Before the Dawn

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

I’ve heard people say that folks who struggle with mental illness are the strongest out of everybody because what’s scarier than fighting with your own mind day in and day out? And I suppose if I was an inspirational-calendar-quotes kind of girl, that sort of thinking might give me a little perk when things get hard.

The funny thing is when I function, I function fine. You would never look at me and guess that by tomorrow my brain might go on strike for three or four weeks. When I’m busy with life and being productive, you could never imagine the demons that I’ve battled.

Both the demons I’ve conquered and the ones that I’m sure will plague me for the rest of my life.

It’s a curse, really, because when you do that well ten months out of the year, nobody worries about you during the two when you disappear. They just think, oh, I wonder where she is. Probably off traveling and forgot to tell me, or writing that great American novel she’s always talked about.

So, I know there’s this stereotype about authors, and really all artists in general. It’s this idea that depression is the muse of creative geniuses, and without their beloved mental illnesses, they’d never be able to create the masterpieces they do. Case in point: My high-school English teacher had a comic taped on the chalkboard. There’s a black-haired man with a pen sitting at his desk, smiling at the raven who just landed on his windowsill and greeting him with a cheerful, “Hello, birdie.” Caption? Edgar Allen Poe on Prozac.

I’m not knocking Prozac, by the way. My mom does enough of that for the both of us. What I’m saying is that as a culture we’ve got this idealized notion that a mentally stable Edgar Allen Poe would have never penned the haunting cadences in The Raven or the chilling, tragic story of Annabelle Lee in her kingdom by the sea. Tchaikovsky could have never dived into the depths of human emotion and experience to birth his fifth symphony in all its melancholic, awe-inspiring grandeur. Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear half a year before painting Starry Night. Coincidence?

Not according to the experts in their ivory towers.

So the artists are left to suffer as martyrs because who besides nursery-school kids wants to read a poem about a little birdie visiting a cheerful human in his well-lit chambers?

The problem with that line of reasoning is that for every Van Gogh, for every unstable artist who manages to surface from the depths of mental illness to create such lasting masterpieces, there are twenty or thirty or maybe a hundred artists who die without having the strength to lift up their pens or their paintbrushes and show the world the haunting, spirit-aching beauty that’s in their souls.

I could write. I know I could. If it weren’t for the fact that every time I try to jot something down, it lays me up in bed for weeks.

But I’m done complaining. Really I am. There are some things that if they could be fixed, they would have been fixed already. There’s a grand, universal reason for it all, I’m sure, and don’t try to wax eloquent and tell me what that reason might be. Like I said, if I wanted inspirational platitudes, I’d buy a cheap wall calendar.

You know, I started off ripping on folks who say that people with mental illness are stronger than average, but maybe there’s something to it. I mean, the fact that I’m alive is pretty startling. Not only that, but in spite of everything I’ve got going against me, I haven’t thought of killing myself since the very first crash.

Since I met you.

I guess you could call me theologically eclectic if you were to gauge it by the different churches I’ve attended. Orchard Grove, as you’re well aware, is extremely conservative. Bunch of old, retired orchardists and not too many young folks. And Valley Tabernacle, the one Chris and his family went to across the river, that was something different. Words of encouragement, apostolic testimonies, all that Holy Spirit stuff. Some of it I could do without, like the raising your hands out to your sides and spinning around in circles in the aisle. Or getting slain in the Spirit. Don’t even get me started on that.

I think if I were to look at that strain of Christianity with a critical eye, my biggest complaint would be how they make everything boil down to spiritual attacks. You get a bad case of indigestion — the devil must be fed up with you. You can’t find a parking spot at the post office, and all of a sudden you’re wondering if you invited demons into your life through some unconscious sin or other.

The problem with that demon-behind-every-bush theology, at least as far as I see it, is it takes responsibility away from the Christian and thrusts it onto the shoulders of Satan and his legions of minions. Kind of convenient if you want to look at your own sin patterns and offer up that all-too-common the devil made me do it excuse, but that’s about all I see going for it.

But I certainly won’t knock Valley Tabernacle either. Orchard Grove will never come close to creating that experience of deep, intensely personal worship. And it’s because of my time there that I’m free from my suicidal thoughts. I would have never really believed in that sort of immediate deliverance if it hadn’t happened to me firsthand. I’m not into the bells-and-whistles style of Christianity. Give me Jesus, give me the cross, give me Easter Sunday, and I’m ready to call it good. I don’t need a dramatic testimony every weekend, a brand-new belted-out chorus every service.

I’m not saying I was skeptical, but I certainly wasn’t looking for a miracle when I went to Valley Tabernacle with Chris that Sunday. We were both home for spring break our sophomore year, enjoying our last weekend together before we headed back to our respective campuses. It was hard because I hated the thought of being far from him, but we had so much future to plan, I was hopeful that the days would pass quickly. We’d both be back in Orchard Grove again by summer, and we were already in that pre-engagement stage where there’s no ring yet, no date, but you’re still walking through each day knowing you’re going to end up together.

I honestly thought my depression was gone for good. I’d been stupid to break up with Chris to start with. I could see that now. Best I could figure, my body and brain eventually decided to conspire against me to prove what a dumb decision I’d made, and now that the two of us were together, there was nothing but joy waiting ahead.

Ok, so maybe I wasn’t that naïve. I knew our future wouldn’t be without obstacles, but seriously, when you love as deeply as we did, you feel completely invincible against whatever the world may throw at you.

I already mentioned how the times I’ve been closest to God are when I’m with Chris. And even though it would be hard to say goodbye, I felt more hopeful that Sunday, more alive than I had since my high-school graduation. So I was at Valley Tabernacle, and who do you think it was who showed up as the new pastor? You know, I’m one of those old-school types who gets used to one preacher’s style of teaching, so if I hadn’t wanted to spend every possible minute with Chris, I might not have bothered to even show up that day. No offense, but I remember feeling antsy because I was in the middle of rereading The Grapes of Wrath, and it’s one of those books I like to finish in as few sittings as possible. That’s why I hoped your sermon wouldn’t last all that long.

And you got to talking, and it was deliverance this and Holy Ghost that, and I was half paying attention to you and half thinking about Ma and Pa Joad. I’d just gotten to the part where they bury Grampa, so I wasn’t even that far into it yet but really wanted to finish up before I headed back to campus.

But then something you said caught my attention, and I couldn’t help but sit there mesmerized, and you were all Holy-Spirit-fired up, shouting and even spitting on the congregants unfortunate enough to sit in the front row. And you were up there with your hands raised high, shouting, “My God is a God of DELIVERANCE!” and I was surprised you didn’t thump your fist onto your Bible at that point, but Valley Tabernacle’s the kind of church that doesn’t really see the need for a pulpit, so it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as you might have liked it to be.

And you were hollering, “My JESUS will heal every wound you bring to him,” and women in front of me were swaying, and folks were clasping their hands to their chests, and you were going at it with, “In JESUS’ name, we banish strongholds,” and “In JESUS’ name, we tear down barriers,” and something told me to leave. Told me to get back home, pick up my book, and forget about the screaming preacher in his thousand-dollar suit.

But there you were, spraying us all with your holy spittle, yelling at us to be washed clean of our infirmities in JESUS’ name and declaring the blood of JESUS over the whole lot of us, and something started quivering in my core. This shaking, trembling feeling I hadn’t experienced before and haven’t since. And you said in that booming voice, “SOMEONE here is tormented by a demon of suicide.” I’ve already told you my general thoughts regarding that demons-in-the-bushes style of Christianity, and something in my gut was prompting me to get out of there, but some weight on my shoulders was keeping me planted in my chair, and I’m not kidding when I tell you it was like a hand was holding me down.

And you said, “Someone here is in need of God’s DELIVERANCE,” and that word sent this icy chill down my spine, like whatever monster was trying to get me to leave was terrified of even the suggestion that I might find my freedom. I remember it vividly. You were shaking your fist, and our eyes met, and I was certain at that minute that something was going to happen between us. I couldn’t say what, I couldn’t even have told you if it would be good or bad. I just knew that this one, single look would make all the difference, like old Robert Frost would put it.

It’s bizarre because just as soon as your eye caught mine, I couldn’t look away from you. It was like my whole soul was being drawn to you one word at a time. Then you started to pray. You didn’t shut your eyes, and I didn’t either, but you prayed and asked God that “the person here looking for their deliverance would find it in JESUS’ name.” You were so bold, that’s what I remember most apart from that look. None of the typical if it’s your will, Lord, or anything like that. You gave God an ultimatum that Sunday. You gave him an ultimatum to deliver me from the spirit of suicide, and I’m way more conservative theologically than the typical Valley Tabernacle congregant, but I still can’t explain what happened to me. You said the word suicide, and something ripped out of my spine. That’s the only way to put it. Just ripped right out. Excruciatingly painful, but freeing, too. Like that boy in Voyage of the Dawn Treader who has to peel off his dragon scales to become human again.

That’s what was happening to me. Peeling off, removing that old self, that suicidal self, that part of me that had whispered that the world would be better off without me, that I would be better off without it. All those self-destructive tendencies of mine, the same self-loathing that made me break up with Chris when we started our first year of college. Those lies. I could see them now so clearly for what they were. Lies from the pit of hell. Lies telling me I was wretched, I was unlovable, I was unworthy of any happiness.

And in a few seconds, because that’s all the time your thundering prayer took, I was free.

Since that day, I’ve never — not even once — thought of ending my life. Even those times when I’m at my lowest. Before there was always that little whisper, that quiet voice telling me I should just end it all because what was the use. But you silenced that deceiver forever and freed me from my chains.

Free at last.

Free at last.

Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.

You should have left it at that.

I should have left it at that.

My life would be so much better off now if you had.