Tanya Frank, ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood
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[1:03]Tanya Frank is the author of Zig Zagboy, A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood.
[1:08]And by the way, I think this is the first episode where I have cried myself in a very long
[1:12]time.
[1:13]Uh, Tanya's bio, she wrote herself and says, from the time I was old enough to decipher
[1:18]words, my Yiddish your mama told me stories, showing me what it meant to bear witness to
[1:23]personal narratives.
[1:24]Growing up during the Thatcher era on a council housing estate where poverty was rife,
[1:28]I was not considered college material and left school with no qualifications.
[1:32]It wasn't until I had children of my own that I returned to education and got my teaching
[1:36]degree.
[1:37]I have since worked as a college and university lecturer in the UK and taught middle school
[1:41]children, teens and elders in the USA.
[1:44]My first foray into writing came when I won a competition in 1999 for a short television
[1:48]drama.
[1:49]The film Kissing Buba was based on upon a visit to my Russian immigrant grandmother.
[1:54]It was commissioned by Anglia TV and the BBC and aired on regional television and in various
[1:58]film festivals.
[2:00]In 2002, I moved to Los Angeles where I gained my MFA and creative nonfiction at the
[2:04]University of California Riverside.
[2:06]Upon graduating, I completed an internship in mental health psychosocial rehabilitation,
[2:12]working at Dee Dee Hirsch Mental Health Services in Los Angeles using memoir as a tool
[2:16]to aid self expression and recovery.
[2:19]My work has appeared in the Guardian UK, The New York Times, The Washington Post, KCRW
[2:23]Unfictional, KCET Departure, Sinister Wisdom, and other literary journals.
[2:28]I am the recipient of the Marsha McCorn Award for Creative Nonfiction and a 2012 alumni
[2:32]of Squaw Valley Community of Writers.
[2:35]In 2017, I volunteered as an advocate at Psychosis Summit, South Bay Project Resource,
[2:40]where I interviewed peers and family members with lived experience of Psychosis.
[2:44]As a nature lover, I trained as a docent at Anna Nuevo Elephansil Sanctuary, which,
[2:49]by the way, she talks about in the book.
[2:50]I currently live in London.
[2:51]Anyway, that was all first person, Tonya Frank Spio, and here is our really personal and
[2:57]emotional episode.
[2:58]Welcome, Tonya.
[2:59]Thank you so much for coming on mom's start-up time to read books to discuss Zigzag Boy,
[3:03]a memoir of madness in motherhood.
[3:06]Thank you.
[3:07]Thank you for having me.
[3:08]I'm really excited to be here.
[3:11]Oh my gosh, Tonya, your story.
[3:13]I feel like I felt it in my bones every moment of the story, the way you talk about your
[3:19]son, Zach, and how it just like you compared everything was like normal for so long
[3:26]and then it just completely veered off and the way you wrote about it, I read all sorts
[3:31]of memoirs about motherhood.
[3:33]I read a lot of books like this because I love this kind of story, but this book, like, do
[3:37]you took us through those early moments in such detail and then tracked the whole story?
[3:42]But I feel like as a mother, this is happening to my own child the way you write about it,
[3:46]and I feel all the emotions that it evokes to me.
[3:48]Anyway, it was so powerful.
[3:50]So thank you for writing it as a book.
[3:52]Thank you.
[3:53]Oh my gosh.
[3:54]It's really good feedback.
[3:55]That's good to know because obviously it hasn't gone out to the world yet, so there's
[4:01]just a select few that have been able to read it.
[4:05]So oh my gosh, really important.
[4:08]I'm honored to you about it.
[4:10]So why don't you just summarize the premise of this book now that I've raved about it,
[4:16]but it is sure.
[4:17]Make it work.
[4:18]Go here.
[4:20]Sure.
[4:21]Absolutely.
[4:22]Well, it was a very long time in the making this book.
[4:25]It probably was maybe around 10 years, actually.
[4:31]It's been quite a journey.
[4:32]My son had his first psychotic break as it would be called within the medical model at
[4:40]the age of 19.
[4:43]And up until then, his my youngest son, he was a little bit more protected.
[4:48]I guess my baby, he was always a bit small for his age and very shy and scholarly.
[4:54]And we nicknamed him golden boy because he was just good at so many things and he had
[5:01]a lot of ambition.
[5:03]He knew what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go and the neighbors, everybody just
[5:09]loved him really.
[5:12]He was kind of on track.
[5:14]He had a merit scholarship at UCLA and he was very, very studious.
[5:21]But then around the age of 19, he started withdrawing quite a bit.
[5:27]He seemed somewhat troubled and he was smoking a lot of marijuana.
[5:33]And I was brought up in quite a permissive kind of household and there wasn't really
[5:39]an overly strict parent and I thought, well, this is just what high school kids do.
[5:44]My partner told me about this thing in America.
[5:48]We were living in Los Angeles.
[5:50]We'd moved out there about five years before this kind of experience started.
[5:57]And my partner said, this is called senioritis in America and, you know, don't do too
[6:02]worry.
[6:03]He's just got a lot on.
[6:05]And I think like most mothers.
[6:07]I think there's this sense of protection where your mind doesn't want to go to a place
[6:13]that feels so challenging and so unfamiliar.
[6:16]So I think it did strike me as something quite out of the blue.
[6:20]What happened with Zach and also because I was very unfamiliar with psychosis or altered
[6:28]states, as I think many of us are, I took him to the hospital because I didn't really
[6:33]know what else to do and he was started on antipsychotics.
[6:38]And I think that although there are many people who claim that these drugs and the hospital
[6:44]can save their lives, so I don't want to advocate completely against such things.
[6:49]But in our experience, it actually added a layer of trauma and complexity that really set
[6:57]us off on a path that I think in retrospect was much more difficult than maybe if I'd
[7:04]been able to look at some alternatives, which I did later on.
[7:09]The book charts a 10 year period, a decade during which time there are times where Zach is
[7:16]doing better.
[7:17]My youngest son, his name is Zach, which is why the book is called Zigzag Boy because
[7:21]I called him Ziggy.
[7:22]We called him Ziggy or Zigzag as a kind of pet name.
[7:27]And there are times where he does seem to stabilize and function and go back to university
[7:34]and have a girlfriend and I feel like, okay, this is all behind us now and I move up to
[7:42]Northern California with my wife and I try to kind of forge my own life because I think
[7:49]that I had become quite meshed and quite traumatized myself by the experience.
[7:54]So I became a docent on an elephant seal colony called Anionuevo and so a lot of the book
[8:02]is set against the backdrop of the elephant colony, which I think gives us a reprieve, but
[8:09]I think also it's really a metaphor for the mystery of these marine mammals and the mystery
[8:18]of psychosis and the way the elephant seals have to let go at some point and the way
[8:25]I felt I had to let go at certain points as well.
[8:29]The book isn't an especially happy ending.
[8:31]It's not a Hollywood kind of, you know, happy ever after resolution and this situation
[8:39]is still ongoing with my son and I think that's a little different from some narratives
[8:45]that I've read around addiction and mental health, which I think was a little bit of a
[8:50]struggle at times for the editors, especially in America.
[8:55]The book comes out in England as well, which is where I'm based now and halfway through
[9:00]the book we returned to England and then we see how the system here is quite broken as
[9:06]well and we're in the midst of a pandemic.
[9:09]So it's an ambitious book, I think it takes us through a lot of times and places and moments
[9:17]of pondering and a lot of questions and not necessarily everything answered.
[9:24]I could listen to you talk forever.
[9:26]I think I just want to ask you like one or two more questions.
[9:29]Have you gone?
[9:30]Sure.
[9:31]My gosh, you're so articulate and the way you talk is reflected in the book and the way
[9:36]that you're writing is also measured and thoughtful and beautiful and there are two pieces
[9:42]of this.
[9:43]One is your story itself and one is the fact that you turned it into a beautiful book
[9:47]as well and what you did to turn it into a book.
[9:51]But first with the story, I mean when Zach had his first psychotic break and you take him
[9:58]to the hospital and you describe it.
[10:00]I've in such detail driving back home and being like,
[10:02]what am I supposed to do, walk around Westwood right now?
[10:05]And just like going in and waiting
[10:07]and your partner was so amazing and took off work
[10:09]and two of you just like, we're waiting
[10:12]and bracing yourselves.
[10:13]And I feel like as the reader going through this,
[10:16]we're there with you and wondering.
[10:18]And just like your search also for why this has happened.
[10:23]And all of the, what was it like in pregnancy?
[10:27]Was it something in utero?
[10:28]Was it your fault essentially as the through line?
[10:31]Like, did I do something wrong 19 years ago
[10:33]that has somehow caused this?
[10:35]Or even the suggestion that it was some of the THC
[10:39]laced marijuana that he had at some point,
[10:41]they could have caused psychosis.
[10:43]And your struggle to understand where it came from.
[10:45]Not that it ultimately matters,
[10:47]but I feel like that is so human of us
[10:48]to like have to find a cause.
[10:50]So where do you stand even on that?
[10:53]Like how have you come to terms with that?
[10:55]Yeah, yeah.
[10:57]I think there were times where I still look back
[11:00]and think was it this moment that was the catalyst
[11:03]for what happened?
[11:05]Would it have been different if we had stayed in England
[11:09]and not made that move to America
[11:11]because it was a very sensitive time in Zach's life
[11:15]and his development.
[11:16]And it was really hard for him to adjust.
[11:20]And I know because in the years after Zach's break,
[11:25]I spent a lot of time trying to research,
[11:28]just looking pouring over statistics,
[11:31]what could have caused this?
[11:33]What could have contributed?
[11:35]And there are definitely some studies
[11:38]that have been done to say that immigrants
[11:41]are a little more predisposed
[11:44]because just being unsettled in something so new
[11:48]and unfamiliar and not knowing the systems.
[11:51]And there was a period of time
[11:53]where it was just very uncomfortable for Zach
[11:57]to be in this new land and to have lost his family
[12:00]and his network and his friends.
[12:03]So there are certain times that I do go back to and wonder
[12:08]but I think also I've realized that I do have to come
[12:11]to some kind of acceptance that I can't change
[12:15]and that regret is it's really,
[12:18]I think it takes up a lot of energy
[12:22]and I think it stops me from being an advocate
[12:25]which is really important.
[12:27]I want to do advocacy as well as be an artist.
[12:31]So I've tried to come to some kind of acceptance
[12:34]and I also feel really strongly that trauma
[12:38]and epigenetics are also a big part of why
[12:43]so many people experience psychosis and hear voices
[12:47]and it's not really, you know,
[12:49]I think we're led to believe that it's a disease,
[12:52]it's a broken brain, it can be cured with pills,
[12:56]a quick fix like a lot of other things in Western society
[13:00]that we, you know, expect to be able to do
[13:03]and I think I've learned that actually
[13:06]if you dig a little more deeply
[13:08]and you look a bit more carefully,
[13:11]most, you know, I think probably a very few number of people
[13:16]actually recover in inverted corners through drugs
[13:21]and that the side effects can be really powerful
[13:24]and really debilitating and quite often it's a process
[13:28]and if people are allowed to be in that process
[13:31]and we're brave enough and safe enough to be with them
[13:36]and to listen, it can actually be something
[13:39]and even the hearing voices people can talk about,
[13:42]this process is quite a spiritual endeavor
[13:46]rather than, you know, I think in our society
[13:49]we really do medicalize life events
[13:53]and our response to life events in a very different way
[13:56]to some other places and some other times.
[14:01]So you feel that so trauma can cause the break.
[14:06]I think trauma, I think for Zach,
[14:09]I think marijuana could also precipitate some of,
[14:13]you know, I think you can be a little predisposed.
[14:16]I think just as you have maybe heart disease
[14:20]or cancer or diabetes in the family,
[14:22]I think that you're epigenetic.
[14:25]So what is carried down through the generations
[14:28]which I didn't realize until I started digging around
[14:32]and I realized that a lot of my forebears had died
[14:36]in concentration camps and my grandmother had actually
[14:40]been incarcerated in a mental hospital
[14:43]for many years of her adult life.
[14:46]And so I thought, oh, that must be genetic then.
[14:50]There must be something genetic.
[14:51]My grandmother was like this and this is why my son.
[14:55]And if I find the right pill
[14:57]and if I find the right doctor
[14:58]and if I find out what was wrong with her
[15:01]then I'll be able to cure my son.
[15:02]But actually what I do think is that trauma
[15:06]and there have been a lot of studies
[15:07]and they are quite complex
[15:09]but there have been studies done to show that our genes,
[15:14]you know, this kind of trauma can attach
[15:17]to the genes and be expressed later on.
[15:20]So there's a greater sensitivity.
[15:22]So something might happen to Zach that happened to his brother
[15:26]but just because his brother didn't express it
[15:29]in the same way doesn't necessarily mean
[15:32]that it's a congenit or a genetic defect.
[15:36]It can just be the, you know,
[15:38]what is actually how it's expressed epigenetically.
[15:42]Do you know any more details
[15:43]about the concentration camps?
[15:44]And I'm so sorry.
[15:46]Yeah, yeah.
[15:47]I know that my grandmother or my father's side.
[15:51]So my paternal grandmother, she lost most of her family.
[15:55]As a young, she lost her sister very young
[15:59]in the tobogganing accident.
[16:01]And so it was said that she was a little strange after that.
[16:04]That was sort of like the urban kind of myth
[16:07]that, you know, the kind of thing that was carried down
[16:10]through the generations that after Tilly lost her sister,
[16:14]she was a little strange after that
[16:16]which I think was probably trauma induced.
[16:20]And then she lost her father very young and her mother
[16:23]but she had one brother remaining
[16:26]and he was really beloved and really precious
[16:29]to her possibly because he was all she had left.
[16:33]And when she left, she left Austria.
[16:36]No, she left Czechoslovakia.
[16:37]She left Prague just at the outset of the Second World War
[16:41]to come to England with my grandfather
[16:43]because he was British.
[16:45]And they were one of the last out
[16:48]and she said to her,
[16:49]brother, I will get you out
[16:50]and no matter what, I'll bring you here.
[16:52]I'll see you again.
[16:54]And the war happened
[16:56]and he wasn't able to come here.
[16:57]And at the end of the war,
[16:59]she discovered that he took a long time to discover
[17:03]because there was so much displacement
[17:05]and so many missing people
[17:07]but eventually she found out that he was killed
[17:12]at Auschwitz.
[17:13]And I think she was so bereft and so broken.
[17:18]And maybe now,
[17:19]days she may have been able to have some therapies
[17:23]and counseling or something to support that process.
[17:27]But at the time, she unraveled with grief.
[17:30]It was a madness that,
[17:33]and she was sent to the hospital and she remained there.
[17:35]And it was a secret that everybody thought
[17:39]she had died.
[17:40]I grew up thinking that not knowing this story
[17:43]and I actually uncovered it in the process of writing the book.
[17:48]It's not in zigzag boy this story,
[17:50]but it's something that I want to work on
[17:52]for my next book to look a little more deeply at my female ancestors
[17:58]and who they were and what happened to them.
[18:01]And I think that might be my next endeavor.
[18:05]It definitely should.
[18:06]I was literally talking.
[18:08]I was like, did I miss that somehow?
[18:09]Where was that?
[18:11]I know.
[18:11]I was like, I feel like that's something I would totally remember.
[18:14]Yeah, that was catch out.
[18:16]My gosh, what a story.
[18:18]Wow, Portilly.
[18:19]What about on your other side?
[18:21]So on my mother's side,
[18:22]my mother was an orphan actually.
[18:25]She was in a Jewish orphanage.
[18:27]So I think it was, again, a lot of trauma in her upbringing
[18:32]also not really knowing what it was to be.
[18:35]Part of a traditional family to pair and to mother
[18:41]in a way that was kind of secure and safe.
[18:45]And so she held on very tightly to us as we were growing up.
[18:50]But in some quite unhealthy ways, I think because of being an orphan
[18:55]and being an orphanage.
[18:56]And so I think that, in turn, my parenting,
[18:59]I've asked myself a lot of questions about,
[19:02]did I hold on too tightly?
[19:04]Am I still holding on tightly?
[19:07]And I think that it's interesting because there's
[19:10]that whole sort of movement about if you're part of 12-step
[19:14]or in Alan or AIA about being dependent and codependent
[19:21]and letting go.
[19:22]But I think that when somebody has psychosis
[19:25]and they're extremely vulnerable and also, I'm sure,
[19:29]even if they don't have psychosis,
[19:31]if they're vulnerable in other ways from substance issues
[19:35]or alcoholism, I think it's very difficult.
[19:38]There was a toy in where Zach was homeless.
[19:41]And I was forced to let go of his forces.
[19:45]So awful.
[19:46]When you said, when he said how it's OK,
[19:49]people gave me food and water.
[19:51]And you were like, you were just so grateful to the strangers
[19:54]in LA who looked after your son at his darkest time.
[19:58]Oh, my gosh, it may be one of cry.
[20:00]It's just, you know, when you found him with like his eyes sunken in and he was confused and
[20:05]you were like, why didn't you come home? You took no, I thought you sold the house. Oh my gosh.
[20:12]Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I think it's a process. I think letting go of somebody who's vulnerable,
[20:19]no matter what age they are, especially if they're still your child, I think it's a process that
[20:26]will take me forever really in some days I'm better at it and some days I'm not. But I'm excited
[20:33]about the thought coming out and just how it will land and where it will land and I've been quite
[20:39]busy and I've had a lot of great publicity so I'm really thankful for that and I'm thankful to
[20:46]be with you as well. Oh my gosh. How did it feel writing the book for you? Like were you crying at
[20:52]times? Like what was this? Like emotionally. I think it changed depending on which sections and
[21:01]where I was in my life because it was written over quite a long period and the pandemic when the
[21:06]pandemic hit, I actually had to take a little bit of time out of the writing because I was really
[21:13]surviving at that time with my son. So it felt too hard to live through that and write through it.
[21:19]It felt too close and too raw. It's interesting, I recorded the book recently, the audio version
[21:26]and that felt really exhausting emotionally to actually read it out loud and relive it all in
[21:35]the space of three days. The actual writing I think a lot of sort of craft elements came in where
[21:42]I was thinking you know what works on a rightly level, on a level of structure and with the editing
[21:49]as well I think it was a lot about craft so it allowed me to push some of those emotions to one
[21:55]side a little bit but yeah they're a definite they've been time-sids for a while. Gosh that's
[22:02]I hope that's not too dark for people. So I think that's why the elephant seal sanctuary is a
[22:08]little bit of lightness as well and takes away from the you know the more kind of devastating
[22:15]elements of what my son went through and what I witnessed. So I hope there's a sort of
[22:21]measure of being able to take a breath in those moments. And when you discussed you know you've touched
[22:28]on this already but the effects of some of the drugs and the car accident with the at-rall and
[22:34]just like like all the different doctors and all the different diagnoses and all the different
[22:40]attempts like it's hard to not come away from this book and feel a little bit not hopeless that
[22:48]sounds terrible but a little less confident in our collective ability to treat mental illness
[22:55]especially this tape. How do you feel about it now? I think it is relentless. I think that there
[23:02]is a sort of relentlessness to it in the book and also in my life like I'm you know 13 14 years
[23:10]on now my son is still struggling and the medicine has actually well I don't even like to call it
[23:18]medicine because I don't think it has made it better. I think it's made in worse in a lot of ways
[23:23]so I would say drugs have caused a lot of physical quite debilitating physical. So there's a lot of
[23:31]tremors like Parkinsonian tremors that can occur after long-time use or very high dosages
[23:38]anti-psychotics and there are medicines that are used to counter the effects but then you get
[23:45]into a place where you're you know some people are on four five six a whole cocktail of drugs and
[23:52]it's hard then to see what is working and what isn't and how they interact and some of the
[23:58]difficulties that are caused through those interactions and coming off of those drugs even if they
[24:05]don't work and if they're not hugely effective coming off can be a really hard process because
[24:13]the body and the brain becomes so dependent with drug and create some rebound psychosis which is
[24:21]worse than the original so it is hard it's it's definitely hard. I think the thing that has
[24:28]really helped me and that still helps me are the other mothers in a group that I currently belong
[24:34]to and also mothers in a group that I belong to in America that they just become family instantly
[24:42]and I can reach out to them and they can reach out to me and I think not walking that journey
[24:48]alone is what's really allowed me to survive it I think. Oh my gosh and where is Zach are you
[24:57]do you see like are you in the same place now and what is your how often are you I mean how
[25:04]can you not be enmeshed I have a child in distress in any way what are you supposed to do just like
[25:09]walk off into the sunset you know I know absolutely I see Zach about twice a week now he's in a
[25:17]rehabilitation unit about 30 miles away I'm working quite hard to try to get him out into the
[25:25]community because I feel that he's quite institutionalized and the laws the mental health laws are
[25:33]very archaic and very bureaucratic and quite complex and so I think at some point when you've been
[25:40]in the system for a long time the person themselves is often loses their voice and loses their
[25:46]confidence and loses their will to live even and the family who know them best and who want to
[25:55]advocate are often you know seen as a little interfering or difficult and so I think the consultants
[26:04]and a treating team I think it's kind of sometimes easier for them to get on and to treat within
[26:12]this medical model and not be open to looking at it in other ways and I'm not saying that every
[26:20]hospital and every nurse or doctor it follows that paradigm but it's definitely something that I've
[26:27]seen a lot of and and something that the groups that I'm working with are trying to fight against
[26:33]to look at alternatives because there are alternatives in places like Scandinavia and part of Italy
[26:43]where psychiatric hospitals locked units don't exist and drugs are not forced so this whole
[26:49]coercive kind of measure of psychiatry is not as prominent and people are doing much better with
[26:57]these kinds of alternatives because I think they need to be listened to I think people like Zach
[27:05]if they can restore their sense of having a voice and having some autonomy I think that's the
[27:12]essence of being human really even if you hear voices especially maybe if you hear voices
[27:18]to be able to look at the meaning behind all of that rather than see it as as disease
[27:25]Tanya I'm I'm so moved by your story I'm so moved by your bravery your strength your ability to
[27:35]share with us your complete like prowess and beauty as a writer I just you're amazing and I really
[27:46]am I you know and whenever you talk I'm imagining my own children in this situation and it just like
[27:54]what would I you know as every parent listening to this or reading this book will think what would
[27:58]I do well you know how could I help like what it's just amazing you're amazing and you know Zach is so
[28:07]lucky to have you and you're lucky to have him you know thank you so much thank you anyway I really
[28:14]I really wish you all the best with the Burke it's and I'm with your life and yeah it's just really
[28:20]moving thank you so appreciative and yeah it's definitely there are times that it does feel quite
[28:26]vulnerable and and quite exposed of course it's going to but I feel driven I feel like it's too crucial
[28:35]not to get the story out there well okay make it be cry okay all right Tony I have a great day
[28:47]bye bye thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget
[28:53]to follow me on instagram at zebioans and at moms don't have time to read books also sign up for
[28:58]my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom
[29:03]every other week thanks so much to steve and ryan feck texture sound for the sound editing
[29:08]and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music