While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence

In the final part of her memoir, Kissinger outlines the process of writing the memoir itself, including the pains and unexpected rewards that she gained from the experience. This reinforces the necessity of open communication to eradicate the stigma of mental illness even as Kissinger describes the sometimes difficult process of maintaining openness within her own family. Because she wanted to write an unfiltered and complete account of her family, she had to have difficult conversations with her siblings and other people who knew the family during those years. Her siblings all rallied behind her, equally tired of The Dangers of Concealing Pain and with the shared hope that telling their story would help prevent future tragedies. However, this did not make the process any easier: Kissinger and her siblings had to confront difficult questions like “Had we done enough to help each other? Do you ever worry that we might be doomed by our genetics? What trauma or mental illnesses might we have passed along to the next generation?” (264). 

Kissinger highlights the rewards of engaging with these concerns. In talking to her therapist, Kissinger discovered that it was never too late to confront and reconcile her past, and in talking to her siblings, she understood past events that haunted her in a new light. In particular, finding out that Molly was left alone with Nancy renewed Kissinger’s anger toward her mother, but she also healed from this in time, and expressing her resentment was a necessary part of the process. Her own frank description of her communication struggles highlights the difficult but necessary aspect of this approach. She stresses that “secrets can strangle relationships” (270) and urges her readers to open up about their own mental health struggles. Kissinger also highlights her own growth and new understanding that people are deeply nuanced and that her parents’ flaws did not always outweigh their strengths. As an adult, she is able to look back at her mother as a vulnerable woman who did what she was expected to do and her father as a force to be reckoned with. Her relationship to her deceased siblings is similarly nuanced: Though the pain of their ends lingers, reminders of Nancy and Danny continue to appear in Kissinger’s life, and their memory is alive in her heart and in her memoir. Kissinger always believed that her family life, however difficult, was also filled with positives. Her own journey throughout the course of her memoir illustrates both the difficulty and efficacy of her approach, and the positive outcome ends the memoir with hope and positivity. 

The positive influence of her difficult journey is illustrated in the final chapters as the narrative moves into Kissinger’s present-day world. Today, Kissinger and her siblings rally together to support one another, particularly Jake, who remains the most vulnerable of the group. They talk openly with each other and pass these same ideals onto their children, having recognized The Dangers of Concealing Pain. Kissinger reflects on the cathartic process of writing her memoir, noting, “It gave me a framework for confronting my demons, staring down my past to make peace with it” (291). The purpose of her memoir was always multilayered, as Kissinger knew that it was necessary for her to process her past but also for her to inspire change in the world. Telling her family’s story helped Kissinger and her siblings let go and understand, while also reinforcing the need for support. Kissinger used Loss and Hardship as Vessels for Purpose, and the reward was worth the struggle. Kissinger ends her memoir with Mary Oliver’s poem “In Blackwater Woods,” which drives home the idea that love and attachment are painful but necessary parts of life and that while she has learned to let go of those she has lost, they will never be forgotten.