Facing My Failures

“Depression is the inability to construct a future” ~ Rollo May

I knew there would come a time when addressing this would be essential. I know that shedding light on this may or may not change your opinion of me but it’s time, it’s just time to open up about a period in my life that with all my heart I wish wasn’t a part of my history.

Here goes.

My past has skeletons, huge skeletons. Some I wish I could just forget but these issues affected others irrevocably so for that, I have to always recognize there existence and address them when they come up. My children have forgiven; some in part and some in whole but because of my failure I have been a catalyst to their pain and for that, I am forever sorry and forever appreciative of their graces.

For a number of years, plus 15 at least, I suffered from varying levels of depression. As a consequence my support and parenting of my beautiful children lacked and because of it they suffered.

As I look at it now, the picture is so much clearer and the future has become so much brighter but back then, the outlook was beyond dreary.

I am better for so many reasons. With the help of amazing professionals, Dr. Z from LDS family services, Dr. W and many inspired Bishops; Bishop L, H, and Bishop T. All worked together to help me find the hope not just to move on but to also endure.

Why, you wonder, am I addressing this now? Because it is time to cough up to the failures and to bring light so others may understand and to find a way out, that involves living, to find the hope that makes the journey enjoyable.

K3 has started a blog, a healing place, and as I read it this week, it brought me back to a very difficult place and though she and I have passed through the forgiveness and come to terms with all that was wrong, there will be those times when this part of my past will rear it’s ugly head and I will relive how much I failed those I loved so much around me.

Depression is insidious and heart breaking and when one is in it, confusing. I knew early on that I needed help. I asked if I could get help; I think K1 was nearly 5 or 6 the first time. I begged M to let me see someone. His answer was always the same, NO. He felt strongly that if I sought help from LDS Social Services that it would result in his being bypassed for church leadership. He demanded I use him and his priesthood, (not by laying on of hands – he simply didn’t do that, I wasn‘t worthy of it) but that his priesthood could help me. All I needed to do was FOLLOW his Priesthood and then there wouldn’t be any issues.

I was caught in the greatest of ironies. His narcissism and abuse was no doubt a catalyst for the depression I was in but he felt he was the only way I could be cured of it. I was helpless to find relief and now, as I look at it, why couldn’t I have just found the strength to just go and get the help? Why did I not recognize the suffering of my children too?

As the years passed and things progressively got worse I started to see just how destructive every part of my life was. I was compensating in every wrong way to make things right with the kids. It wasn’t until M lost his job that the full powder keg was lit.

M was home full time and he was on a rampage. It was our unrighteousness that was leaving him unemployed. He became hyper involved in every aspect of the kids lives and my life and I started to withdraw, on every level. I sunk deeper and deeper into a depression that was alienating my children, my family and my friends and in doing that I was leaving my children more and more vulnerable. I failed them and I was failing myself as well.

Then came the Sunday when my failure reached one of its lowest point. I ache as I write this, it still pains me to know of just how much I wasn’t there for K3, for any of them for that matter. I was working two jobs at the time. I only came out of the room to go to work and the house was a mess. M was home all day but he had begun to pray in Fish Creek for 6 -8 hours a day. On this Sunday he was up in arms about the laundry and had rounded up K3 to address his frustration. I use the word lightly, he was in a rage. I heard him yelling and screaming and I heard K3 defending herself but I was so low I could barely raise my head from the pillow. Then I heard a sound that to this day rattles me to my inner soul.

M had lost it and pushed K3 so violently to the floor to force her to pick up her laundry that as he did, her upper bone in her arm snapped in half. I had heard the bone snap. I instinctively jumped to my feet and ran the 20 feet to her. Her screams of anguish were indication enough of the pain she was in. I put her in my arms and ran to the car. I didn’t even need to guess her arm was broken; it was, I knew it was and I all I could think was how I had failed her. I should have protected her and I didn’t.

Now you would think that this would be enough for me to learn. That this lesson alone would have been enough to scare me into change.

Nope, still more failure to come.

As I started to drive K3 to the hospital I immediately recognized that with every turn I made her arm was shifting and the break was getting worse. I couldn’t go back and get help, M would have been no help. I headed straight to where I knew both K3 and I could find solace, where I could get the help I needed to go to the hospital. I drove straight to Mom’s and ran into the house, in heaves of tears I told her I needed her help. She didn’t even question, at that time, I doubt she had seen or heard from me in weeks, I had shut her out of my hopelessness. She put on her coat and came directly to the car where she took K3 into her arms and braced her broken bone. Mom enveloped her the the safety I had failed to give her.

K3 was heaving in pain and going into shock. Mom asked what happened and I just muttered the truth. She was furious but had the sensitivity to know that K3 was traumatized and I, very fragile. We arrived at the Children’s Hospital and they took her in immediately. The nurses knew me as D was in the middle of his Kohler’s Disease and was often brought through emergency to get his casts on. They laid K3 down and started an IV for pain relief. This is where my failures levelled to one of its lowest states.

I asked K3 to lie.

To this day I can’t say why. Our family was in chaos and M was frightening me so much with his anger. I wasn’t handling anything and I guess in my warped and twisted state I felt what I asked of her was easier than facing the wrath of M.

There is no excuse good enough or right enough to ever justify what I did. To this day I am haunted by my lack of parenting, my absolute inability to do the right thing. I failed my daughter in every way that day. I failed myself. I failed my Father in Heaven. I failed.

Mom was so lost as to how to help either me or K3. She wanted to tell the doctor and I begged her not to. She knew how bad things were at home, she knew how fragile I was and to this day, I can’t forgive myself for even asking my Mom or K3 to say nothing.

You probably think things couldn’t have gotten worse but they did. I feel deeper into a depression and the kids continued to suffer. M to this day insists his actions were appropriate and that K3 breaking her arm was a fluke. It wasn’t, we both failed our daughter that day.

Add two years and a whole lot of dysfunction running under the home’s bridge and you will find me at the moment of greatest despair. Brother Z speaking to me about truth and abuse and having me understand that not only were the kids suffering abuse at the hands of the priesthood holder in our home but that I was too. He had to have me understand my role and as he did I found the bottom of my hopeless, bottomless pit.

I had reached rock bottom.

I had been on anti depressants for some three years, gained over 80 pounds and didn’t see hope; AT ALL. I had not protected my children and I was nothing, not even in my Father in Heaven’s eyes. I had disappointed everyone. Brother Z knew that I had to find myself somewhere in this place my body had turned on to automatic. He spoke of forgiveness and he spoke of failure and as I left his office I was fully aware of all the loved ones in my life I had failed. I was overwhelmed with despair.

I drove home from my appointment and went straight to my room. M followed me and was up in arms about my still seeing the councillor still. Was I ever going to get better, was I ever going to be a righteous person, why couldn’t I just do what he says, follow his priesthood.

I went into the bathroom, fell to the floor and sobbed. M continued to bang on the door yelling his opinions and further mocking my weakness. I couldn’t do it anymore. I had failed everyone, why bother anymore. The banging stopped and I sat in my tears, sobbing and falling deeper and deeper into despair. I got up, opened the drawer and pulled out the bottle of pain killers and sleeping pills. I emptied them in my hand and sat back down against the door. I shuffled them from one hand to the other, over and over again, thinking about the failures of my life.

So many failures.

I am not sure how long I was there, I know my very soul ached with exhaustion and fear. I prayed over and over again for a reason to stay but what they don’t tell you about anti depressants is that they make you spiritually dead inside, the spirit can’t reach you, can’t guide you, can’t bring you to a sense of spiritual peace.

It was at this moment I heard a small knock and from under the crack in the door I heard a small voice.

"Mom, are you there. I love you. Please don’t go, please."

I doubt he has any idea to this day how he saved me. His voice was my reason, his voice was my hope. He needed me, they all needed me and it was time. It was just time to step up, to find a healing place and to fight. D had been through so much, the girls were going through so much, we all had been through so much. I couldn’t give up, I just couldn’t.

I got up from the floor, flushed the pills in the toilet and opened the door. I took that sweet little saviour and hugged him so hard. The next day I went to Dr. Z and begun the process of healing; of improving and of finding responsibility and hope. I may have been failing my children, myself and everyone around me but I could change that. I was going to change that.

I came off the anti depressants slowly and starting feeling hope, I started to see answers and they were in me the whole time. As a family we worked with LDS Family Services for a long time but the marriage just wasn’t salvageable. We weren’t all coming to the plate.

I have spent many years seeking the forgiveness of my children. I know that there is still very much a part of them that has pain and I know my role in it. I find myself continuing to try to make it right.

I am grateful to Bishops and to the Lord for his role in helping me find myself again and for councillors who helped in the emotional healing. It took a long time but we have surfaced and we are sailing. I still fail sometimes but I see it sooner. They might not understand but I am hoping that in time they will.

So why write about it now. Because it’s real and far too many times people hide their suffering out of fear of being judged. I am not perfect, my family isn’t perfect and each of my children deal with pain in their own way. We were all affected by the dysfunction and this incident isn’t the only thing I failed my children with. The difference now is that I have hope, I see real recovery and nothing is worth ending your life over, especially when you are a parent, a wife, a daughter, a friend.

K3 and I are at peace over this. Lots of therapy and forgiveness on her behalf has brought resolution, at least for her and I on this. I am still working with my other children and in time, I know we will find peace all around.

Once again, I am so grateful for my children and for their help as I started to lift myself up. My family, my sister, my Mom, my friends all came back when I opened the door and all were essential in my finding hope. I am forever grateful to everyone, more than I think everyone will ever know.

Final words:

“If depression is creeping up and must be faced, learn something about the nature of the beast: You may escape without a mauling.”
~ Dr. R. W. Shepherd