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Show HORIZONS STANDARD-EXAMINER SUNDAY, MAY24, 1992 FEATURESEDITOR: 625-4270 BRIDES TELEVISION LISTINGS THEATERS Bsoed by love AUGUST MILLER/Standard-Examiner Emma Lou Thayne and her daughter Becky Markosian have wnitten a book, 'Hope and Recovery’ about Markosian's struggle with bulemia and manic depression. room, playing the piano, and laughing and then crying and not being able to stop. No matter what I did, I couldn't control my emotions on my own. ... But I still thought I was OK, and no one could have told me that I wasn’t OK n this May afternoon, Thayne O and Markosian relax in the warm, sun-filled living room of the Thayne home in Salt Lake City. The mother and daughter watch each other with affection and intentness as each speaks. There are easy chuckles and quiet touches — proofthat their own story has a happy ending. It was after a friend’s daughter died following a bout with bulimia that Markosian broke her silence of 20 years. “All my married life, people haven't known about it, and that was fine with me,” she says. “It took a long time for meto feel OK about even having people know.” arkosian decided that publishing her story would be the most effective method ofreaching a society that imposes “ridiculous” weight standards on young girls and stigmatizes mental illness. And so she turned to her mom, an established and respected writer The year was 1970, and few had heard the word “manic.” It would still be several years before the terms “depression,” “bulimia” and “anorexia” became commonplace in medical literature and self-help books. For now, Thayne was sure of only one thing: Something wasterribly, frighteningly wrong with her 19year-old daughter Becky. hayne flew to Seattle, where Becky was staying the summer, and coaxed herinto a plane that car- ried the mother and daughter back to Salt Lake City and a waiting psychiatrist. The rescue — quite dramatic for this ordinary, religious family of five girls — and the hospitalization that followed markedthe start of a three-year battle with mentalillness and an eating disorder that nearly killed Becky and touched ev- ery memberof this close-knit family. The struggle recently found printed voice in “Hope and Recovery” (Franklin Watts, $13.90), written by Becky Marko- | 1 Awa why perpetual \the ups, the downs, the interchange of spectrum You want to hold the patterns shown 2 my) exnect them yet how can you expect then, ZT traveled to Seattle to attend sum- Wal Naha Cah sian of Salt Lake City and her mother, poet Emma Lou Thayne, author of such books as “Things Happen,”a collection of poetry, and “As For Me and My House,” essays and poems. “I remember thinking that I could fly home on my kite, and that I could walk on water, that I was enlightened and that shiit between sun u What trials soonwill interface with blessings, smiles with frowns? In the book, Thayne’s is the voice of a puzzled, helpless mother unable to offer much more than her love. Explains Markosian, “The mothers suffer as much as the girls do.” Markosian, the oldest of five girls, doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t obsessed with being thin. As a teenager she says, she funneled all of her insecuri- ties about life into one direction: a thin . terrifying.” body. The obsession distanced her from or Mel and Emma Lou Thayne her sisters, whom she sawas being unfairGZ it helped to havea label. Doctors ly thin, and from her father, who didn’t later expanded on the diagnosis understand what was so important. of manic depression by explaining that As a freshman in college. she discov- their daughter’s chemical makeup was ered that the simple trick of sticking her “bipolar” — her moods swung from sulfinger down her throat to induce vomiting cidal lows to highs during which shelost allowed her to eat whatever she wanted. ‘touch withreality. Later, doctors were to She lost weight and, she remembers, “I diagnose her compulsion to alt ain and just felt so good. Everybody was complimaintain an unreascnable weig lt as anmenting me. It was a feeling I wanted to orexia nervosa and bulimia keep going.” But it only added another The label gave them something conlayer of secrecy to her existence. crete and helped them cope. But it didn’t alleviate the pain of watching but being “In general, Becky lived a life apart, Thayne writes. “. To me, she was beautiunable to reach their daughter “I watched (Becky) drag from upstairs t ful, anything but fat, and full of abandonedpotential. ... She appeared to be downstairs, famished, eating everythingin sight, her attention span like an infant’s brittle, as if something was near breaking, and it was impossible to understand what wanting nearly always to sleep. I saw her was causing the distance and nervousness shuffle one foot in front of the other, her lovely features immobilized, her bright that she showed even in her best times.” browneyes dull, the normal ap ince of hat summer of 1970, Markosian Ji OSD 1d OU — Emme Lou Thayne, ‘Hope and Recovery mer classes at the University of Washington, a move her parents saw as offering independence and one she saw as leaving an increasingly unhappy life in Salt Lake City. But alone and unfettered, her depression blossomed into a full-blown manic breakdown. After her mother fetched her home, Markosian was hospitalized. The diagnosis: manic depression. Markosian’s strange behavior was removed from anything Thayne had ever experienced. “You just think, this can’t be real. I have never been so scared. When you see someone who's had a breakdown, and there’s all of a sudden that chasm betweenreality and their sensibilities, it is her whole hody misshapen by ind despair. That flatness about he killer for me. I felt like a blot ed couldnt It was ail I the could a the gravity that would pull that had claimedher me in arkosian continued her bin- MA and purging — making it impossible to keep down thelith- um, a new drug that had been found to *Ip manic depression. And the distance Thaynerecalls, widened between Becky andher sisters and father, a gentle man whose uncertainty and frustrat n times found form in anger: Why is s doing these things? 7 ° “I remember being in our friends’ living ALT LAKE CITY — Thevoice on the other end of the phone line jabbered on about buying a Porsche and madeexcited claims of being the best water skier in the country. Emma Lou Thayne listened quietly, disturbed and bewildered. . x I had some sort of spiritual power,” Markosian writes of those last days in Seattle. By JANELLE BIDDINGER Standard-Examiner staff See HOPE on 6E There’s nothing funny about Buchananin his skivwies One day when my brother Arthur was a year or two old, he threw a Tonka truck through the living room window. Mydad went off to the hardware store, got some glass and putty, and spent the afternoon putting in the new window. Later, I heard him on the telephone, going over what the kid had even to Stevenson Democrats 7 .* a , ‘ PETE j DEXTER ae I began thinking about my brother Arthur's truck problem as | was looking at the May cover of Spy magazine — a national humor periodical that used to be funny — Jniversal Pre Syndicate %, ness into focus Pat Buchanan, Le . In smaller letters is the message “Authentic, Unretouched Photo- The 1992 SEXIEST MAN ALIVE' And while it’s true that the magazine was always mean — mos funny stuff has a bite a . Spy ; sue It is ule meg _— side!” flation of someof the most overin- fine to graph — And No Boring Story In- that features Republican presiden tial candidate Pat Buchanan stand- Now, Spy magazine, like a lot of other magazines, has had its share ing against a red, of trouble over the past few years white and blue it has bread and butter was the public « cal shortc flated people in the world — there WS also a sense of justice about pid or d shonest things th or the editorially pass The targets were hit in a war and pointed to the same window backgroundina pair of white Jock- And like other magazines, and I could tell that he thought it was funny. He was almost proud And while I understood even — at least the same window frame ey shorts hired and surveyed and consulted nice sense — and when he didn’t understand and redesigneditself in hopes of re- Spite then that there’s a difference be- through again tween howfunny something like that is later and how funnyit is when you are replacing the window, it seemed to me that the overall verdict on Arthur's throw- And while it wasn’t as funny th second time as it had been thefirst time, it was definitely funnier the towel drying. his chest is slightly profits are down; everybody else’s sunken —- no steroid abuse here — in the industry are — but its repuand he resembles very much a station as well that these thing But as second time than it was the third middle-aged man in modest physi- popular — and I moreor less helped him throw it Thepicture was cropped from a_ Mr. locker room. wet and pointy Buchanan's hair from in fact. a recent is what tume, a week later The folks were liberals who read cal shape. Which, he 1s left me alone in the house with Ar- they took the kid’s truck away and hid it. The message of this story, of course, is that even vandalism that is humorous once isn’t necessarils thur, | handed him the same truck humorous three times in a row. snt any sort of failing beyond what is intrinsic to human beings It does not speak of excess or sloth at any rate, only age Next to this picture. in large ing his truck through the window was that it was funny stuff. And at the same time, family history, something we would be talking about for the next 50 years And so, the next time the folks books on child psychology, but And which, to my knowledge. letters. Spy has written the legend. claiming not only its profitability — | am assuming here that its Which is to reiterate that Spy for the first couple of years it was business. was seriously funny stuff And that it isnt anymore Somewhere along the line. the 1aga7inelost its touch, and when that happened it seemed to panic and forgot what it was about. Ii forgot everything except its mean- Of reckiess of the fact tt udc nyms. nder ¥ peoy Y irk Times for run camp a boot Dishonest funniest things w ps New bus ness like More important 2One. done and howlong it took to fix, gs 1 ge N t becan ye —— that hvr those are all tur Baldness m < — sma hing sta cast not by thems out context And even if thes hy (in contex n funny Sense of recklessness eroded. Spy’s vorce changed as mn believ mean they are what it made fun of At the same time, the meanness Ddegan to exist for its own sake, alnost unrelated to the subject matter. In fact, it became the subject picture of Pat Buchanan Buchanan's politics are not for everyone. His pres — at least on television — is 1 in its own impor became Matter. something brought clearly umes you throw them Bringing us back. I gu See DEXTER on 6€ |