I had been living in Los Angeles for a little over a year when my parents came to visit – finally, reluctantly. They were upset that I’d moved so far away from Chicago; they would have preferred I relocate to New York City, but they told me that they just wanted me to be happy. As we were driving down the city’s winding streets, in the course of a broader conversation, Mom turned around and said to me: “You know I heard that kids of psychiatrists are the craziest of all.”
That is indeed something people say. But the cliche’s gist is that psychiatrist parents mess up their offspring, but watching my mother work instilled qualities that led directly to my choice to be a writer.
I have a childhood memory of one of my mother’s patients, a woman I’ll call Bonnie, ringing our home phone. She was always looking for my mother late in the evening. We never knew how she got that number, but my mom always took her calls. As my father would mutter under his breath, cursing Bonnie for calling again, I would wonder if she was OK. I know my mom did, too, because she always picked up the phone and talked to her in a calm voice, explaining that the voices in her head weren’t real.
read the full story on The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/26/my-mother-myself-how-her-profession-influenced-and-reflects-my-own-work
read all of Alicia’s writing on The Guardian here: http://www.theguardian.com/profile/alicia-eler
