- Joined
- Feb 1, 2015
I'm going to state right up front that, other than the line I quoted, I agree with everything you said. That was an excellent, insightful analysis and it was far better than anything I could have written.Her nan is being lauded as a saint but from what I'm reading, her way and the rest of the family's way to deal with Julie is to just throw her into the shed and hope she'll magically stop being autistic and mentally ill.
But Granny Terryberry, while she probably isn't a saint, is a very kindly person. From what I can tell, she is the only member of Julie's family that seems to care enough about Julie to take her in and not leave her sleeping under a bridge. Julie sees her father infrequently, she stated somewhere that she sees her mother once a month, and she never mentions any other family. Granny gives Julie a place to stay, buys her food, deals with Julie's chimp-outs, and (in some bizarre way) tries to encourage Julie to get on track and better her life.
Granted, Granny's not going about this the right way. She comes from the same generation as Bob and Barb, where you just hide mental illness away and hope it works itself out eventually. That's wrong thinking but I honestly can't fault her for that; she's way too old to be forced to deal with Julie on her own. A much better question is why Mom and Dad (Cheri and ... Perry, perhaps?) have distanced themselves from their daughter and haven't tried to get her the help she needs.