Terry Klugman was a good-looking kid – full of energy, enthusiasm, brains and creativity.
He had a 3.76 grade-point average in high school, was a junior ski patrolman, captain of his debate team and a volunteer on John Hickenlooper’s mayoral campaign. He loved politics and had jstarted at Amherst College, aiming toward a law degree.
Sometimes he stayed up around the clock for days at a time working on a project.
But all the while, he fought the creeping bipolar condition that eventually led to his death, probably a suicide by drugs.
His body was found in an Aurora motel Oct. 3. He was 20.
Terry’s parents, Kathy and Rob Klugman, agreed to talk about their son partially because they know that “after the heartbreaking and hugely frustrating experience of (their son’s) last eight months, this is not an uncommon tragedy.”
Things “crashed in January” and Terry and his East Denver family were on a “roller coaster” for the rest of Terry’s life, Kathy Klugman said. Last July, she found a suicide note Terry posted on his website.
It was written when he was in a depressive state, when he felt despair and hopelessness, his mother said.
“There’s just too much pain for me to keep going,” he wrote. “I’ve tried to hang on as long as I could. These last six months, I feel like I’ve been betrayed by everyone I care about. … I hope I have done more good than harm in this world.
“I’m sorry to those who I will hurt. It seemed like I was hurting people just as much by sticking around.”
Bipolar disorder is a chemical and biological disease that most often manifests in the late teens and early 20s, producing extreme highs and lows in mood, Kathy Klugman said.
She believes the mental health system failed her son, though she had high praise for many mental health professionals.
The stumbling blocks were several, she said. Terry didn’t want to take his medicine, and when things began cycling downward, there was nothing that his parents or anyone else could do to force him to take it because he was over 18.
The family pleaded with mental health workers and tried unsuccessfully to get a court order that would require Terry to take his medication.
Terry was in denial, his parents said, and never believed he had a mental illness. The medicine has side effects: it can damage kidneys; it often brings on pimples; Terry said it made food taste “funny.”
It also levels out emotions, which isn’t always appreciated by patients exhilarated by their manic states.
But even the manic times had a downside: Terry would lash out verbally at people and sometimes throw things. “I have the dent in the wall to prove” where Terry once threw a vase, his mother said.
When Terry was a teenager and had such outbursts, his parents chalked it up first to normal teenage rebellion, said his father, then later to ADD. Terry was medicated for that disorder, but he didn’t have ADD.
Terry could be charming, gracious and fun to be around, but he could also be more candid than people wanted or expected him to be.
Through it all, the Klugmans sought help, read “tons of books,” gathered information and advocated for their son. But in the end, he was hardly speaking to them because they kept after him about the medication, Kathy Klugman said.
A family friend, Daniel Bennett, director of Central Agency for Jewish Education, reminded people at Terry’s memorial service that, “Terence had a disease, but he was not his disease.”
Hickenlooper was unable to attend, but sent a statement saying, “Terence’s passing wounds me as deeply and painfully as anything I can remember.” He was eager, effective and enthusiastic in his campaign work, Hickenlooper said.
Those and other comments from friends remind the family of the happy times with Terry, said Kathy Klugman.
She also remembered Terry’s humor and insightful questions. The Klugman children were raised Catholic – her faith – though her husband is a Jew and that was the faith Terry chose.
As a kid, Terry attended Catholic Sunday school, and once was asked “do you believe Jesus is God, that he became man, that he died for our sins and that God loves us?”
Terry shot back: “No, no, no and yes.”
Terence Klugman was born July 2, 1985, in Denver. In addition to his parents, he is survived by his sister, Maura Klugman, a law student at Harvard; his paternal grandmother, Mildred Klugman of Boca Raton, Fla.; and his maternal grandparents, Terence and Barbara Martin of Bloomington, Ind.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
