Kriti Mehrotra
While it’s true that the unfortunately chronic mental ailment of schizophrenia is influenced by one’s environment and genetics combined, it isn’t directly inherited in any way, shape, or form. This much has actually even been evidenced in Discovery/HBO Max’s ‘Six Schizophrenic Brothers,’ a documentary series chronicling the depths of how this illness tore the Galvin family apart. It thus comes as no surprise that at the forefront of this production is May Christine Galvin, the youngest of this brood as well as arguably the most affected for more reasons than just one.
Mary Galvin Never Really Got to Be a Child
It was in 1965 that Mary was born to Mimi and Donald “Don” Galvin Sr. as the youngest of their 12 in Hidden Valley Road, Colorado, yet she didn’t have the same early experiences as her siblings. That’s because even though the family was very well-off, had great social standing, plus considered her and her sister Margaret roses to their ten thorny brothers, sickness soon gripped the family. In fact, the former was merely two when her eldest brother, Don Jr. (born 1945; almost exactly 20 years older than her), had his first psychotic break while he was attending college in 1967-1968.
However, it wasn’t until Mary was four that she understood there was something really wrong as Don began frantically pounding on their parent’s bedroom door while shouting one night. He was convinced somebody was trying to break into their home and shoot them, per her accounts, so he was doing his best to wake everybody up for protection purposes. But alas, there was nobody around, just for her brother to then fall deeper into psychosis — he had clearer hallucinations, developed violent tendencies, as well as heard voices in his head.
Though what’s worse is that another one of Mary’s brothers started growing unwell the same year, followed by a total of four more when she was around 7, 10, 13, and 16, respectively. “The course of my early childhood was an unbelievable tragedy,” she once said, especially as she also suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of someone trusted to care for her. The truth is that since the Galvins had decided to have/treat Don at home full-time, they relied heavily upon their second-born son, Jim, to babysit his younger siblings whenever the need arose.
Yet not only was Jim schizophrenic too, but he was also deeply abusive towards his wife, Kathy, and his youngest sister, Mary — the latter was actually near the same age as his son, Jimmy. “Jim was very cruel, very cruel,” his sister said in the aforementioned original at one point. “…My first memories of sexual abuse are maybe [from when I was] 3 or 4 years old. It was [him] coming in the middle of the night and putting his hands on me. My curling up in a ball, tighter and tighter, trying to get away from him, not really – – not really understanding what was going on.”
Mary continued, “I’m a little child, and I’m trying to stop whatever it is he’s doing, only because I think I probably knew somehow that it was wrong. I didn’t like it, but I was also terrified to stop it because I didn’t know what to say. You just pretend it’s not happening. You think, ‘Maybe it’s love – – maybe this is love.’ Him having his hands all over me is love.” She further added this continued for well over a decade, just for her to endure without ever speaking up as she deemed it a better option than staying at home with Don’s unstable, volatile condition — at least, with Jim and Kathy, she had opportunities to be a mere kid during the day.
Nevertheless, everything changed when Mary was 13, and she pleaded with Jim to stop over a genuine fear of falling pregnant, shortly after which she even revealed her trauma to her mother. She knew Mimi was a little emotionally unavailable considering everything within the family, yet she never expected to be dismissed or treated as if this was something every woman had to go through.
Mary thus closed up a bit, and then even more so once her immediate elder sister Margaret was sent to live with family friends while she was left behind — she was angry but couldn’t do anything. In the end, she alone had to witness all the rollercoasters of her brothers’ illnesses and her parents’ handling of the same before gradually learning some full truths — for example, she found out in her 20s that fourth-born sibling Brian had actually died in a murder-suicide with a girlfriend way in 1973.
Mary Galvin is a Family Woman Through and Through
Despite everything, Mary did briefly manage to move on in life by enrolling at the University of Colorado-Boulder for further studies as soon as she graduated from The Hotchkiss High School in 1984. She actually earned a Bachelor’s in Marketing in 1989 while minoring in travel as well as tourism, immediately following which she kickstarted her career as a Sales Director at Eldora Mountain Resort.
But alas, Mary let go of this stable job in 1991, just to co-found/co-own a special occasion planning service organization named Event Design Group alongside her life partner Rick Rauch the same year. She even legally changed her name to Lindsay Rauch and settled down in Ridgway, Colorado, for good, where she raised their two loving children — Kate plus Jack — to the very best of her abilities.
Mary had actually tried to normalize mental health illnesses in her home by being very open regarding her brothers’ diagnoses with her kids and even taking them along for visits, unaware she’d end up traumatizing Jack owing to it being too early. While this corporate event planner learned to let go of her childhood fears regarding Don before also managing to forgive Jim upon his passing from mediation-caused heart failure at the age of 53 in 2001, her son grew worried about developing schizophrenia himself. This was to such an extent he ended up with anxiety as well as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and has been undergoing therapy since the age of 10 — but thankfully, all is good for the Rauchs today.
In fact, at 59, Ridgway-based Mary/Lindsay is still a proud, happily married mother of two adult kids, all the while serving as the Executive Director at Event Design Group plus a Board Member of the Henry Amador Center on Anosognosia. The latter is an institution focused on raising awareness about certain mental ailments like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and she seems utterly devoted to it as an advocate — this is especially true since she is now the primary caretaker of her schizophrenic brothers. We should mention Mary is also on the board of the innovative community behavioral health care center known as WellPower and has since established the Galvin Family Trust alongside Margaret as a way to better care for her siblings. She’d promised her late parents she’d never abandon them no matter what, so she’s keeping it.
