judge me not - Janice Arenofsky

MY S T O R Y
My life:
JUDGE
ME NOT
By Janice Arenofsky
J
udge Lynn Toler, star of Fox Television's Divorce Court, remembers how
the headlights would flash off the
walls of her bedroom and alert the
10-year-old to dad's arrival. She and her
older sister, Kathy, could anticipate another
evening of fighting and drinking. "You
didn't mess with him," Toler says of her
attorney father. "He'd say these ugly,
terrible things to mom, accuse her of infidelity, and call me a moron."
Not until she became a municipal judge
did Lynn understand that her father's uncontrollable bouts of anger resulted from
bipolar disorder, and that underneath the
manic exterior resided a funny, industrious
man who loved his wife and two daughters.
Born in 1919 to a poor family in West
Virginia, Bill Toler spent his teen years at
hard labor in the coal mines. When World
War II beckoned, Toler enlisted. But the
Army soon discovered that Toler's aggressive tendencies went beyond fighting
the Nazis to violent confrontations with
his fellow soldiers. Toler was diagnosed
with manic depression with psychotic
episodes and discharged in 1947; law
school on the GI Bill and a first marriage
followed in short order. By the time Toler
married Toni—his second wife and
Lynn's mother—he had a successful law
practice in Columbus, Ohio, despite his
manic depression.
At home, however, Toler's symptoms
clashed with the minutiae of daily life. He
44
b p Fall 2010
Left: Lynn as a young girl, with her mother, father, and sister.
Above: Judge Lynn Toler posing in her judicial robe.
,•
t
would rage over mispronounced words,
misplaced eyeglasses, carpet dust, or imperfectly aligned window shades. In general, his tendency to exaggerate everyday
happenings into calamities triggered ugly
outbursts. As Toni Toler put it, her husband
had a penchant for "running amok."
accomplishments.
"He felt creative, that he could conq
the world," Lynn recalls. "He'd yell 'W
Pow!' over and over, but then he'd
charged up about something as simplt
burned toast."
Toler's unpredictable explosions c
tinued until his death in 1994.
MANIA INSTEAD OF MEDS
When Toler's agitation peaked, his wife
would commit him to the local psychiatric
hospital. There he received electro-convulsive therapy or medications, but he
stopped all pharmaceutical treatments
after being discharged. The reason, according to Lynn, was that her father, who
rarely experienced depression, was too
fond of his manic imbalance.
Toler also rationalized that his highoctane energy bursts heightened his career
BEAUTY & 'THE BEAST'
As Lynn approached junior high sch
age, she recognized that her father's act
out exacerbated her own moods. She
came angry and began acting out, break
light bulbs, wetting herself in public. 2
reacting hysterically to minor frustratic
Anxiety and depression dominated 1
days. When Lynn was about 10 years ol<
pediatrician and close family friend ate
uted her mood disorder to her fath<
erratic, combative behavior. (Conversely,
her sister remained unaffected by Toler's
tirades, and to this day retains an optimistic
outlook.) By age 12, (as Lynn noted on a
2007 National Public Radio program), she
had suffered two nervous breakdowns.
As an adolescent, "my emotions changed
and defined my life," Lynn says. "It was so
overwhelming that I began catastrophizing."
In her book, My Mother's Rules: A Practical
Guide to Becoming an Emotional Genius
(Agate Bolden, 2007), Lynn says,
" . . . my fears would cascade on
me. Daddy would break out a
window and I'd wake up convinced that I was going to die
in an automobile accident
that day." By the time Lynn
reached high school age, her
depression had morphed into anger and
headaches, and she withdrew from clubs
and sports activities.
At this point, she referred to the selfdenigrating voice reverberating in her head
as "The Beast." This voice preyed on Lynn,
accompanying her to Harvard and then to
the University of Pennsylvania Law School,
where her moods often interfered with her
scholastic commitments. It wasn't until 1996
that she agreed to seek psychiatric treatment. She was diagnosed with severe depression and treated with an SSRI for a year.
father, husband, and breadwinner (Lynn
points out that he worked seven days a week,
took one two-week vacation in 36 years, and
paid for four college degrees, three that
came with Ivy League price tags), at any
point he might careen into a manic state
that even Toni could not control. By the
time Toni confided in her daughters about
their father's manic depression, Lynn, as a
young adult, could understand that her
father's negative impact on the family was
My emotions changed
and defined my life.
MOM'S EMOTIONAL
MANAGEMENT
During the most raucous periods of her
youth, Lynn recalls that her mother would
apply practical strategies to contain some of
the chaos. For example, she never left Lynn
or Kathy alone with their father in case an
argument erupted. To minimize her husband's rampages, Toni mastered emotional
management tools that structured and controlled her husband's life—she lessened the
amount of stimuli and information reaching
him by screening phone calls and encouraging stability. Moreover, she established
safe boundaries and never gave her husband bad news that he could not remedy.
Toni also never said anything insulting
about her husband in front of the girls. She
simply accepted the fact that despite Toler's
high regard for traditional values such as
never intentional.
As an undergraduate at Harvard, Lynn
remembers receiving a good dose of her
mother's expertise in emotional management. Her mother told her she had to stop
catastrophizing and cease trying to control
odiers. All she could control was herself. She
helped Lynn to leave her dorm room and
get into the classroom by coaching her on
how to store her fears away in a metaphorical box and accomplish small tasks one at a
time. Lynn soon realized she was learning to
apply the same rules and techniques that
her mother used to manage her father's
bipolar.
DIVORCED FROM THE PAST
Todav Lnin has not conquered all her fears,
but she excels at certain behavioral tools, including "reading" other people's feelings,
assessing her faults, and refraining situations
to see the humor in them.
After law school, Lynn joined a highpowered, 200-lawyer firm in Cleveland,
where she achieved the status of the only
black female corporate litigator. Several
years later, she ran for and was elected Administrative Judge of the Cleveland Heights
Municipal Court. Her innovative rulings
and commonsense sentences landed her
on the pages of Cleveland's Plain Dealer. A
Hollywood production company spotted
her there, and she agreed to appear in a TV
reality show. Power of Attorney, co-starring
former O. J. Simpson prosecutors Mar
Clark and Christopher Darden. Three ve
ago, she moved over to Divorce Court.
Married with two teenage sons, Lynn 1
fought her way from a troubled childho
to a successful adulthood, following 1
mother's counsel, and getting professioi
help when needed. Her experiences h;
also assisted others with mental illness. A
municipal judge, she became the "first L
of defense" for many defendants \*
needed psychiatric care, but did not rec
nize it or could not afford the medicatio
"Most people misunderstand men
illness," Lynn says. She points out that
most of her childhood she believed it A
alcoholism that was fueling her fathf
behavior. "I would have liked to know tl
my father's behavior was not his fault."
Janice Arenofsky unites health and other nonfiction a
ckifor national magazines such as Miller-McCune
and Scientific American.
Lynn's tips
Play 'follow the leader'
Decide to lead with actions, not with
emotions. Be goal-directed (even if
you don't feel like it) and your emotions will improve.
Remember 'The world's a stage'
Imagine you have an audience
watching your every action, and
play to that. The "pretend" audi-
ence will make you more aware
of, or self-conscious about, any
inappropriate behavior you might
be tempted to engage in.
Apply the 'rule of inclusion'
The "rule of inclusion" says no one
is exempt from bad things in life.
Lose the "Why me?" attitude and
learn to accept the world's unfairness. Use it for your benefit.
bp h o p e & h a r m o n y