every year,
my grandmother would find a so-called fortune-teller to tell my aunt’s fortune. Every time, the fortune-teller said that my aunt was still alive, and my grandmother was convinced of this. My younger brother got married in the Spring Festival
last year. My 80-year-old grandmother met my 82-year-old grandmother, who was the daughter of my grandmother’s family in the village. They met when they were young, and the old sisters had a good chat when they met.
I heard them talking about my aunt, and my grandmother said with certainty, “My little daughter is not dead, and the fortune-tellers say she is alive, so she must be alive!” The fortune-teller is really right. I went back to my hometown in March
this year. A neighbor was working at the police station in the city. My mother stood at the door and asked him how to apply for a certificate for the disabled. I interrupted: Who wants to apply for a certificate for the disabled?
My mother immediately winked at me and motioned me not to ask again.
After the neighbor left, my mother told me that my aunt had found it.
Aunt is still the secret that can not be told to outsiders, everything about her will be wrapped up by three layers inside and three layers outside.
My aunt was not found by us on our own initiative, but when my aunt’s husband was working as a Mason in the construction team, he met a grandmother in the town. After several inquiries, he contacted my aunt’s family.
My aunt now lives in a rural area in Nanjing. My aunt’s husband has four brothers in his family who have not married a daughter-in-law. My aunt’s husband did not meet the vagrant aunt until he was over 40 years old, so he picked her up and took her home to be his wife.
Aunt also gave birth to a son for the man, the son is white and fat, very cute, now 3 years old, although the family is poor, but fortunately her husband is honest and kind, also has a craft, she is also good. When
my mother told me this, she was relaxed and happy. Then I asked, “Where is my aunt? How is she?”?
My mother’s face darkened. She lowered her eyes and sighed and said, Your aunt is blind and can’t see. She can’t take care of herself. Fortunately, her husband is willing to take care of her.
What about the child?
Who’s taking care of it?
I asked.
Said the child was brought up by an aunt.
My mother said.
My aunt has been seriously overweight since she came out of the mental hospital. She may be blind because of long-term diabetes.
My mother said that my aunt’s husband had a good heart and took my aunt to treat her eyes, but the doctor said that she could not be cured. After
learning the news of my aunt, my uncle, two aunts and my uncle immediately drove from Hubei to Nanjing to visit my aunt, but my aunt was very cold to them and did not have the joy of meeting relatives.
She lay on the bed and looked straight at the low roof all the time, her eyes empty, as if the mother’s family who spoke in the room had nothing to do with her. When
her uncles and aunts occasionally asked her something, she felt very impatient and either did not answer or shouted. When
my uncle and his party left, each of them gave the child a red envelope, and each red envelope contained one thousand yuan.
My aunt’s husband made a request to my uncle: I hope my grandmother’s family can issue a household register to give my aunt a disability certificate, so that my aunt can get a minimum living allowance in the local countryside. As early as a few years ago,
my aunt’s household registration was cancelled as a missing person, but my uncle promised my aunt’s husband on the spot that he would find a way to get my aunt’s disability certificate.
Mother also said that she also called her aunt, she asked her aunt: “Do you remember you have an elder sister called Zeshen?”?
Aunt said: I remember.
My mother asked, “How are you doing over there?”? On the other end of the
phone was my aunt’s familiar growl: “Why do you ask so many questions?” And my aunt has forgotten to speak our local dialect. She can only speak Mandarin.
As time goes by, the local accent has changed. My aunt has been wandering outside for more than ten years. She has experienced many times of hunger, cold and sleeping in the open air. In her heart, her hometown has long been ravaged into a dilapidated old stamp, and the scenery and figures printed on it have changed beyond recognition. The afternoon I
heard the news of my aunt, I hid in a place where no one was crying.
. Focus on not getting lost ~
