Re-examining a traumatic scene from an adult lens: More He Needed to Have Done

**Trigger warning: suicide attempt**

She was angry again.
It was our fault again.
We were too loud, too messy, too hungry.

I don't remember if she screamed in our faces or slammed doors or threw things (including children).

I remember the silence.
That was worse.
I remember watching her collect various pill bottles from their spot on the kitchen table.

-

A scene from years before flashed in my mind as I watched her calmly, methodically gathering more and more pill bottles as if they were eggs from a chicken coop:

"I was so mad at God" she had explained after telling us the story of trying to kill herself in college, "He wouldn't let me die and I wanted so very much to die."

She thinks she's so special the God of the universe needs her to live.

Maybe she just didn't pick a fatal method.
Why did she want to die so badly?

Why is she telling us?

Does she still want to die?

"An extra big bottle of extra strength Tylenol combined with ...(she trailed off not finishing her sentence. I always assumed she meant alcohol but didn't want my younger brothers to know she drank.) But nothing. Not a thing happened. Not a headache. Not a stomachache. Nothing."

Shouldn't she be positioning this as a miracle?
She still seems sad and angry about it.

Maybe this explains the health problems she has now.

I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to tell your kids this kid of thing.

"So don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. God won't let me."

Ah. There's the why. My little brother was afraid of losing her.

Sometimes I wish we would.

Can I also be mad at God for not letting her die?

-

I knew what she was doing with those bottles, but I asked anyway.

She didn't answer. Didn't look at me.

When she had all she could hold, she went up to her room and locked the door.

I started pleading with her from the other side of the door.

Telling her she was a good mom.
Telling her we needed her.

Telling her we wanted her.

I wasn't even sure I believed myself, but I knew I wasn't supposed to just let her kill herself alone in her bed with her kids at home.

I called Dad.

"Mom collected all the pill bottles she could carry and locked herself in her room. She's not answering us. What do we do?"

"I'm coming. Tell her I'm coming."

He got there and urgently fiddled with the lock on the door while yelling at her that her kids were watching and scared. I can still hear his voice: "Don't do this, Lois."

He got the door open and went in. 

I don't remember how long he was in there with her.

All I remember is silence, but there could have been crying and shouting.

How it ended is fuzzy, but if I had to bet, I'd say Dad came out and told us, "Mom's okay now. Try not to bother her. I've gotta go back to work for a bit, but I'll be home as soon as I can."

-

As a kid, I read this scene: My dad is a hero. He swooped in and saved my mom's life (when I couldn't).

But as I was driving home from dropping my own sweet kids off at school, a question popped into my mind: Why didn't Dad ever tell anybody about this or get any help? Were we in a small group at the time and he didn't think that warranted at least a prayer request? How old was I?

I replayed the scene in my mind, sure that I was 7 or 8. If I was home, it was before I was babysitting out of the house every day, which started at 12. Then I remembered the picture I took of the pills sitting in a pile beside her bed for weeks after. I must have taken the picture on my phone, which I bought when I turned 18. Is it possible I was 18 when this happened? I felt so young in the memory! Could this have happened multiple times? I also bought a digital camera at 16. It's possible I took the picture with that and transferred it to my phone later. I don't know why it was important to me to have a reminder of that day. I kind of wish I still had it so I could post it here. I think I deleted the picture when my kids discovered it on my old phone which they charged and looked through one day. 

The question remains: If your partner takes steps to kill themselves, would you tell anyone? Would you get help? What would make you swoop in to save the day and then pretend it didn't happen and hope it didn't reoccur?

- had they tried to get help before and found it unsuccessful?

- did part of him, like part of me, just want her to succeed in un-aliving herself?

- did he feel responsible and ashamed of her mental health?

- was he in denial that there was an ongoing problem?

My whole life, I gave my dad a free pass at everything. He couldn't do more, he had to go to work! I thought it was amazing that he did the grocery shopping and cooked dinner and did what dishes we kids didn't ON TOP OF working a full time job. 

    I judged my mom as lazy and incompetent. She sat on her butt or laid in her bed all day, unless she was up and around terrorizing people. I did the majority of the chores with minimal help from my siblings.

As an adult, I'm slowly realizing that there was more he could have done. There was more he NEEDED to have done.

I've been doing EMDR therapy on the target belief "My needs are too much for others to handle." I'm fairly certain that this memory popped up today because a wounded child part of me believes it was my needs that pushed my mother to no longer want to be alive.

If Dad did tell us to "try not to bother her" after she'd just consented to continue living, the link is obvious. How heartbreaking. And no wonder why I value getting a diagnosis so that the children around don't wonder if they're the problem.