THE TRAIN

When I first started as a DM, I was told that my job would still be part-time but it became progressively less part-time as I became more and more involved with this small agency who continued to promote me. I was initially traveling between Washington, DC, Wilmington Delaware, Baltimore, and Manhattan. Then I was made a Regional Director and began flying or training somewhere different every day. Fortunately, most of my travel brought me back to Philadelphia by the end of the business day. 

By 1991, I was a Vice President and was commuting daily from Philadelphia to Manhattan by train, a five and one-half hour round-trip commute. The trip consisted of driving to 30^th Street Station in Philadelphia, parking, walking or often running the two blocks, catching a train to Penn Station New York and then walking 10 blocks uptown and 5 blocks across town to my office next to Grand Central Station. I was more manic than ever. How did this happen.

My children and husband did not like it. I was charmed by the fact that I was being recognized as a highly capable person, I had escaped from nursing which was never a good fit and I was making more money than I ever thought possible. At the height of my New York career trajectory, Andrew had his first episode of paranoia, which I mentioned earlier. In discussing this with my shrink after Andrew’s death, he pointed out that the first episode of schizophrenia is usually experienced after a separation from the significant caregiver. Andrew’s first episode would of course go unrecognized by us for what it really was and for what it might mean for the future. If we had known then, could we have intervened for treatment that would have changed the course of his disease?