Excerpt From My Upcoming Book: What Knowing Would've Helped: e.g., My Father Passed His Mental Illnesses Down To Me

April 2006, Spring Break, a threat of suicide, and thus a whole week in April of 2006 and a whole Spring Break spent in Sheppard Pratt...and this after I reached my breaking point with my father's abusiveness. Not to mention that learning about the Holocaust 4.5 years earlier, right after 9/11, actually partly effected the onset of my OCD/Anxiety, Depression, and ADD—and that I would eventually figure out that that's why he had all of those pill bottles in his apartment, and that other matters would be explained by my father's OCD/Anxiety, Depression, and ADD.

So went my life with the fallout of 9/11, the times shortly before it, and the times shortly after it. At least my father's admitted to having ADD since then, but the Depression and OCD/Anxiety are still—albe an open secret to me and others—a secret. Of course, knowing about my father's Depression and OCD/Anxiety would've helped before I had to end up in Sheppard Pratt, let alone after I ended up in it. The worst part is that my mother knew about it and didn't tell me even about the day that she ended up discovering that he took Wellbutrin^®, the generic of which I currently take (at least when I have the energy and time to be at consistent with my medication as possible) and any given form of which I have no idea in regards to whether my father still takes it.

Speaking of medication, my father's paternal grandfather—whom took medication for his own Depression—did not have medication work for him, and he subsequently took his own life as a result of ultimately-medication-resistant Depression. That, too, would've helped to know, especially when the bubbe meise about him dying of Black Lung was pulled together from three facts that were quite the opposite of the facts of his too-late-to-abort suicide attempt:

1. An Anthony Czarnecki was born in October 1908 and died in 1972—and my father claimed that his grandfather died when he was 12. That Anthony Czarnecki died in a fire in Philadelphia, in contrast to the Anthony Czarnecki whom was actually born in October 1904 and jumped off of Exeter's long-since torn-down Falls River Bridge in December 1964.
2. He did have Black Lung as a result of being a miner and did actually immigrate from Poland. However, he as a pogrom survivor came over here with his parents, and his brothers Bernard "Bernie" (whom was subsequently exploited by my great-granduncles John and Joe), Joseph "Susi" (whom my granduncle Tony, z"l, understandably described as an "SOB"), and Edward "Ed" Czarnecki (whom subsequently served at Fort Knox when my grandfather served down there in the days of mandatory service) served in World War Two. In other words, the bubbe meise about a lone immigrant from Poland whom became a miner, served in Korea, and died of Black Lung obscured a darker story and helped my try to father steal valor from Great-Granduncles Bernie (whom died in 1963) and Ed (whom served stateside during Vietnam and prior to the draft, and probably Korea). Thus, not ever occurring to me was that a child survivor of the pogroms and an Anusi felt the ultimately-fatal weight of his being an Anusi and other matters in his life (including his brother Bernie's death from a Schizophrenia-caused coronary occlusion after years of suffering either a botched shrapnel-removal operation or a lobotomy, and his brother Susi's exploitation of a fellow veteran—and one whose botched shrapnel-removal operation or a lobotomy left him a child-like and easily-exploitable state for the rest of his 43 years.)
3. If Anthony Czarnecki wasn't the grandfather whom apparently died when my father was 12, then it would've been his grandfather Michael Gaydos. After all, a Michael Gaydos whom was born in 1891 did die in 1972. Of course, it wasn't the 1904-born Anthony Czarnecki whom died in 1972, and it wasn't actually Michael Gaydos, either—Great-Granddad Gaydos died of a heart attack when my father was 15.

Only a copy of Great-Granddad Czarnecki's death certificate that a maternal cousin of my father sent me cleared up that matter for me—and my father's excuses that I was too young to know before did not help my father, either, as he just added insult (his excuse) to injury (his bubbe meise). My mother's excuse that it was up to him and not her to tell me also didn't help, as she once again went along with my father's secrecy.

By the way, Depression also killed my paternal grandmother's granduncles Frank, Sr. Fosko and Andrȧs "Alexander" Foczko, as well as—despite the denials of some of my family in spite of the statistical evidence—her grandfather Istvȧn Foczko—whom died young and had seven children, with six of them being sons, and with 2/7 of his children and of his sons taking their own lives.

As for five of her maternal aunts and uncles, they had Alzheimer's and other forms of Dementia—and Alzheimer's and Dementia are linked to Depression.

Do the math, and you will figure out why knowing that I inherited Depression (as well as comorbid OCD/Anxiety and ADD that only exacerbate the Depression) from my father would've helped long before I was in Sheppard Pratt and long after I was in Sheppard Pratt, and long after I maybe wouldn't have been in Sheppard Pratt had I known about that the mental illnesses that I have and set on as a result of my father's abuse, the fallout of 9/11, and other factors came from that same father whom abused me partly by hiding that he has those mental illnesses.