Fifteen years prior, while in medical school, my mom underwent treatment for a benign brain tumor. While full-body radiation may have had a super effect on Bruce Banner, Cathie did not fare as well. The procedure destroyed the tumor, but also ruined her mind. It destroyed her focus and memory recall. And, due to this, she dropped out of school. Her life, as she knew it, was over.
Shortly after the disaster, Cathie met my father, who was a doctor, and had kids. I don’t think that was on her vision board: wife of a man who had the job she desired, mother of two, housemaker. For most of Cathie’s life, she was miserable, her dreams crushed like a not-so-fine velvet. Being nearly 40 myself, I get it. I too would be devastated if a medical malady left me a confused shell of a person. But I wasn’t always nearly 40, believe it or not.
As a wee lad, Cathie would frequently turn to me and say, “I hate my life.” Don’t we all, lady. Get in line. But even as a child, I was certain this confused interaction was not normal discourse between mother and son. My friends’ moms were mostly bubbly and sweet, giving healthy smatterings of hugs and “I love you"s. Cathie never uttered those words. And a motherly embrace? Any time I tried hugging my mom, I would be met with literal, physical rejection. Disgust.
Sure, this hurt. OK, hurt may be an understatement. I was diagnosed with severe clinical depressive disorder at the age of 10. To this very day I am in constant therapy, changing medications, trying new treatments, all to cope with and manage the mental havoc she wreaked.
It’s embarrassing, shameful even, not to be able to let go of these things. I’m a grown man. I have a wonderful wife. I have two beautiful children. The band I started as a teenager became my career. I play guitar for a living, and I often get to do that in front of thousands of people. What I am saying is, I’ve got it better than good. So, I should be able to suck it up, buck it up and move on. And yet, I cannot.
Often, I weigh the pain Cathie caused me against the fact that she could not properly regulate her actions. She was brain damaged my entire life, without the proper faculties to parent the way that I needed her to. And she did the best with what she had. I think. I mean, I’m not dead. That’s 50 percent of parenting. Sure, love is the other half, but I surmise that the radiation therapy Cathie endured damaged her limbic system, the part of the brain that controls emotions. And yet, she loved that dog.
When Bacon was five, my mom randomly decided it was time to get him a trainer. There was no rationale to this decision. He was a well-behaved adult dog. And there was something off with this trainer, too. She gave off big John Wayne Gacy energy, with her vacant, “Only I know where the bodies are buried” eyes. I begged Cathie not to let this lady near our beloved pooch, but Cathie did what she wanted, undeterred, logic be damned.
Four years prior, when I was 15, she allowed me to traverse on a dangerous punk rock jaunt across the country in a broken-down cargo van with four strange 20-something men. We never knew where we would lay our heads at night to rest. We were regularly accosted with threats of violence. But the highlight for me was seeing Times Square in the late ’90s, when it was still sex shops and junkies. There were boobs everywhere! This was beyond inappropriate for a young teenager.
What parent would allow their kid to be exposed to that level of danger? An incredibly impaired mind will make strange and troublesome decisions. But Cathie, in her perpetually addled state, thought I could handle the trek. Not only did she think that I was mature enough for the situation, but I believe she wanted me to live the life that she had been robbed of. In her own, bent manner she thought she was being the mom I needed, the supportive mother allowing me to follow my dreams, even if that form of support was wholly irresponsible.
But I survived and, at 19, went on a less ill-advised tour with my new band, Fall Out Boy. During that time, this dog trainer, the one straight from the mind of Stephen King, convinced my mom she could get Bacon to stop barking. My mom, mentally unwell and easily suggestible, thought this was a great idea. She allowed the trainer to attach a muzzle onto Bacon. Then, the trainer took him outside, into the thick, sweltering 90-plus degree summer heat and made him run in circles ad nauseam. The idea was that this torture would extinguish his will to utter even a peep.
The trainer forced Bacon to run around for so long in the scorching weather that he collapsed, had a heat stroke, and died within the hour. She then swiftly absconded from the scene. I came home from tour to that. My ticker-tape parade was a dead dog. Not only was I aghast, devastated, mortified, but I asked my mom, desperately, why she hadn’t listened to me. There was no satisfactory answer. She was in her own shock and dismay.
To make matters more sinister, we discovered this trainer had a history; she had killed multiple dogs through her years of “service” and got away with it all. We even tried to track her down, to press charges, but she made it her mission to vanish.
Around that time I left my familial home for good. I didn’t want any more part in the chaos surrounding that place, despite my father’s steadfast and noble attempts to mitigate the problems Cathie consistently brought to the table. It was fortunate for me that Fall Out Boy was beginning to make just enough money that I could afford to split a garden apartment in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago.
Throughout the years after, I pursued the band not with a notion of success in mind, but to fill my time and to have purpose. And I wanted to stay as far away from my mom as humanly possible. Living in the city, a distance from the suburbs, helped a bit. But leaving on tour, and traversing the country, separating us by thousands of miles, helped significantly more.
Of course, I still loved and craved Cathie’s validation. But by this time, we rarely spoke. And when we did, she made sure to tell me things like, “You look terrible,” when she would see my photo in Rolling Stone, or that my contribution to an album was the only part of that album she didn’t like. Apparently, this was her idea of “jokes,” “jibes,” good old-fashioned mother-son ribbing. They were not jokes to me. They just caused irreparable pain.
Not long before Cathie was diagnosed with terminal cancer, I learned, through my dad, that she would boast about my accomplishments to strangers at the grocery store. So, she could sing my praises to the peaches, but not to me. It’s impossible to understand why. While it fills me with some mirth to know she had pride, she could never understand the immense distress she caused by never expressing it to my face.
But I do not blame my mother. She was truly sick; it was not her fault; it was all beyond her control. And on her deathbed, we made peace with one another by hurling toilet humor insults back and forth. We shed heartfelt tears over calling one another “d***heads.” It felt as good as it ever could. It was closure.
If Cathie had never been sick in the first place, would she have been a mother at all? Would I be alive? It doesn’t matter. Here I am, doing well enough, I suppose. I am grateful for the life she gave me.
Cathie also bestowed upon me yet another incredible gift: the opportunity to have children of my own. I have two impeccable daughters. Nothing I do in life will equal their greatness. And thanks to my mom, I also know exactly what not to do as a parent. I shower my children with love, affection, and admiration. I strive to be better.
Joe Trohman is the lead guitarist of the band Fall Out Boy. His memoir, None Of This Rocks, is available now.
All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
