When I was 19, someone I loved and looked up to took her own life. Her battle with manic depression was lifelong. She was in and out of the in-patient and out-patient programs that try to save us…. The ones that lock you in, medicate you, shock you, put you into groups, and try to change how you feel and how you think.
When I was going through my college depression, this friend of mine would come to my home and give me books, small gifts, and words of hope. She was a few years older than me and she told me that it gets better and to keep going. She convinced me that God sees us and He knows our pain. She told me that no one can explain why we have it or why our brains sometimes don’t heal from it. “There’s more of us,” she said. “There are groups that can help people like us. Keep hanging on, Laura.”
This friend of mine went missing one hot, summer week. No one could find her and her posters went up. The police began looking for her as a missing person. Our church family was beside ourselves. We prayed for her to be found unharmed and safe. We cried with her parents as they continued to look for her. A week later, she was found starving and dehydrated hiding in the steaming, summer heat of her parents’ attic. She didn’t want to be found. She didn’t want to burden anyone. She hid herself away because people don’t understand.
I can still see her missing-person posters. They were posted all around our community at the local stores. I saw her beautiful, shiny blonde hair and blue eyes as I opened doors to walk into Walgreens and Cub Foods; A stunning smile hid her mental illness. She had given me a book – her words written in the margins. They were words of self-reflection, hope, and a constant plea for help. I still have the book. The title doesn’t matter. Inside I see her handwriting pleading for an answer – hanging onto the fringe of life – waiting for better days. Help us stop the madness, Lord.
I don’t know how long after my friend was found and treated that she went missing again. I just remember the day at college when my mom called me on the phone and told me to sit down. My friend was found again. But this time she was gone forever from this world. The details were more than I could take sitting there in silence listening to my mother. The harsh facts of how my friend ended her life do not matter. She was found with her Bible and a note with her. She was sorry to her friends and family, and she prayed that God would forgive her and understand why she couldn’t go on.
I sat at the funeral service staring blankly at her photograph. I took in her shiny, blonde hair and blue eyes with a bubbly personality that could light up a room. I glanced over at her parents bravely shaking hands and exchanging hugs with friends and family. It really is still so VERY PAINFUL. “Here I am, Lord” was playing on the organ, and I distinctly remember her mother taking me aside and pulling me in. She whispered to me to never give up. She told me it should never end that way and that there is a lot of hope and help. I can STILL feel the devastation and hear the utter desperation in her voice, “It doesn’t have to be this way, Laura. It shouldn’t be this way. No matter how bad it gets, you keep going. Do you hear me, Laura? You keep going.”
Time marched forward without a choice and I finished college. I just picked up and went on without her. I’d see her brave parents at church – marching on too – because there really is no other choice. It wasn’t easy and it never has been when I stop to think of it. Most days I can’t stand to think of it. But its been so hot this week. Her memory has bubbled up to the surface again.
Her book holds a prominent spot on my living room shelf. Her funeral bulletin somewhere else – safe out of sight – saved forever. Mostly though, her mother’s words and touch remain on me just like it was yesterday. You don’t really get over it, You don’t really, fully move on. Ever. And you don’t get over clinical depression. MY daily depression never leaves. It hangs on, just like the memory of her. It stings me, and burns deep into my heart and mind if I think too much. I’ve been on medicine for more than half my life now – It keeps me here, keeps me hanging on writing HOPE in the margins.
People, friends, unknowns…. they expect you to just dig your way out. “Work less”, they say. “Try different things, exercise more, try better doctors, try different foods and medicines.” If it were that simple, don’t you think people like me would have tried it already? In fact, I bet I have already tried those things, thank you. The fact is, that I have tried EVERYTHING. I’ve even stood at the front of churches, hands up, with false prosperity pastors that promised me healing. Pray harder – believe more. It didn’t work. There was no healing.
I don’t know why – but on really hot days I still think of my friend in that attic. I know she was overheated and scared, tired and hungry. I understand fully that none of these things matter when you are in the depths of despair. Depression waits for no one. It is inopportune and selfish and evil. It rips your mind apart and you feel somewhat lost – incomplete – day in and day out. There is no rhyme or reason as to why you have it. I ask myself daily why I keep feeling lost. Just like my friend, there is no lack of faith in my life and heart.
I wonder where she would be in life right now. Would she be married? Would she have kids? Would she still be struggling, too?
I wish she was still with us so badly. I know she would listen to me on my dark days – never rushing me -always picking up the call and really, truly listening. She would let me repeat my grief over and over as many times as it takes. She wouldn’t tell me I’d feel better if I worked less, or that I should give up and quit on certain things that matter to me just because they are hard. She wouldn’t blame my day-to-day life on the way my mind works, or tell me I’m an attention-seeker. She wouldn’t say things that devastate my heart or make the pain go deeper. She WOULDN’T do those things because she, too, desperately understood how it felt to have mental illness. She knew that we just simply don’t have the answers. And neither do you.
I know she’s in Heaven because God is a loving God and she was really sick. I hope she sees me, and I hope she’s proud of me that I kept on going. I hope her new attic is soothing, beautiful, and peaceful and that God’s light shines in making the room happy and bright. Mostly, I hope that along with God, she’ll help me see His Light when it gets too dark to write HOPE in the margins.
It has been very hot here for over a week now. I took her book down from my shelf today because I wanted to remember her again. It’s worn pages are just as I remember them: Dog-eared, underlined, lightly frayed, and the messy handwriting is in dark green marker…..Never stop living. Keep going.
“All You Ever Did” – Kandi Peterson