Millicent Monks Interview: Poor little rich girl

Published on Monday 11 May 2009 18:56

FROM the age of seven Millicent Monks got into the habit of locking her bedroom door, in fear of her mother. After school, she'd let herself into the house using the key she kept "on a dirty piece of string" round her neck, then would run upstairs and into her room, saying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," as she slid the bolt. Sitting alone, she'd do her best to resist the fear that her mother was prowling the house, knife in hand, intent upon harm.

It may sound like a 'misery lit' excerpt, but to call it that would be a disservice to Monks' newly published memoir, Songs of Three Islands. Multi-layered, even poetic in places, the memoir traces the impact of mental illness on four generations of the women of Monks's family, from her grandmother to her own daughter, Cassandra.

At its heart, it is a plea for greater openness about mental illness and its devastating consequences for the families. But since the family into which Monks was born was the Carnegie clan – one of America's most iconic dynasties, descendants of Scottish industrialist Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate and philanthropist who began his life in poverty in Dunfermline but became one of the foremost captains of industry – she has also created a peephole into a lost world of wealth and splendour.

Cumberland Island, off the coast of Georgia in the US, was a "Brigadoon-style" fantasy place where Andrew Carnegie's younger brother, Thomas (Monks' great-grandfather) built a 59-room Scottish castle, Dungeness, for his wife and children. Lucy, Monks' mother, grew up on the island and there are tales of pipers roaming the grounds and children wearing kilts for 'Uncle Andrew's visits', eschewing sugar for salt on their porridge just to please him. Monks herself remembers visiting Skibo Castle when it was a Carnegie family home in the 1950s.

There was pomp and privilege, but there was a darker side too. From childhood, Monks' mother, Lucy Coleman Carnegie, showed signs of mental instability, as her grandmother had before her. The mores of the day (Lucy was born in 1904 and died in the early 1960s) and the fact that she was a Carnegie meant that her odd behaviour was never mentioned.

"In those days it was even more the case that you just did not talk about mental illness," Monks says wryly. "If there was any mental illness in the family they would say things like 'she's difficult', but there were no discussions."

Later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, during the years of Monks' childhood her mother was unpredictable and, at times, vindictive. Monks was told by her mother that she was a "rape baby", a term she didn't understand although she knew it had something to do with her father hurting her mother. Lucy also became obsessed by the notion that her child was 'poisoned', a delusion that worsened after her divorce from Monks' father, a serial philanderer who was also capable of flashes of violence and rage. At the age of 11, Millicent was taken to hospital to be "cleaned out", purged. A three-week hospital stay and countless penicillin injections followed.

Left first by her father and then by a succession of domestic staff who found Lucy's behaviour bizarre or threatening, between the ages of seven and 14 Monks had to fend for herself in the crumbling Boston townhouse she shared with her increasingly disturbed mother. Food was scarce and her clothes became threadbare. After a neighbour complained (about the child's apparently neglected state], a parcel arrived from Monks' father. It contained clothes that were more suited to one of his many mistresses than his child. Monks withdrew, she became introverted, "a girl unable to express her anger". It wasn't until she was sent to boarding school that she was able to escape.

Now 75, Monks is a handsome woman. Her skin is lined but her smile is bright, wisps of hair escaping her Kirbygrips. Describing herself, she writes: "If you look carefully at the head you see a strong jaw, good cheekbones, straight nose, and sometimes you might catch a glimpse of the north wind in the eyes." It's all true, particularly about her eyes, which are blue and clear.

Monks laughs easily and talks openly. It's difficult to associate the lonely, frightened child so vividly portrayed in her book with the woman chatting breezily over lunch, but that belies a lifetime spent immersed in spiritualism, Jungian analysis and transcendental meditation, a quest for a peace that was missing in her childhood and then, tragically, in her own experience of motherhood.

Monks married Bobby Monks, a Harvard graduate who also hailed from an old Bostonian family, in 1954. Two years later their daughter, Cassandra, was born. A handful from the outset, Cassandra's behaviour worsened when her younger brother was born. By her mid-teens she was showing signs of serious illness and at 16, her parents put her into a psychiatric unit, where she remained for five years. Despite periods of respite, her battle with her mental health continued and goes on still. Recently she has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, a condition which affects the area of the brain that regulates anger. For many years, though – and by a succession of psychiatrists – Monks was blamed for her daughter's illness. One of them wrote: "...the mother is a vacant, vain person who is self-preoccupied and has little to give her children." I wonder how Monks felt about revealing not only stories of her own very difficult childhood, but also the continuing mental health problems of her daughter?

A tight little laugh escapes, but she says her desire to break the silence surrounding mental illness made the discomfort worthwhile. "There was a lot of blame from the psychiatric profession," she tells me. "I wish psychiatrists would help us get a grip of this feeling that we've done something awful, that feeling of shame. It's still so prevalent."

Monks knows this because she's received many letters since her book was published in the US; letters from families who've struggled but never been able to speak out.

In her years of seeking help, there was one piece of advice which Monks says saved her life: at the end of the day, you have to take care of yourself.

"I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that," she says. But even that didn't take away the guilt that Monks felt about her role as a mother and her responsibility for her granddaughter, Sidra, who is now 20. "It's terribly hard for a child with a mother who's mentally ill. Well, of course, I was one, but seeing it happen again with my granddaughter was, oh…" she struggles to find the words. "The fact that it was repeating itself, that was not a happy time."

Sidra now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she studies at the Conservatory and according to Monks is "doing okay", although she and Bob do worry about her. Sidra doesn't have any contact with her mother.

"Not yet," Monks says. "She may do eventually, if things keep calming down. I hope so one day, but not for quite a while."

Monks and her husband live in Cape Elizabeth on the coast of Maine, surrounded by a network of extended family. She tells me she's currently reading a biography of Andrew Carnegie and I ask how big a part being a scion of that family plays in her life?

"Being with a really sick mother it didn't matter whether she was a Carnegie or a," she searches for another name, settling on "Smith. It didn't make any difference. What good did that do me? Where were they? All these wealthy Carnegies, they weren't around anywhere. There was no talk about being a Carnegie or what that meant. There just wasn't. It was like not dealing with mental illness, you didn't talk about it. It was rude. I identified as just a girl in her room than (as] a Carnegie."

Monks says that writing her memoir was cathartic, giving her a chance to think through her experiences, to reconnect with the little girl who used to look in the mirror only to see her mother's face, "a horrible fantasy". And despite the trauma, she still finds room for hope.

"You don't get over it," she says, "you learn to live differently. I've ended up being very interested in spiritual life and my dreams. I became very introspective. I have a whole different approach to life because of what's happened to me.

"I'm lucky, because I think differently now and I'm glad that I do," she says. A moment passes. "But I wouldn't recommend it." And with that she laughs.

&#149 Songs of Three Islands: A Memoir by Millicent Monks is published by Infinite Ideas, 16.99