Leddy, Kyleigh

All Kait Leddy had ever wanted was a little sister. When Kyleigh was born, they were inseparable; Kait would protect her, include her, cuddle and comfort her, and, to Kyleigh, her big sister was her whole world. As they grew, however, and as Kait entered adolescence, her personality began to change. She was lashing out emotionally and physically, and losing touch with reality in certain ways. The family struggled to keep this side of Kait private—at school and in her social life, she was still the gorgeous, effervescent life of the party with a modeling career ahead of her and big dreams. But slowly, things began to shatter, and Kyleigh could only watch in horror as her perfect sibling’s world collapsed around her. Kait was institutionalized with what would eventually be diagnosed as schizophrenia, leaving Kyleigh and their mother to handle the burden, shame, and guilt alone. Then, in January 2014, Kait disappeared. Though they never found her body, security footage showed her making her way onto a big bridge over a river, where it is presumed that she jumped. Kyleigh is left wondering: What could she have done differently? How could this shining light be gone? And how will she find peace without her sister to guide her way there?

A Memoir of My Sister

The Perfect Other

This is the Author's Note and not the book itself but just for this alone, I know the book is worth reading. (I saw her college essay and it was beautifully written)

Sophia

It is important to acknowledge that the story you are about to read centers around a girl who, despite her mental illness and according to the many problematic standards of our society, was immensely privileged: She was white, heterosexual, cisgender, physically attractive, smart, capable, and fiercely loved. She attended a well-funded school district, had a family that was eager to help her in any way they could, and had safety nets in place that kept her from falling into homelessness or prison. She possessed the financial luxury to attend rehabilitation centers, therapy, experimental treatments, and group homes, and the healthcare coverage to be prescribed antipsychotic medication.

She was an anomaly, the peak of fortune, and yet none of this was enough to save her.

Rarely will you be the first in all of human history to experience anything, but you will experience it all your own just the same.

I know there are thousands, millions, billions of stories that my own will never touch.

I also know that somewhere out there is a family suffering as ours did, voiceless and afraid.

They always meant well, but it was as if they could taste my hunger in the air, my desperation to be pardoned and validated. My carnal need for an excuse vibrating between us. I sometimes wondered if they could see into my very brain.

Could they tell that my nerves were all bundled and splintered, like necklaces tangled in the bottom of a drawer?

No one tells you that it is a spectrum like anything else. No one tells you what to do when that ship has sailed—when you begin to lose your mind. No one tells you what a precious, fragile gift your mind is in the first place. No one tells you it can be lost.

My sister’s sanity slipped slowly and quietly—the way you lose a train of thought or slide into a dream at night: there and then not. She lost her edge little by little. An avalanche that picks up one rock and then another: a steady progression, and then, in a flash, a tragedy. Uncontrollable. Too late.

It’s said that people with anxiety watch the same movies and television shows, or read the same books, over and over again. This reconsumption of media can be explained by the “mere exposure effect,” or the idea that we prefer what we’ve previously seen. It can also be examined as “experiential control”— the payoff of knowing what is to come has a calming effect equivalent to a meditative chant. It reaffirms that there is order in the world. 

I am the kind of person who reads the last page first. The type of girl who searches the plot summary on Wikipedia before the movie ends. The moral here is that when you know what happens next, you can relax. The punch line is that life rarely grants you a warning.

Except Kait wasn’t so lucky. She didn’t right herself in time; no one caught her. Her head hit the concrete. She cracked.

The superficiality of the moment, the sister bickering, the teasing, felt almost normal for a moment, but the doctor was right in predicting Kait would never again be Kait.

In the days following, it soon became clear that my sister’s thoughts were no longer her own. Suddenly, there were new voices, and they demanded to be heard. Had they been hiding there all along?

I think a part of us knew, even then, that Kait’s life was unlikely to last long enough to be shortened by cancer.

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