I was reading a review of the new documentary, "We Need to Talk about Cosby," about the ground-breaking Black comedian who also had a second life where he drugged and raped women. This world class talent was also a world class predator. How do we reconcile the two? Can we?
I haven't seen the documentary yet, but I hope to. Nevertheless, the last lines of the New York Times review read:
But as Bell’s wise documentary also makes clear, there wasn’t really one Bill Cosby and another secret one. There isn’t a good Cosby and a bad Cosby, whom we can store in different mental compartments. There is just Bill Cosby, about whom we didn’t know enough and now know dreadfully more. In the end, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are always the same guy.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same guy.
I think about this line and my brother, and millions of other people with and without mental health issues. After Eleanor Owen's death, I am thinking more about my brother Michael. Eleanor gave me a very safe and sacred place to talk about my brother and his demons. My mom would always compartmentalize my brother into the sane Michael and the insane Michael. Even people with schizophrenia have moments of clarity. When my brother had flashes of rationality grounded in reality, my mom wondered by my brother couldn't be like that all of the time.
It is just dawning on me now: she saw him as two people. One she loved, one she struggled to love. She wanted the "bad" Michael to go away and let the good and responsible Michael run the show.
I don't intend to comment on Cosby here, but the article is making me think of how we view troublesome people, people we love with difficult personalities or mental health defects. Which one of these people do we really love? In some cases, people love the weak version of a person, the person who needs to be taken care of because the caretaker might equate being needed with being loved. Once the caretaker is no longer needed, then they may no longer feel worthy of love. This can happen in romantic relationships, but it is also a death trap for parents who don't want their children to grow up and lead independent lives. Some parents want to be needed. All. The. Time.
I think of brother. He is the most bat-shit crazy person I know, by far. And I still love him. Part of loving him is fully acknowledging all of the horrible and horrific things he has done. If I didn't see the bad things, then I am not fully seeing him. While I still love my brother, that love comes with a truck load of boundaries. I can "detach from him with love" which means I can love him from a distance. I can send him cards in the mail, I can talk to him briefly on the phone, but I don't need to engage in all of the irrationality.
Unlike Bill Cosby, my brother was never considered "America's Dad." Far from it. My brother was dude who was frequently homeless and lived out of his car for a year. Maybe the problem we have in society isn't that we put people on pedestals and are shocked when they aren't perfect. Maybe the problem is the pedestal in the first place. Who among us is pure enough to be placed so high as to have no faults? Yet, as soon as we put someone on that pedestal, we fail to see their flaws. We are blinded so we can't see the truth, even when people tell us. We want to believe the myths. We do, and our desired to believe keeps us from seeing what is really happening.
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