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WORK TITLE: My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.marklukach.com/
CITY: Lafayette
STATE: CA
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Love, 21st-century style: Mental illness has not marred their marriage
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born c. 1983; married; wife’s name Giulia; children: Jonas.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Teacher and freelance writer. The Athenian School, Danville, CA, ninth grade dean.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, Pacific Standard, and Wired.
SIDELIGHTS
Mark Lukach is a high school history teacher and freelance writer who contributes to periodicals. In his debut book, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward: A Memoir, Lukach writes about his wife Giulia’s mental illness and how it affected his young marriage to Giulia. Lukach had previously written about his wife in the “Modern Love” column of the New York Times and for an article in the Pacific Standard magazine. He also talked about his wife and their marriage at the Moth Main Stage, as well as a TedX conference. Lukach’s memoir focuses primarily on his wife’s three hospitalizations in psychiatric wards over five years. In an interview with Globe and Mail Online contributor Zosia Bielski, Lukach commented on one of the reasons he wrote the memoir, noting: “My hope is that caregivers can read this and be less afraid. I hope people don’t get scared if this happens to someone they love. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I mean scared to the point of running.”
The memoir opens with Lukach recounting the rather normal life he and his wife had before her psychiatric problems began. Their life together seemed like a storybook romance, falling in love at eighteen when Lukach was a freshman at Georgetown University. The couple married six years later. They were living a happy life in San Francisco when Guilia, at the age of 27, suffered an unexpected psychotic break that turned the seemingly well-adjusted Guilia into someone who was delusional and with suicidal tendencies. As a result, Guilia ended up in a psychiatric ward of a hospital for almost a month.
Giulia recovered, and the couple resumed their normal life. However, shortly after their son, Jonas, was born, Giulia had another breakdown, which was repeated a few years later. Lukach details each time his wife was committed, especially the initial commitment when everyone was in shock concerning Giulia’s psychosis. Lukach goes on to discus his and the entire family’s efforts to find out how to help Giulia. He discusses his role as both his wife’s partner and caretaker, roles that had him extremely concerned about his wife’s stability and the fear that she might take her own life. Lukach also writes about his frustration when Giulia, deep in the throes of her psychosis, lashes out at him, at times refusing to see him when he visits her in the hospital.
“Lukach … has written a book rich in believable details of managing mental illness,” wrote Nancy Szokan in the Washington Post. A Kirkus Reviews contributor remarked: “Lukach’s compassion and love for his wife, as well as his fears and anger, are evident throughout, making this memoir a satisfying read despite the context of the story.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Lukach, Mark, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward: A Memoir, Harper Wave (New York, NY), 2017.
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2017, review of My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward.
Washington Post, March 27, 2017, Nancy Szokan, “Memoir Traces a Love Story That Runs Amok as the Author’s Wife’s Descends into Psychosis.”
ONLINE
Globe and Mail Online, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/ (November 12, 2017), Zosia Bielski, “The Long Haul,” author interview.
Mark Lukach Website, http://www.marklukach.com (April 16, 2018).
Novel Visits, https://novelvisits.com/ (November 30, 2017), review of My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward.
Write, ride waves, run trails, love, and eat milkshakes. That's happiness.
Mark Lukach is a teacher and freelance writer. He is the author of the international bestselling memoir My Lovely Wife in The Psych Ward. His work has been published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Wired, and other publications. He is currently the Ninth Grade Dean at The Athenian School, where he also teaches history. He lives with his wife, Giulia, and their son in the San Francisco Bay area.
Mark first wrote about Giulia in a New York Times "Modern Love" column and again in a piece for Pacific Standard Magazine, which was the magazine's most-read article in 2015. He has also shared their story at The Moth Main Stage, and at a TEDx conference.
My Lovely Wife In The Psych Ward is the product of 5 years of Mark writing about how mental illness redefined his young marriage to Giulia, and ultimately affirmed the power of love.
Mark is represented by the amazing Bonnie Solow of Solow Literary Enterprises.
The long haul
A new memoir chronicles a marriage tested – and ultimately, strengthened – by pharmaceutical cocktails, troubling diagnoses and 69 days in the psych ward
My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward follows Mark and Giulia Lukach as they live through three hospitalizations in psychiatric wards over five years
My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward follows Mark and Giulia Lukach as they live through three hospitalizations in psychiatric wards over five years.
LILY PADULA
ZOSIA BIELSKI
PUBLISHED MAY 8, 2017
UPDATED NOVEMBER 12, 2017
It was the worst game of hide-and-seek Mark Lukach ever played. When his wife Giulia suffered her first psychotic break in 2009, Lukach was tasked with making sure she took her daily dose of antidepressants and sleeping pills – and then with hiding those orange, plastic bottles so his suicidal wife couldn't swallow all the pills later.
"I first hid them in the pocket of a jacket hanging in the hallway closet for a day, then in a box of cereal, and then behind our DVDs of Arrested Development," Lukach writes in his new book, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward.
Mark Lukach's memoir focuses on his wife's stay in psych wards.
The affecting memoir follows Mark, a high school history teacher, and Giulia, a marketing manager, as they live through three hospitalizations in psychiatric wards over five years: the first for 23 days, the second for 33 days and the third for 13 days. Giulia is given a troubling number of diagnoses from baffled doctors: schizophrenia, postpartum psychosis and finally bipolar disorder, which is indeed what she suffers from. Giulia experiences both the highs and lows as negatives, and her mania manifests itself in delusions, sometimes involving God and the devil. "Startling intensity" is how Lukach describes his wife's descents from stress at work and lost sleep to being admitted to hospital, often within just days.
The memoir is a rare glimpse into the "perverse dystopia of the psych ward": nurses forever doing bureaucratic paperwork in cold rooms with barred windows, beat-up vinyl chairs, bland, green floors and "faded framed prints of impressionist paintings that no one looked at." Weeks confined in hospital are followed by intensive outpatient programs and powerful pharmaceutical cocktails that see Giulia erupt in acne, put on 60 pounds in two months and become sluggishly slow. Lukach likens her mind to an old TV stuck between channels on white noise. The medications merely turn down the volume.
Before the psych wards, the memoir depicts a painfully normal couple. The two meet in freshman year and marry six years later, the waves rocking them as Lukach proposes while they paddleboard and kayak far off land in the Atlantic Ocean. They move to San Francisco. He surfs and she zips to work on a scooter. There are potlucks and Frisbee games with friends in Golden Gate Park. They get a dog and blast Coldplay after dinner while washing dishes together. There are no cracks in the veneer, until there are.
His wife's mental illness makes Lukach "fierce with loyalty." The memoir – which was born out of a well-read 2011 New York Times Modern Love essay – reveals an imperfect marriage and an unshakable husband. The Globe spoke with Mark and Giulia Lukach from the San Francisco Bay Area, where the 34-year-old parents live with their five-year-old son, Jonas.
Three hospitalizations and the threat of more with a bipolar disorder diagnosis: how has this mental illness affected your marriage?
Mark Lukach: This has forced Giulia and I to be a lot more in tune with each other. Whether she's doing well or not, I'm more aware of how important it is to listen and not speak for her. And Giulia, she can't just assume that I'm chugging along at 100 per cent all the time. Writing about it also forced conversation; otherwise, we could have stuffed this away under the category of "let's never talk about that again" because it was so terrible. Giulia read the book multiple times and provided a lot of feedback. We had to revisit these things and though that was difficult, it's why we're in a good place in our relationship right now.
Giulia Lukach: Our marriage went through a lot of strain with me getting sick. When people get married and say, "in sickness and in health," you really don't know what you're signing up for. You don't think you're going to be the person that gets sick. We're stronger because of the experiences we've been through. I feel on solid ground with Mark in a way that I've never felt before.
Through the psychotic breaks, you take on roles in your marriage that you did not anticipate: Giulia as patient and Mark as "enforcer." How did you see your husband when he was checking your mouth for pills and dictating your movements throughout the day?
Giulia: I hated it with my whole being. That's how the nickname for Mark came about: "the Medicine Nazi." Looking back, I feel so bad that I referred to Mark that way when he was trying to help me. At the time I felt suffocated in my own existence. I was so angry at my life. I couldn't do anything or get away with anything. I needed to rebel in any way I could.
In the early days of the illness, Mark doles out platitudes: "stay positive" and "be in the moment." Why does this approach generally irk and alienate those who are mentally ill?
Mark: It's like telling someone who is angry, "Just relax." It's the worst thing you can say. It's a fundamental rejection of their feelings. When people that you love or know are feeling things that make you uncomfortable, the default reaction is to want to fix it. But it's important for these things to be heard and not talked over or swept away.
Author Mark Lukach is pictured with his wife Giulia and their son. Mark's memoir chronicles his family's life as his wife is admitted to psychiatric wards.
Author Mark Lukach is pictured with his wife Giulia and their son. Mark’s memoir chronicles his family’s life as his wife is admitted to psychiatric wards.
ALEX SOUZA
"I treated her depression like a fire," you write, "and I was the extinguisher."
Mark: I remember when she was out of the hospital we would Skype with her parents. I realized that I almost never let her actually talk. We'd sit there, they'd ask questions and I'd give Giulia a half-second to answer before I jumped in and answered for her. I could see my in-laws looking at each other. It was clear they wanted to hear from Giulia, not me. I was trying to put a positive spin on things so they wouldn't worry, instead of letting Giulia wrestle with it in front of her parents.
Some family members of sick people want to question doctors aggressively. Others defer to all authority figures. Giulia's mom cleans the house obsessively as a way to control something – anything. What did you learn about family responses to mental illness?
Giulia: My parents were just clueless. They had no idea what mental illness was. They just thought I was stressed at work. I still have a lot of family members who want to sweep it under the rug. They won't even acknowledge the book coming out. It's been hard but I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that not everyone is going to want to read the book, or acknowledge that we're related.
Your families panic and put Mark on speed dial for daily updates, which becomes taxing. Eventually, they opt for warm letters and photos in the mail instead, with no expectation of correspondence being returned. What advice do you have for families going through this?
Mark: Family members can make it clear that they are there to support you but they should be patient and not call every five minutes to say, "I'm here when you need me." Otherwise, just wait. I needed to turn to every single one of my family members at one point or another.
I wanted to turn to your experiences in the mental health-care system. You describe soulless psych wards; disinterested, patronizing nurses who ignore desperate family members to do paperwork instead; doped-up patients getting discharged too early. How do you feel about the system today?
Giulia: We needed to rely on the system for my survival. The psych wards were necessary. It was important that I couldn't hurt myself. Some nurses were extremely thoughtful and loving, helping me a lot. I was so grateful to them. Other times, I couldn't even believe I was getting treated this way as a patient. There are changes that need to be made in terms of protecting the patient and having more caregiver rights.
What needs drastic improvement?
Mark: Giulia was in three hospitals. One of them felt like a prison. Why does it have to feel like a prison cell? Why can't you allow people to have some freedom to be in nature and get some fresh air, when we know that is critical for health across the board?
I have other suggestions but they are costly, including to slow everything down. We want people to be healthy as soon as possible, but don't move them out of the system when you reach the bare minimum of stability. I wish our health-care system wasn't tapping its wristwatch. I wish it was just as patient as family members try to be. Take the long view: see how much support is needed over the long haul.
I would like mental illness to be treated as a family situation, not as an individual situation. I called my insurance provider when Giulia was hospitalized and told them that I needed to speak to a therapist, that I was having a tough time. They were willing to pay for 30 minutes a month of therapy, which was ridiculous. They told me that I didn't have a diagnosis to justify anything. I'm in a moment of profound crisis here and I need someone to talk to.
I still went and saw a therapist but we just paid out of pocket. How different it would have been if our insurance had provided sustained, frequent therapy for me, for Giulia, together. Those approaches are so much more inclusive of the family. They can make a really big difference.
The memoir – which was born out of a well-read 2011 New York Times Modern Love essay – reveals an imperfect marriage and an unshakable husband.
The memoir – which was born out of a well-read 2011 New York Times Modern Love essay – reveals an imperfect marriage and an unshakable husband.
ALEX SOUZA
This book draws attention to caregivers. Mark, you mention the moment on airplanes when flight attendants instruct passengers on oxygen masks: they ask parents to put their own masks on before their children's. In your case, you needed a bit of time for you – to surf, run or cycle – so you could better care for a sick wife and a young son.
Mark: It took me a long time to appreciate this. When I was a kid and heard those instructions on the airplane, my interpretation was that it was selfish. I thought, "You should help the person, then take care of yourself." It took supporting Giulia and seeing just how frazzled, exhausted and unhealthy I was feeling to realize that the oxygen-mask instructions make total sense. I can't be Giulia's best advocate or her best partner – or a father or a teacher – without a basic foundation of self-care.
Many marriages wouldn't survive this. What did you have that allowed you to survive?
Mark: I don't want to take too much personal credit for that. Our circumstances helped a lot. We come from families where they were able to drop everything and come support us. We had a pool of savings that we could dip into to pay for out-of-insurance costs. That was critical. I was the squeaky wheel that got all the attention in the hospitals because I was calling constantly. What about the people with no one to call on their behalf?
Also, the way Giulia was as a patient: she didn't like the pills but she was pretty darn compliant about taking them. If she had taken herself on and off her pills, that's almost like supporting an addict who hasn't hit rock bottom, where they don't yet accept what they have to do to take care of themselves. Giulia accepted it pretty early on. That made this easier. I don't have to worry when I go to sleep, did Giulia take her meds? She knows that's a key part of her staying healthy.
Finally, we were together through the formative years of adulthood. By the time Giulia got sick, she was so entrenched in my concept of past, present and future. Of course we were going to make it work and stay together. This is who we are are. There's no other way.
Giulia: Mark having the belief in us gave me the belief. He's downplaying his role but I don't know if I would be here without Mark present the last eight years to get me through three hospitalizations that shook up my entire existence.
Where are you at today?
Giulia: The triggers are the same: lack of sleep and stress at work. If I go one night without sleep I contact my psychiatrists and we set the game plan in motion. I can send them a note and literally, within 30 minutes, they'll reach out to me. My psychiatrist treats me like a human.
Then I'm on lithium. When there are stressful periods, I'll up the dose with my psychiatrist. I get lithium levels bloodwork done regularly. We take it very seriously because they've seen what happens. I end up in the hospital for a month at at time because of a couple days of no sleep.
We can all retweet mental-health hashtag campaigns, sure, but on the ground, with struggling friends or family members, many people find mental illness terrifying. This book is a very public and explicit account of bipolar disorder. What do you want to see change?
Giulia: There is stigma and a lack of understanding around mental illness. It took me so long to say the words, "I am bipolar" without feeling shame. It's a chemical imbalance in my brain, and that's okay. I hope we start to approach mental illness with more love and compassion whether you're the one who is sick, the caregiver or someone who doesn't really understand it.
Mark: My hope is that caregivers can read this and be less afraid. I hope people don't get scared if this happens to someone they love. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I mean scared to the point of running.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Memoir traces a love story that runs amok as the author's wife's descends into psychosis
Nancy Szokan
The Washington Post. (Mar. 27, 2017): News:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Full Text:
Byline: Nancy Szokan
The first 30 pages of Mark Lukach's new memoir, "My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward," read like a Hollywood love story.
As an 18-year-old freshman at Georgetown University, he meets and falls in love with Giulia, a radiant and ambitious Italian beauty. They graduate, marry, launch careers, plan to have children.
And then, almost without warning, everything falls apart.
In 2009, at the age of 27, Giulia experienced her first psychotic episode. Over the course of several weeks, she became overwhelmed by a new job. She sank into depression, then crippling anxiety. She believed she saw the devil, then that she was the devil. She tried to kill herself. Lukach took her to an emergency room, expecting to get medication and advice; instead, she was committed to a psychiatric ward, where she remained for 23 days. When she came home, it was clear "the hospital hadn't fixed anything. It had only stabilized her, and not even all the way."
Giulia slowly recovered, and within a couple of years she and Lukach were ready to have a baby. But a few months after Jonas' birth - just days after his baptism - Giulia had another episode and was committed to the psych ward again, this time for more than a month. There was a third hospitalization in 2014. The narrative ends after her discharge, as they continue to try to fashion a family life out of chaos.
"I've got this thing for life, Mark," Giulia tells him with sad dignity. "It will always be with me. But at least I'm not as scared of it anymore."
Lukach, a teacher and freelance writer, has written a book rich in believable details of managing mental illness: The legal issues around commitment. The bewildering pharmacopeia - Geodon, Lexapro, Zyprexa, Haldol, Risperdal, lithium, Prozac - and the panic when she threw up her dinner and Lukach could see the remains of pills dissolved in the vomit. (Would it be better or worse to give her another dose?) The healing properties of physical exercise. Deciding when it might be safe to leave her alone. Doctors talking about bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The thrill of realizing, during a mountain hike, that Giulia was afraid of heights. ("Don't you see what that means?" Lukach said to her. "You're scared to fall because you're scared to die. You want to live!") Tensions with frightened and confused in-laws. Managing his own work life. Loving their son.
And, of course, the frustration that accompanies Lukach's love for his shattered wife, and hers for him. Sometimes Giulia calls him "the Medicine Nazi," refuses his visits, rages against his control. As for him, "I don't care how well Giulia is doing!" he cries at one early point, when well-meaning family members praise her progress. "Of course I realize she's doing better. Will everyone stop telling me about it? And why doesn't anyone seem to care about how bad I feel?"
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Szokan, Nancy. "Memoir traces a love story that runs amok as the author's wife's descends into psychosis." Washington Post, 27 Mar. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A487373488/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=42074423. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487373488
Lukach, Mark: MY LOVELY WIFE IN THE PSYCH WARD
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lukach, Mark MY LOVELY WIFE IN THE PSYCH WARD Harper Wave/HarperCollins (Adult Nonfiction) $25.99 5, 2 ISBN: 978-0-06-242291-0
How one couple battled together against the wife's mental health issue.Lukach, a ninth-grade teacher, and his wife, Giulia, had a near-perfect life. They'd met in college, almost instantly became a couple, and quickly grew their relationship into a classic love story. They had successful jobs, ambitions, and dreams that filled their lives. The years passed, and they agreed to have children. However, shortly after starting a new job, Giulia became increasingly anxious about work and life in general, and she began experiencing full-blown psychosis, requiring immediate hospitalization. Lukach does an excellent job of showing the rapid decline his wife experienced as she went through her first, second, and third breakdowns, the evolution of his role as caretaker and partner, and the roles played by their immediate families and closest friends in the recovery process. The author details the harrowing first moments in the hospital when no one quite knew what was happening to Giulia and the endless time he spent struggling to get answers from doctors and nurses. "The first few days of Giulia's hospitalization," he writes, "I spent almost every waking hour on the phone....With every call I made, I grew increasingly agitated at the inflexibility of the mental health system." Lukach recounts the deep, suicidal depression Giulia endured after returning home and the fears he felt for his wife's safety. The end of the first breakdown will come as a great relief to readers; by the third breakdown, they will know what to expect but will also share the author's fears for the safety and well-being of their young son. Lukach's compassion and love for his wife, as well as his fears and anger, are evident throughout, making this memoir a satisfying read despite the context of the story. An honest and rewarding memoir of a couple's compassion and love for each other.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lukach, Mark: MY LOVELY WIFE IN THE PSYCH WARD." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A487668606/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ed38bfd1. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487668606
NOVEMBER 30, 2017
My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward by Mark Lukach | Review
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My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward by Mark LukachSave
My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward by Mark Lukach
Narrator: Josh Bloomberg
Publisher: Harper Wave/Harper Audio
Release Date: May 2, 2017
Length: 320 pages (8 hrs. 39 min.)
Buy on Amazon
{A Bit of Backstory}
Single Sentence Summary
When Mark Lukach’s wife had her first psychotic break they were totally unprepared for it, and with the next, they were even less prepared.
From the Publisher
“Mark and Giulia’s life together began as a storybook romance. They fell in love at 18, married at 24, and were living their dream life in San Francisco. When Giulia was 27, she suffered a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break that landed her in the psych ward for nearly a month. One day she was vibrant and well adjusted; the next she was delusional and suicidal, convinced that her loved ones were not safe.”
The Draw
I’ve been very drawn to memoirs recently.
The subject matter of mental illness is both fascinating and scary.
The publisher’s blurb tells that eventually the Lukach’s had a child. That left me very curious about their decisions around family.
{My Thoughts}
What Worked For Me
Honesty – I think honesty is what truly made My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward shine. Lukach didn’t seem to be hiding or sugarcoating anything. He was blunt in his descriptions of his wife’s psychotic behaviors, his own fears, the medical community, tensions around help offered by friends and family, and most of all concerns for his son’s well being. It couldn’t have been easy to lay bare so many people he loved and he never gave himself a pass either. Lukach’s honesty compelled me to keep reading.
Realities of Mental Healthcare in America – Make no mistake about it, Mark Lukach comes across as grateful for much of the care his wife has received, but frustrations also abound. Nothing is black and white about mental healthcare, from practitioners, to facilities, to therapies, to drugs. Like most of us, Lukach had no idea how to navigate the mental healthcare system, but he learned and as I listened, so did I. It’s a very scary reality.
“The nurse gently patted my hand and then went back to work. I sagged into the already sagging chairs completely overwhelmed by the layers of emotions that buried me into my seat: grief, fear, rage, more grief. In the perverse dystopia of the psych ward this was progress.”
A Father’s Love – After a period of wellness, Mark and his wife had a son, but psychosis was not behind them. Mark’s role took a drastic change as the father of a child with a mentally ill mother. His evolution became a delicate balancing act as Mark strove to do the “best” for everyone, but most of all for his son.
Narration – Josh Bloomberg did an amazing job narrating My Lovely Wife. He really brought Mark and Giulia’s story to life, making me feel like Mark was talking directly to me.
What Didn’t
Giulia’s Perspctive – This is Mark’s memoir, but I’d have liked to know a little more about what was happening to Giulia from her perspective. Mark shared his perceptions of what Giulia was thinking and feeling, but a chapter or two written from her end would have been very illuminating. I’d have also liked to know if there was any history of mental illness in Giulia’s family.
{The Final Assessment}
I had few expectations going into My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward, so was pleasantly surprised with how good it was. My heart broke for Mark, Giulia and Jonas, but I was left thankful that they’d chosen to share such a personal story. I suspect the Lukach’s journey may help many others. Grade: A-
If you liked this book you might also enjoy:
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi – A dying doctor’s memoir of his life and his illness.
Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen – Memoir by a woman who spent two years in the 60’s as a patient in a psychiatric hospital for teenage girls.
Disclosure: There are Amazon Associate links included within this post.