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Mary's Story
I have lived with fear almost my whole life. Almost as long as I can
remember, I was scared of the “things” that were under the bed and
that were “watching” me whenever I was in the house
alone. I lived in a big old farmhouse up on a windy hill and I was
the youngest and was left alone a lot.
Because of that, I spent as much time as I could outside with the
animals and with my dad out in the barn. I loved that. I was really
shy, but out there it didn’t matter. With me not able to attend the
same school as my church friends, my loneliness persisted and my
first suicide attempt occurred in grade 7 when I took a whole bottle
of pills.
When I turned 15, things looked like they were getting better. I got
contact lenses, I had more confidence and I started going out with
my brothers friends who were from the church. Only problem was, all
they were into was drinking and bush parties and I was too enamoured
to say no. And a lot of the guys from the church figured that if you
were a public school kid, you must be easy. Luckily my big brother
was there to protect me.
Then when I was 17, my dad got cancer and died three weeks later. I
was in his room when he died and it was absolutely terrifying. I had
been pretty rebellious the half year before he died, and I never did
get to say I loved him before he died. Before dad died, he told mom
not to worry, that I was a good girl and that I would take care of
things – even though I was the youngest in the family. I was
“daddy’s” girl – he was really quiet and loved being outside on the
farm, just like me. Now some big shot came and bought all our cattle
and machinery and even though we owned the land, the farm wasn’t
really ours anymore. My sister moved away to college, my one brother
was in university and my other brother was always out, either
partying with his friends or at home being absolutely miserable –
trying to deal with his grief. So it was me and mom and I figured it
was my job to make sure everything at home stayed ok. I didn’t want
to talk to her about how horrible I was feeling about everything, so
instead I would go out on the weekends and get absolutely plastered
to take away the pain. Of course – that doesn’t work too well – I
went from being an honour student to failing everything. Mom went to
night school and joined a few social groups and I was left home even
more in a house that really terrified me now that I knew for sure
someone had died in it. I ended up thinking I was pregnant and the
first thing my mom did was book an appointment with a “new doctor”
in town who agreed with her that I had to have an abortion because
this was my fault and mom couldn’t deal with this right now. She
grounded me to just seeing my boyfriend once a week, so now I was
alone on weekends too.
The only time I could talk about how horrible I was feeling was when
I was really really drunk –. But I would wait for so long to talk
about it that it only came out when I was really desperate and then
the pain would be so bad that I would try to kill myself. One night
I tried to run in front of a transport truck – but some guy grabbed
me at the last minute. Another time, I tried to get out of the car
so I could kill myself, but my boyfriend wouldn’t let me. So I tried
to smash the car window out with my head – figuring if I couldn’t
get out – at least that would kill me. He stopped me – but not
before I had kicked his front windshield in.
This whole time – even though I went to church regularly – no
minister or anyone else ever talked to me about how things were
going. They would ask my boyfriend how he was doing with the death
of his girl friends father, but they never asked me.
I moved out of the house when I was 18, because where I lived there
weren’t any jobs and got a job an hour away from my home and all my
friends. My boyfriend would pick me up on Friday night and take me
back on Sundays. Every Sunday I would cry for about two hours,
thinking that I was never going to see him again, that he too would
die and leave me alone. I got married when I was 21, not because I
was ready to get married, but because I wanted a normal life again.
But getting married didn’t bring my dad back and it didn’t bring my
family back. I cried for a whole week after the honeymoon and for
the first 20 years of my life I cried every time my husband would go
away on business, or go away with his friends – even if it was just
for a couple of hours to play hockey. I had his whole funeral
planned out – I had the poll bearers picked, the hymns, what I would
wear – even who the single guys were in church in case I had to get
remarried.
When my kids were born I had the same thing with them. I worked
midnights in a nursing home when they were little and I would drive
home every morning absolutely convinced that the house had burned
down and they had all died while I was gone. I could see it all in
my mind. The worst part was that I had convinced myself years before
that God hated me and that I wasn’t going to go to heaven when I
died and I would never see them again.
I lived with this fear for about 25 years, but by this time it was
normal for me and I thought I had things under control. I tried to
be active in my church – but every time I would try to do something,
it would work for a while and I would get really into it and then I
would burn out. I couldn’t stand being at home, so I went to work
full time. My husband started travelling a lot for work and my kids
got older and needed more of my time for driving them around for
stuff and I started to burn out in my personal life now too. So I
decided to take a part time job to try to “slow” down.
It was a disaster – suddenly I had time at home to face all my fears
– and I couldn’t . My kids were teenagers and didn’t need me. I
started breaking down the very first day that I was home. I couldn’t
sleep – I couldn’t eat and worst of all – I couldn’t stop crying. I
would cry non stop from morning to night.
For three months I never slept more than two hours a night. Some
nights I wouldn’t sleep at all and then I would be awake the whole
next day. I tried to act normal while other people were around, but
even that stopped eventually. I would shake uncontrollably for hours
and then I started talking about death all the time. Some mornings
it felt like something was attacking me and I couldn’t even stand. I
tried praying and I would literally cry out to God to give me back
my old job and let me go back to work every day – I thought he
wasn’t listening though.
My friend finally got me to go to my doctor, but I only told him
part of the problem and he gave me 50 sleeping pills. I thought –
great – jackpot – I took 4 right away – but they didn’t even make me
tired. I wanted to know how many of those pills I had to take to
kill myself – so I went on the internet. I typed in “suicide” and
happened to find a website of a person who was formerly suicidal. I
wanted to know if God would let me go to heaven if I killed my self
, so I clicked on this link that I figured would take me to some
anonymous place that would hopefully give me the answer I wanted.
Right way, I was emailed back and was offered to take a call from a
this person. After that, we talked regularly. A couple of days
later, my husband got laid off and I got even more depressed – so I
tried to take all the sleeping pills. It was God’s grace that my
husband was home that day and stopped me., but I broke down even
more – I figured now I had really failed my family because I had
quit my full time job and now my husband had no work and he didn’t
qualify for unemployment either. I called my internet friend in a
frantic state and he talked me down. Then he told me I should talk
to my minister about my problems – so I did - even though I was
really scared. Unfortunately – my minister said he understood all
about depression and that he wanted to help me and then he handed me
a card for a marriage and family counselor. I was suicidal – I
didn’t have marriage problems. And he never did call me ever again.
So my internet friend called around and found me a really great
minister in my area who honestly did help me. He met with me for two
hours, twice a week for 3 months until I overcame all my fears. And
my internet friend called me twice a day to make sure I was ok and
in control and to disarm any bad thoughts or feelings that had come
up.
Through counseling I slowly began identifying my fears and the lies
that I believed about myself which were stealing away my peace and
making me feel like I was useless and deserved to die, such as: that
I was not as good as everyone else – that I was a horrible mother
and had put my family in financial straits by wanting to stay home –
that my husband was going to die and leave me destitute.
There were many times that my internet friend talked me out of doing
myself harm. For a while I was cutting myself and he patiently
talked me through it. If necessary he would call my husband and tell
him that he needed to come home because I was suicidal – however, he
never broke confidence either. He never judged me or made me feel
like I was mentally ill.
For the last few months, I have been doing much better. Shortly
after this whole situation started, an opportunity to work full-time
at a university came up, which would allow our teenagers to attend
the school at a reduced rate, and I got the job! When stressful
situations come up at work, I can deal with them. I no longer scream
at my children – we have a wonderful relationship now. I have
control over every aspect of my life and when tough decisions need
to be made, I can rationalize them, and have peace, knowing that I
have made the best decision possible and I can live with the outcome
no matter what unfolds. Not only that, an opportunity came up in our
church for a friend and I to start a youth group, and that too has
been going very well.
I can honestly say I have not felt anxiety in a very long time – it
feels like I am a new person.
Questions or Comments
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