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- [S27] The Daily Times, http://www.thedailytimes.com/, (Blount County, Tennessee), 12 Feb 2011.
Desperate stranger: Family shares mother’s struggles with schizophrenia
By Linda Braden Albert lindaba@thedailytimes.com
Cora Mae Simerly was a loving wife and mother. But when the voices and images only she could hear and see tormented her, she became a stranger to be feared.
Simerly died a little more than a year ago, and four of her five children requested that her story be made known so others will be educated about the serious, challenging illness from which Simerly suffered: schizophrenia.
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According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (www.nami.org), schizophrenia is a medical illness affecting more than 2 million American adults, which is about 1 percent of the population age 18 and older. The disease often interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, to distinguish reality from fantasy, to manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. The World Health Organization has identified schizophrenia as one of the 10 most debilitating diseases affecting human beings.
Episodes of violence
Simerly, wife of the late Rev. Samuel Eugene (Gene) Simerly, suffered with schizophrenia for 26 years, according to her daughter, Cornelia “Corky” Simerly Long, the youngest of five siblings. Like most patients with schizophrenia, Simerly experienced repeated episodes in which she heard voices and saw visions of people and things that were not actually there. When her medications were effective, she could function; when they were not, episodes of violence erupted, making her a danger to herself and others.
Long recalled the first time she realized something was wrong with her mother.
“I was 14, so that would have been around 1978, so she was around 44 years old,” Long said. “She started having signs of delusions. It was really pretty scary. The boys were already married, and Gennia and I were at home. Just signs of violence. She had that first break when I was 14, and I’m 47 now.”
At that time, Long had come home and was attacked by her mother.
“She had me pinned against the wall,” Long recalled. “She was squeezing the life out of me, I was losing my breath. She ripped my clothes off of me. It took both my dad and my sister to pull her from me. I had no idea what I had done. It just petrified me. Many days before I’d go to bed, Daddy would make me lock my door. It seemed like I was the biggest target. I don’t know why ... Even as we got older, I was still her biggest target.”
Gene Simerly was another target of Cora Mae’s anger. Long said he would often have deep scratches on his face as he left the house for church, yet even though he was a large, strong man, he did not retaliate against his wife.
Gennia Simerly Cochran said, “People who have that disease, they don’t think they’re sick. They think it’s everybody else.”
Simerly received medication that helped control the symptoms for about two years. Long said, “So the whole time Dad was sick with cancer, she took care of him like she had never been sick. But about two months after he died (June 5, 1984), it was just horrible. It was worse that second time around. He was 53 and they had been married for about 33 years when he died. He was her whole world, him and us.”
Family in upheaval
Throughout Simerly’s illness, her children agonized over how to help her.
Cochran described their feelings, especially after the death of their father.
“We were all young and scared, and didn’t know what to do,” she said, with Long adding, “Daddy had taken care of everything, all the hospitalizations. She tried to commit suicide multiple, multiple times.”
One of those attempts took place at Christmas, when Long’s children were ages 5 and 2. She and her siblings were taking turns caring for their mother in their homes to avoid placing her in a nursing home.
“(The children) came running to me and said, ‘Mommy, Mommy, we can’t wake Mamaw up,’” Long said. “She had taken a bunch of pills. They were so traumatized during that time. It scared them.
“But, we couldn’t get help for her,” Long continued. “She couldn’t take care of herself, we couldn’t take care of her. You couldn’t get anybody to hear you. You could tell them over and over again what was going on, but it was like speaking to a wall. It was just over, and over, and over again. She had been in every hospital in East Tennessee, and had been institutionalized ... It was horrible. She would cry and beg us to take her home. We would cry because we didn’t know what to do.”
Finally, Cochran and Gary Simerly appealed to Congressman John Duncan to help in getting their mother on disability. Long said, “It literally took an act of Congress to get her covered on disability.”
Gary Simerly said, “The system told me that if I would lie, it would be a whole lot easier to get that help for her. I told them we didn’t need that kind of help. That’s not the way we were raised. That’s when we went to Congressman Duncan.”
From there, multiple hospitalizations followed.
Constant battle
Long said, “She tried to hurt other people, she tried to hurt herself. We were constantly battling that kind of thing. She thought people were trying to kill her. She thought someone was trying to poison her. She thought someone was trying to hurt us.
“Each time we’d go to the hospital, they would get to where they wouldn’t take her back,” Long said. “We’d been in every hospital in East Tennessee, even as far as Etowah and as far the other way as Campbell County and Oneida. ... It seemed like they would get her on a medication and she would get immune to it in six to nine months later. We’re talking 26 years of that, constantly ... the last year of her life, she was kicked out of three nursing homes, and she had four hospitalizations.”
The siblings said they felt that both they and their mother had been abandoned by other family members and friends.
“It devastated us,” Gary Simerly said.
Finally at peace
Gary Simerly, a pastor following in the footsteps of his father, described his mother as a lady who loved life and loved her children.
“That was her life,” Simerly said. “I spoke at her funeral, and that was the one thing I focused on. Mom loved her kids better than anybody else. She was a good pastor’s wife, and she was a good lady. Until this happened, she would not harm her kids at all. But when this happened, Cornelia was home, Gennia was home. It was just dramatic. She was so frightful and angry at them because it was a voice that ruled her and told her to do these things. It wasn’t Mom doing these things. ... She would ask me, ‘Son, can you not hear that?’ and it was as plain as us talking right here to her.”
Long recalled an incident shortly before Cora Mae’s death in which she was verbally attacked.
“She told me horrible things and cursed at me,” Long said. “That devastated me. She had done those kind of things before, but at that time ... I knew it wasn’t her, but it was coming from her mouth, from her body.”
A couple of months prior to Cora Mae’s death, she improved.
“God had given her her mind,” Long said. “I was with her by myself for a few minutes, and she looked at me, and she said, ‘You know, no matter what, I love you, right?’ I said, ‘Yes, Mom, I know.’ And she said, ‘No, no matter what, I love you more than you’ll ever know.’
“I think she wanted me to know that through everything that she had done and everything she had suffered, she loved us more than she had words to tell. And everything she had said or done, to try to look over it because she loved us.”
People who don’t have their families battling for them often end up on the street, Long said. Cora Mae was faced with that reality, but her family kept fighting until she was safe.
“It was a constant battle,” Long said. “I would not wish this on my worst enemy.”
Cora Mae died in 2010. Gary said he has not yet shed a tear.
“I shed so many before she died,” he said. “She was the best mom ever ... She is finally at peace.”
- [S52] Miller Funeral Home, (http://www.millerfuneralhome.org), 1 Feb 2010.
(September 14, 1933 - February 1, 2010)
Cora Mae Simerly, age 76, of Louisville, passed away Monday, February 1, 2010 at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Knoxville. She was a loving mother, wife, sister, and grandmother. She will be sadly missed by all who loved her. Singing for her Lord and children were her favorite hobbies. Preceded in death by her husband, Rev. Samuel E. Simerly; parents, Carter and Cora Bell Mullenax; brother, Albert Mullenax, and sister, Polly Crowe. Survivors include her sons, Gary Simerly and wife, Brenda of Friendsville, Gerald Simerly of Townsend, Grady Simerly of Maryville; daughters, Gennia Cochran and husband, Ty of Louisville, Cornelia “Corky” Long and husband, Jimmy of Alcoa; grandchildren, Charity Fitzgerald, Jeremy Simerly, Travis Simerly, Brandon Brewer, Corey Brewer, Anthony Simerly, Ashley Simerly, and Carlos Cochran; great grandchildren, Whitney Fitzgerald, Jordan Fitzgerald, Macey and Blane Simerly, Bane Pierce, and Sadie Simerly; brother, Gordon Mullenax; sisters, Martha Darnell, Linda Lawson, and Brenda Crisp; and several nieces and nephews. Funeral service will be held 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at Miller Funeral Home Magnolia Chapel, with her family conducting the service. Family and friends will meet at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday at Zion Chapel Cemetery for the graveside service and interment. The family will receive friends from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Tuesday at Miller Funeral Home, Maryville, (865) 982-6041, www.millerfuneralhome.org.
- [S147] Find a Grave, (Memorial: 47446405).
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