While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence

Meg and her siblings rarely got their mother’s sole attention and relished the rare moments when they did. Meg recalls getting a paper cut in her eye that required an eye patch and being glad for the chance to be cared for and spend time with her mother alone. On the day the doctor told Meg she was healed, she and her mother went out for lunch and did some light shopping, which Kissinger remembers as a wonderful day. She craved more of those moments and even tried to cut her eye again.

When Mary Kay graduated high school, Meg cried, knowing that the family she grew up with was breaking apart. She feared growing up and wished she and her siblings could stay children forever. Mary Kay struggled at university. She became pregnant and had an abortion, although she did not tell anyone in the family until years later, hiding her experiences as was customary in the family. Meg’s second eldest sister, Nancy, became heavily involved in drugs, alcohol, and unprotected sex as she got older, and her volatile demeanor worsened. She was sometimes physically abusive toward Meg, who was too young to understand that Nancy had a mental illness.