Coming Out of the Dark

               

In 1982 I made my first suicide attempt.  I got to the end of myself, ate every pill in the medicine cabinet and waited to die.  Three days later, on the way home from the hospital, my mother said two things that defined the way I saw myself for more than twenty years.

                “You have to go to confession.”

                and,

                “You can never tell anyone else about this.”

                The message was very clear.  My suicide attempt was a sin I would bear with shame.

                Before the end of the week, I went to confession and told the priest I’d tried to kill myself.  I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he FREAKED OUT.  I remember being scared by his reaction and not understanding it.  This was the priest who baptized me as an infant, I’d literally known him my whole life. I’d never seen him have this big of a reaction to anything.  

He gave me “penance” to do for my sin.  Thinking back, I don’t remember thinking it was any more severe than the penance he’d given me after other confessions.

                Against my mother’s order, I did tell my best friend, Beth what I’d done.  A few weeks later, we weren’t friends anymore and I passed her a note in Math class that said, “please don’t tell anyone I tried to kill myself.”  She didn’t read it, she picked it up and took it to the teacher.  The teacher read it and I was mortified.  The teacher never said a word to me about it.  All of this happened in the weeks before my 12^th birthday.  I was in debilitating, emotional pain, I had no idea what to do with and it felt like no one cared, no one wanted to help me… they just wanted to sweep my horrible act under the rug.

                I’m sitting here crying as I type and relive this.  This is only the 2^nd time I’ve allowed myself to go back and revisit these feelings.

                I had to shed the largest, heaviest, most painful piece of baggage in my collection to be able to even start this blog.  I really struggled with this.  Even when I realized that this is my calling and committed to writing this blog, I struggled.  I’ve wrestled my mother’s words against what I believe is my God-given purpose.  I have absolute clarity about why it is important to share this story even though it completely contradicts what I was raised to believe.  I’ve talked openly about my suicide attempt and my struggles with depression for years… in private settings.  This is a completely different arena… once this post is published, it’s out there… on the internet for anyone to read.  I might as well go on a national news channel and tell this story.

                The first time I shared this story, I knew I no longer thought that none of the people in this story didn’t care about it. I understood that they just didn’t know how to handle me, what to do with me.  They weren’t uncaring, they were unequipped, I’m sure at least in part due to their own baggage.  I’m sure that was the case with my mother.  She wasn’t mean… she was damaged; then I was damaged by her damage.  As far as Beth, my best friend… she was just as 12 as I was.

                Twenty-five years ago today, I buried my mother.  As much as I miss her, I’m glad she’s not here to witness this.  This blog would probably kill her.  I wrestle with sharing so much of my story because there’s that part of me that still wants to protect my mother’s memory and reputation.  A lot of people loved her and respected her.  I loved her and when I realized how much she endured, I found a surprising amount of respect for her.

                I listened to an interview a week ago where a woman talked about writing her book, a story of her childhood, detailing her father’s alcoholism, her mother’s codependency, and how she overcame all these incredible obstacles.  She was worried about telling this story and embarrassing her family.  Her mother told her to write the story.  I’m not so naive that I believe for a minute that my mother would have had that reaction.  My mother would have disowned me and then had an insulin reaction followed by a heart attack… no doubt about it.

                In Luke 8:17, Jesus tells us “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed,and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” 

What we don’t talk about controls us… which is why I just had a good, hard cry telling you about something that happened over 36 years ago.  We’re only as sick as our secrets, right?

What say you?  Have you been protecting a family secret for so long that you’re not sure you could even say it out loud today if you had to?  If you’ve purged the family secret,leave me a comment and tell me about the experience… how did it go? Did you feel liberated afterwards?