Well, I guess I am still having trouble writing about Jessi's suffering and struggles. It has been a year and a half since I wrote Part I. But I am with her now, in her home, and have been for nearly a month, having been separated by the pandemic since her wedding in October of 2019. Being with her helps me face the pain and worry I continue to carry.
Part I might have been titled: The Courage to Face the Truth. Part II is really about the courage to face the depression and suicidal ideations head on, and then learning how to trust those we love to God.
The power of love can create a kind of intuitiveness. I have had that kind of connection with Jessi for a long time, even during her junior high and senior high years when we were not particularly “close.”
I’m not exactly sure where that kind of deep connectedness comes from. Maybe it grows out of the way we constantly gaze upon those we love, noting their expressions and moods and gestures, looking deep into their eyes to try to understand and support. Perhaps it comes from years of observing how they react to certain events, experiences or statements about life. And yet, for all that, with some people the connection seems to go deeper, even beyond these experiences.
It was a Thursday night in the winter of Jessi’s freshman year in high school. I was in bed but couldn’t sleep. I don’t remember what I had observed that day, but I tossed and turned, focused on Jessi. Finally, I got out of bed. I went through the house, including the garage, and gathered up so I could hide every knife, razor or sharp object I could find. I found secret places to hide every pain pill and other prescription medicines. I grabbed every rope and extension cord I could find. Having hidden all of those things away, I fell into a restless sleep that lasted longer than normal.
I was awakened by the sound of Mary yelling at Jessi to open her bedroom door. I don’t know how she got in, but she found Jessi--who had looked for a knife but couldn’t find one- swallowing a handful of one of her anti-depressant drugs. Mary began to fish them out of her mouth before she could swallow them, trying to find out from Jessi how many pills had been left in the bottle. We eventually determined that Mary had gotten almost all of them out.
I called Jessi’s therapist and she told us to take her to the Behavioral Health Hospital in Mesa. As we drove to the hospital, I kept looking at Jessi in the rearview mirror as she sat crunched into a ball in the back seat. The anger and fear and sadness in her eyes were like I had never seen before. She looked like she had been “possessed” by some other being. She did not look at all like herself.
Thus began a long day of sitting in waiting rooms, visiting with doctors, getting Jessi admitted to the hospital. We stayed with her as long as we were allowed until we were asked to go home, being told we could return the next morning at 9 am to see her again.
When we arrived--before we could see Jessi--we were ushered into a room to meet with the staff member who had done her intake interview.
In my published book on loss and grief [When the Northern Lights Went Dark: Amazon] I share several of the times we all have had in life when something is said to us so startling that we remember the place and words exactly as they were said. The most painful time for me with that kind of experience occurred that morning, when the intake staff member looked at us, and, mincing no words, said to us: “Now, the first thing you have to realize is that if Jessi decides to kill herself, you will not be able to stop her!”
I can’t even begin to describe the sadness and fear that statement elicited in me. Whenever I think of it, or try to share it, even these 15 years later, I can barely get the words out.
It would take a long time for me to begin to understand what the therapist was saying to us, but, looking back, there were two essential learnings that would come from that statement.
The first was that the most important thing in the future would be our relationship of love with Jessi, including the kind of intuitiveness we have with each other. Oh, there would be plenty of times when we would--out of understandable fear--try to control Jessi: where was she, what she was doing, who she was with, etc. We would play cat and mouse at times-- which never really helped--and probably just hurt our relationship. But eventually we came to understand that all we could really do was to love and support Jessi and try to really “listen” to what was going on for her. Like me, Mary also had plenty of rocky times with Jessi during those high school years, but now, at age 30, Jessi begins almost every day by calling her mother (and sometimes me.)
We would make many mistakes along the way. The lack of trust that grew out of our unrelenting fear implied that we thought Jessi was not doing the right things, or trying hard enough to be healthy. But, day by day, we would come to see and realize that the opposite is actually the truth: Jessi has to work so very hard every day of life not just to try to survive, but to also try to thrive. From the constant monitoring of her food intake--matching it with insulin--to the countless finger pricks to measure her blood sugar, to the days when anxiety is so powerful she can barely breathe, to the days depression takes over and she cannot get out of bed. Then there are the many attempts to finish college classes and get and keep jobs that so often end in what feels like failure to her as the anxiety and depression overtake her ability to finish classes or keep jobs. So much loss, so much grief.
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