When Glenn Close first read her sister and nephew’s new book, shut up she says, “My heart was in my throat because I knew it was very close to what actually happened. It peeled back another layer of what everyone had been through.”
The book, out this week, is a fictionalized account of what happened when Glenn’s nephew Calen Pick suffered a psychotic breakdown at the age of 18 and was then diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. It was written by Calen, now 43, and his mum and Glenn’s sister, Jessie Close, 71, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her 50s, following her son’s diagnosis.
Calen says in this week’s PEOPLE: “Writing the book was like putting it back together, my descent into psychosis and how I started to recover.”
“I hope the book will clarify what is a pretty tumultuous experience and help other people.”
From left: Glenn Close, Calen Pick, Mattie Pick, Jessie Close in 1992.
Courtesy of Jessie Close
How a sister’s cry for help led Glenn Close to change the way we talk about mental illness
As Calen recalls, he first started feeling anxious and moody around the age of 15. As an athlete in high school, he gradually became more withdrawn. “He’d be sitting on the couch rocking and rocking and his pupils were huge,” says Jessie. “He would look out the windows and say something like, ‘That person is looking at me,’ but no one was there.”
“It was a lot of thinking about fantastic things and questioning reality,” he says. “It was grandiose. I had a bit of a God complex. I think it was a grab for something bigger than me.”
One day in 1998, Jessie went up to the studio apartment in the loft above the family garage where Calen lived. “He painted ‘Silence You’ across the wall in dripping red paint,” she says. “And it was like, shit, what is this?”
Calen’s father, Tom Pick (Jessien’s third husband from whom she was divorced at the time) took him to a hospital in Helena, Montana, where he was admitted to the psychiatric ward. It was a phone call he would never forget. “I never heard Tom cry like he did after Calen was admitted,” she remembers. “Calen was a golden boy. He was beautiful, smart and funny. He had loads of friends – and it all just went to hell in a handbasket.”
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From left: Left to right: Annie Starke, Glenn Close, Calen Pick, Jessie Close, Matheson Renick 2009.
Courtesy of Jessie Close
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He was eventually diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mental health condition characterized by a mix of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression, mania, and a milder form of mania called hypomania, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Calen lived in a halfway house on the grounds of the hospital for two years until he slowly found the right medicine. “A lot of sedatives and trial and error,” he says. “It was two steps forward and one step back.”
After he returned home to Bozeman, Montana, his younger sister Mattie knew something had changed in her beloved older brother. Mattie, now 33, recalls: “He didn’t talk much. He wore sunglasses 24/7. He seemed more fragile. You could tell he’s been through a lot.”
Over time, he found more balance with antipsychotics — and therapy. Today he is married to Meg, a therapeutic riding instructor, and finds solace in painting, something he loved as a kid. “Maybe it’s just about understanding myself, it’s the journey I’m on,” he says. “So all I’m trying to do is have freedom and feel good again.”
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Jessie Close and Calen Pick in Bozeman, Montana on November 15, 2024.
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Over time, he and his family relied on and learned from each other. In 2010, Glenn co-founded Bring Change to Mind to help fight the stigma and silence surrounding mental illness. Since then, Jessie and Calen have joined forces with her to share their first-hand – and sometimes harrowing – reports.
“It’s not scary to me anymore,” says Jessie. “I don’t think it’s good for anyone to stay hidden.”
On the other hand, “Aunt Glenn” is inspired by their resilience. Glenn says, “The fact that Jessie and Calen went on national TV more than ten years ago and said, ‘I’m living with bipolar disorder’ and ‘I’m living with schizoaffective’ — that was sheer courage to me.”
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Source: HIS Education