previous segments of Where is Emma Fillipoff
Four: Mental illness runs in the family.
"Mental illness runs in the
family." Shelley whispers this sentence to the camera in one of the
earliest t.v. clips after Emma’s disappearance. The most prevalent theories of
what happened to Emma involve some sort of mental breakdown or psychotic break.
Leading up to her disappearance, Emma showed signs of paranoia and depression.
Is this why she’d chosen to stay at the women’s shelter? A former roommate
reported that one time in the middle of the night, she’d woken to find Emma
outside, totally out of it and tripping out on the grass, and the stars. The
friend had informed Emma’s father James about this odd behaviour. Although
James had offered to pay for a plane ticket home, Emma insisted that she
was fine and could take care of herself. Intensely private, Emma had been
mortified to learn that her friend had called her father. Shelley never heard
about the incident until much later. Had she known, she says she would have
flown out.
After significant probing from Shelley,
staff at the Sandi Merriman House admitted that Emma often acted very paranoid.
They said that Emma went through a period of selling all her stuff. Following
this, she began to throw things away. She would carry both her own stuff and
objects from the shelter first to the lawn, and then to the curb. A lamp, a
fan, a chair. When staff made her bring the objects back, Emma would protest.
“It’s making too much noise,” she’d say. “It’s saying things to me.” As soon as
the items were back inside, Emma would try to get rid of them again. The second
time she would haul them across the street to the courthouse.
Video surveillance footage from the
7-11 and the YMCA reveal that Emma often seemed afraid to go outside. And on
the day of her disappearance, a witness saw Emma standing at a crosswalk, but
refusing to cross. For years, Emma had been a manic walker. She almost always
walked barefoot, clutching her shoes in her hands, refusing to put them on. Her
feet would become bloody from walking so far. Thin and conveniently vegan,
people hardly ever saw Emma eat. Shelley thinks she developed an eating
disorder. Whether this was the cause or result of her mental distress, we don’t
know. Shelter staff also reported that Emma used to overhydrate, consuming
gallons and gallons of water at a time. This is common for people who undereat.
Rarely, overhydration depletes your body’s electrolytes and causes something
called water intoxication. The condition can be fatal. Interestingly enough,
symptoms of overhydration mimic psychotic tendencies, including “inappropriate
behaviour, delusions, hallucinations, confusion, and disorientation” (Source: Farrell and Bower, PMC). And yet, it is
impossible to conclude that overhydrating led to Emma’s psychological
deterioration. Quite often the symptom appears as part of a mosaic of unusual
and compulsive behaviour.
A year before she was last seen, Emma had returned home to Perth, Ontario.
A congenital knee condition had been giving her back problems and she was
looking into treatment. In retrospect, Shelley realizes that during that time,
Emma was acting “way too happy… it
didn’t look drug induced… it looked like she was avoiding life, wandering
around Perth all day and all night.” She stayed with friends and with her
father, often cooking for him though rarely eating herself. Whenever she ran
into her mom, she’d say she was on her way somewhere.
“Can’t stay,” she’d say. And off she’d
go, fanatically walking. With her mother, Emma maintained a certain distance.
Perhaps she was afraid that Shelley would see through the happy, flighty
façade. Her father James didn’t ask as many questions. Like Emma, he is
non-confrontational and secretive. Though he worried that Emma never ate, he
felt she deserved her privacy. Very seldom would he ever bring up his concerns
with Shelley. When Emma was in her early twenties, James divorced Shelley for a
younger woman. The divorce was pretty brutal and Shelley is quite open to the
fact that around that time she suffered from a full-blown mental health crisis.
For three years, she had to quit teaching and go on disability. She describes lying
on the bathroom floor all day, trying to will herself up in time for when her
youngest child got home from school. Emma had been around for part of the
separation and witnessed some events that must surely have traumatized her.
Shelley: “I really lost it Erica, not
only did I have a breakdown but I went after James. I did a lot of things that
really really disturbed Emma and I didn’t have a chance to give her my side. To
tell her I was sick. That it wasn’t her mother acting in that manner… Something
had really happened to me. I never had the chance to explain it to her. So she
witnessed quite a violent attack on James one night at his house and she had to
call the police and have me removed… Emma couldn’t handle that. Someone who was
non-confrontational, even verbally. To see me going bezerk. I mean I was
bezerk, I had a knife in my hand. I was really gone. I wasn’t going to hurt
him.”
Emma: “My parents’ marriage in
shambles.
My father turning to me.
My mother hating us both.
And me. Always the good listener.
Too nice to say that it hurt me too."
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Shelley and Emma never ended up talking
about what happened. Soon afterwards, Emma moved to Victoria, limiting her
contact with her mother to cryptic flowery emails and vague elusive phone
calls.
Shelley and James are on much better
terms now. They often have family dinners together with their other children.
Emma’s absence is blatant and painful, but seldom mentioned.
“No one will tell me what they think,”
says Shelley. “Because I know what I know.” Throughout the case, the rest
of Emma’s family has kept a low profile. Behind Emma’s posters, Shelley is
really the face of the search, though both Emma’s father and youngest brother
agreed to interviews with the Fifth Estate. Ultimately, the Fifth Estate did
not include the younger brother’s interview in the documentary, but this was
the CBC’s choice. Apart from Shelley and Emma’s youngest brother, the family
refused to watch the program. Perhaps it is too heartbreaking. Especially if
they allow themselves to consider at all the fact that they advised Shelley not
to go get Emma. Shelley had always been the disciplinarian parent and they
didn’t think Emma would be able to cope with this. In any case, everyone had
Emma’s best interest at heart. Nobody intended for things to come to this.
End of Part Four.
-Written by Erica J. Schmidt
Where is Emma Fillipoff
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| HAVE YOU SEEN EMMA? Please Share Your Stories and Tips Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group Email Erica: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com (contact form below) Email Shelley: fillipoff(at)hotmail(dot)com Call the police. Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook Erica on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor |
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