This past week something really scary happened to my mom. She was kidnapped for a ransom. All is well now, luckily. She came out of this terrifying experience in one piece despite the trauma.

In observing her reaction to such an event, I started thinking about how she developed this superpower to remain stable in the face of adversity.

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Mom grew up as a child of poor immigrants and she never had access to education, never completed primary school, married a man who she described as intelligent and fascinating. When they were dating, they used to sit under the skies on a bench holding hands in the small village where she lived. He would tell her about all the stars and the planets.

My father’s early experiences included being kicked out of schools, the army, and society in general. It followed that my father became a self-taught and independent learner. He just did not belong, and people said his behavior was weird. He did not have friends, had many difficulties with language, and socializing was not his forte. So, books naturally became his friends as he read for pleasure and company.

As he grew older, he mastered the skill of communicating with people through the knowledge he had acquired from books, yet, he could never relate to anyone on a personal level. My father was a brilliant story-teller. He would share with his kids the tales of his childhood that were a blend of adventure and tragedy. He was a child that was never understood.

Their marriage was arranged. My mother once told me, “I was getting old (She was 18 years of age!) and your father’s mother just wanted her oldest child out of the house.” They had my brother and me shortly after being married.

My mom tells me that she knew something was different about my brother when he was in her womb.

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She described him as hyperactive and she had a feeling he would be a difficult child. My brother was born with a few conditions that, fast forward 52 years we know to be autism and bipolar disorder.

Throughout his life, he struggled with other serious mental disorders such as clinical depression and depersonalization disorder. Life has always been difficult for my brother. We grew up in a volatile household. My father was a good provider, he worked hard and long hours to give us a decent life. He hated the social aspect of having a family, which he verbalized to us on a daily basis either thru actions or hurtful words.

When my brother reached adolescence, he had an abrupt onset of bipolar disorder. It broke my heart to watch him suffer as we had no knowledge at that time of his condition and there were not many resources. At that time, doctors were not trained to treat or even diagnose such conditions.

My brother went without treatment for many years. He had a few close calls with death and extended stays at psychiatric hospitals. I watched my family fade away. This madness was our way of being. We never celebrated holidays or milestones. My parent's marriage fell apart. They stayed together because my father just could not live independently, and he would have been lost without my mother’s support.

My mother suffered from clinical depression. She struggled for years trying to understand this hot mess that was our family. I was the outlier, the floater who never fit into the puzzle. I was the one always trying to make peace, trying to glue our broken pieces together. I had no voice. I was a rebellious spirit angry at the whole situation.

About 10 years ago, my father was diagnosed with autism and last year the doctor finally gave him the diagnosed of schizophrenia. He was not treated for schizophrenia until recently after a seriously aggressive episode against my mother that put him in a hospital.

My brother is now stable. He was diagnosed and started treatment for bipolar disorder about 20 years ago. We thought we would lose him again when he developed depersonalization disorder a few years back. I did not realize both my father and brother met the criteria for autism until I started working with individuals with disabilities in my mid-thirties.

It has been quite a journey.

My brother and father still don’t speak to each other. They never accepted or even tolerated each other. My father now lives in a nursing home because of advanced Alzheimer’s disease. He seems happy and communicative because he not only lost his memory, but he has also been treated for schizophrenia, which prevented him from having any quality of life. When I visit my father today, I don’t recognize this kind and gentle soul.

My mother developed an unimaginable strength and resilience throughout these years. As a result, she is a force to be reckoned with. Then this past week she was kidnapped in Brazil where I grew up and where she still lives. As she described to me what happened I was moved by her ability to stay cool when her life was at stake. But, then, I remembered: My mom has superpowers. One of them is the power to survive in the middle of a destructive life-altering storm. She was born into adversity and she lived through it her entire life. Her survival skills came in handy when facing another enormous challenge: To stay alive. Her resilience, strength, and courage allowed her to see another day.

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