“In Pursuit of Radio Mom points the way to coming to terms with the mother you had, or didn’t have — and growing into the mother you want to be.”
— Terry Crylen
— MEET TERRY —
I love stories. Stories of every kind. The amusing ones told across a kitchen table; the kind set to music; those conveyed in poems, and the ones brought to life from a stage. And I’ve always been partial to a book with one so good that it nearly jumps off the page. Books, in fact, have been a life-long salvation for me.
Born in 1953 into a large Catholic, Chicago working-class family, one of my most enduring childhood memories is my feeling of being lost in our chaotic and loud household. How I wanted to flee. Learning to read made escape from the din of life with my nine other family members at least somewhat possible.
From an early age, the concrete steps of my Aunt Dorothy’s front porch—not far from where we lived—became an oasis from the noise of home. There, I devoured mysteries, biographies, and my aunt’s out-of-date magazines, even, unbelievably, her well-thumbed stock of Reader’s Digests. When I ran out of “good” material, I usually settled for The Lives of the Saints, a compendium of books that recounted the saints’ gruesome deaths.
Why? Because those religious books, despite being the stuff of nightmares, were always in abundance on the shelves of our small Catholic school library. Which guaranteed their availability for check-out. Over the years my library card became worn and thin.
Looking back, I realize that gravitating toward the books charting the lives of the saints probably wasn’t so different than feeling compelled to absorb my mother’s stories. I wanted from her what I achieved with books: a connection. And grim tales of her childhood were all she had to offer. I listened to her intently, even while aware that I would only hear sad narratives about what she called, over and over, her “terrible life.”
Given a loneliness that seemed to follow me like a perpetual shadow, how unsurprising that I was always on the hunt for my mother’s attention. Just as I was desperate for the “company” that a book provided, I also craved a bond with the woman who mattered the most to me as a child. And though I was too young to have been able to articulate it then, I hoped that listening to her stories—which, more accurately, were laments—would overcome a relationship as impoverished as the neighborhood in which we lived.
Although my mother’s chronicles remained thematically stuck in a groove of resentment and despair, as I grew older into adulthood, I developed a deep curiosity about how personal narratives could change and transform our lives. My natural inquisitiveness began to guide me as I graduated from Northwestern University with a doctorate in counseling psychology in 1988: my ensuing thirty year career in mental health focused largely on working with adolescent girls and adult women presenting with clinical depression, anxiety, and complex mood disorders, as well as anorexia. However, it was always my intense interest and appreciation for a person’s “backstory” that fueled my compassion and deepened my connection with those I have been privileged to know and to treat.
During the years 1988-2018, I also served as a consultant with the school and mental health communities and took pride and pleasure in writing reasoned and comprehensive psychological evaluations. What mattered to me most was to avoid formulaic “number crunching” and “cookie cutter” summaries, and to strive instead to capture “the whole person”— articulating an individual’s strengths as well as their limitations. I aimed to provide the relevant information in a narrative rich in detail and devoid of jargon. This kind of intricate detail represented just one more way I expressed my own ardent interest in storytelling.
I am fortunate to have a personal life that includes deep relationships with a host of loved ones—my grown daughter and my second husband of fifteen years at the center. Nevertheless, I remain a social hybrid: I am both a risk-taker and an introvert.
There are still times, for example, when I want to reach for a professional mask as a kind of protection. I am aware that exposing myself through the writing of Radio Mom represents my biggest risk yet, both personally and professionally. It is a way of coming out of the closet, a closet which has always been provided by my roles as therapist and psychologist.
Not so long ago, I found myself inventing another story for myself. I imagined that, had I been born in an earlier era—the turn of the twentieth century, let’s say—I could have easily assumed the role of an eccentric maiden aunt. The kind of woman relegated by family members to a cloistered life in the attic.
Yet, during the conception of Radio Mom, I realized at last that remaining in either the closet or the attic was only another way of protecting myself. I was creating a fantasy about what seemed to be a preferred and easier life, but it was one born almost entirely out of fear. I am an introvert, but relationships have always mattered to me. Deeply. Connections with family, with friends—and even with our beloved rescue dog, Fannie Mae—have sustained me throughout my sixty-seven years. So much for idealizing the life of a recluse!
On a wall in my writing room, a plaque that I found in a small-town, old timey, second hand shop hangs over my desk. It reads: When You Get There, Remember Where You Came From.
I smile each time I glance over at this message, reminded by the fact that remembering where I came from has helped to shape a story that might just appeal to you. Radio Mom is about pain and love. About acceptance and forgiveness. After decades of helping others to understand their own stories, this time I reveal my own. And it is one that I am finally eager to share.