I had the good fortune to catch a special screening of Susan Smiley's new documentary film "Out of the Shadow" at the New School, a film Susan clearly made with a lot of love and with a lot of guts about her mother, Millie, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. The film hold no punches as it that tells the story of how Susan and her sister Tina survived a tormented childhood, having been abandoned by their father to the abuse of their mother, only to grow up to have to contend with her continuing illness and the Illinois public health system.
In an ironic twist of fate, in order to get any information from the hospitals, social workers and the doctors, Susan and Tina become guardians for Millie, and, despite Tina's literally lying to her mother, eventually help Millie to maneuver through the public health system to get into a group home and into a successful rehabilitation program.
The film opens with Susan on the road in search of her mother who once again has disappeared into the public health care system. Through old photos, home movies, interviews with relatives and Susan's narration, we see Millie as a young and beautiful woman in her twenties, one who resembles Grace Kelly more than a little, but who frequently seems to be looking into space. This troubled woman, who is unable to hold onto her husband or any job, whose older daughter Susan moves out to live with her father at 12, whose younger daughter Tina, still at home with mom, attempts suicide, eventually loses her home and all of her money. She spends much of her life, getting evicted from temporary housing, disappearing in and out of hospitals and at one point winds up in a nursing home, the very place she swears she will never allow herself to be placed. It's at this juncture, when Millie is at her lowest and refusing to take medication that Tina decides to lie to her mother in order to get her to sign a release form to submit to medication. Tina tells Millie that she is signing a release form that will allow her to come home. And Tina continues to lie to Millie to explain away her continued hospitalization as just another delay. The lies work. Millie takes her medication and becomes stable enough to pass a series of interviews to get into a permanent group home. And fortunately for Tina, the lying doesn't seem to have any impact on their relationship.
At the end of the film, we find Millie, now 60, glad to get up in the morning to go to her job, glad to have a home to go to at the end of the day, and spending a seemingly happy Christmas Day with her daughter Susan and her ex-husband's family.
Many of us who will get to see this film will be moved to tears. Many of us will be rudely reminded of our shortcomings as human beings. As a consumer and as family member, I found myself projected on the screen in a way that I normally like to keep in the shadow. Like Millie, as a consumer I have abused my family. Like Susan and her father, as a family member, I have abandoned my mother who is also a consumer. But the movie can also remind us that as human beings, if we band together we can also succeed to overcome our shortcomings. And it may remind us to count our blessings, to be grateful for and to share our little triumphs. My husband and my mother never abandoned me. And I have returned to being an active participant in my mother's life. Like Millie, who voices her concern during the film that her identity is buried by the label of paranoid schizophrenia, I am more than my illness. Much of the humorous moments and insightful comments during the film are offered by Millie herself. I'm most thankful that Susan, Tina and Millie are sharing their little triumphs with us by making this film. Some things need to be let out of the shadow.