(Alright, back again.)


From Suicide to Survival:

Well, backing up in this counseling stint I spent after getting out of the Navy. I 'd also gone to sex addicts anonymous meetings. I share this because I think it's important for people who struggle with these sorts of things to know they are not alone. Looking back at it now - I'm not sure I belonged in those meetings - but maybe I did? After all, I couldn't control my insatiable need to touch myself.

On the flip side of it though, I realize I suffered more from PTSD than from an addiction. For as I dealt with the trauma caused from the sexual abuse - the compulsions subsided. I don't struggle with them now and I haven't for many years. Sexuality has become like everything else in my life. You just deal with it.

It's a long road and as far as homosexuality goes; I really feel for people trying to come out of that "life style". I ran into a lot of folks who were struggling with their "sexual orientation" in the addicts meetings. They existed in the shadow of lives racked with an incredible amount of pain. I guess if I'd learned anything from their struggles, I'd learned compassion. Addictions exist on a variety of continuums and I left those meetings thanking God that there are roads in life He'd stopped me from going down. As for that strange and (at least to me) psychologically disturbing dream I'd had with Jesus in it - it did confirm one thing in my head. Without a shadow of a doubt, I realized I wasn't gay!

I'd gone to a Christian counseling center with my "dark secrets" and I had a male counselor. It was an interesting experience and I really think God used this man to help me see things I couldn't have possibly understood without the insights of a more objective party. Taking the theological... stuff... out of who were the participants in this dream; I did eventually come to realize that I wasn't as warped as I'd feared. This dream contained two adults, no one was hurting anyone and everyone felt loved and contented in the end. So wow, how did someone coming from the background I came from make those connections? Amazing how God even uses our own sin, to help us understand grace.

Well, after somewhat resolving that in my head - for the first time in my life - I felt like God could actually love me! My, "I didn't put Lake Ontario here" revelation brought me to "God I really need your help to straiten out my messed up life" to Desert Storm "God please don't let me get killed because I'm pretty sure I'll end up in hell" to I can use the processing going on in your head (dreams) to help you understand something about love. No, your no more righteous than any other sinner, but your no more wicked either. Somewhere in my mind, that revelation leveled the playing field and opened the door for me to believe that I was actually redeemable.

What great timing too; for shortly after that came Desert Fox and God knew I'd need some sort of security in the knowledge of His love to literally keep me alive!


Bridge Over Troubled Water:

This was 1998 and the group home I worked at had a resident who took Phenobarbital for her seizures. While the "Heaven's Gate" UFO cult was in the news; I struggled mightily inside of myself not to follow their "lead" and commit suicide with this resident's Phenobarb and a bottle of wine. I wasn't any more than a couple of days away from carrying out this plan, when I went into my counselor's office and told her what I wanted to do.

I knew in my mind that if I had actually swiped the drugs - I would have gone through with it. The resident just had a fresh blister pack delivered from the pharmacy and I wouldn't need much; so I knew there'd be enough for both of us. (Funny how it was, even in the midst of my "selfish" suicidal thoughts - I was worried about leaving enough meds so this resident wouldn't have a seizure.) I'd get off shift that morning; (after signing off on the med count - we had to count and sign off on controlled substances) pick up a bottle of wine on the way home and "go to bed". The plan seemed fair enough and no-one would suspect anything, since I didn't have school that day. (The group homes weren't staffed when the residents were all at program. The last two staff to leave in the AM, did the morning med sign off and the next two to come in would do the afternoon med sign off.) So by the time anyone came in to do the med count for the afternoon shift and notified the police of the theft; I'd already be dead.

Looking back at it now, even though that's not the closest I've ever been to death; it was the closest I've ever been to causing my own destruction - and that's pretty scary!

When I told my counselor all this, she called the ambulance and they took me to the hospital. She saved my life that day. About a month would pass though and the next time around - it would be God who'd more directly save my life!

Rage, regret and nightmares were swallowing me up. I couldn't sleep. I'd lost about 30 pounds. I kept dreaming about being lost in Saudi Arabia, having my own guys rape and shoot me, or just having a scud fall on me. Strange as this sounds, I actually liked the dreams where the scuds fell on me. Watching the air raids, crunched down alone by a vehicle tire didn't scare me. The worst a bomb could do was kill me. The other dreams though? People were far more scary than bombs!

The nightmares culminated one afternoon when I'd fallen asleep in the Student Union at college. In the nightmare, some Iraqi had discovered me hiding out in the back of an empty truck in the middle of nowhere waiting for day break. This guy had managed to rip most of my uniform off when I finally dared to turn my head and look at his face. It was my brother!

I woke up at that point and nearly had jumped / fallen out of the chair I was in. One of my fellow Inter-varsity students looked at me and said "Are you OK?" I ran out of the Student Union and threw up in the grass. I didn't sleep for two days after that. That was the nightmare that sent me to the hospital the first time.

The psych ward was a strange and sort of surreal experience. Since I didn't have any illegal drugs or alcohol in my system, I was put on the "neuro-psych" floor as opposed the the MICA unit. (Mentally Ill Chemically Addicted) There was a variety of patients on this floor, who all ran the gambit from the developmentally disabled; (there on "med holiday") to the elderly. We all mostly suffered from Depression, Bipolar Disorder or schizophrenia. In any institutional circumstance - all places have their "angels" and their "devils" and this hospital ward was no exception. Funny as how this always seemed to end up - the "devils" that always came to haunt me were my own family.

At this point, my brother had a live-in girlfriend who actually worked at this hospital. (MICA floor) Yeah, she was a substance abuse counselor who worked with sex offenders. (Life is filled with ironic contradictions aint it!) When I'd first started to spiral out of control in my depression, she'd sat down and talked to me about how I was feeling. I had told her that I'd been sexually abused, but hadn't disclosed by whom. All she knew was that I still had contact with this person.

Well, about three days or so into my hospital stay; my sister was up visiting when "Connie" (pseudo name for "con artist in self deception") came marching in. Apparently my brother had confessed to her that he was the guilty party and when she'd talked to my dad - he'd told her about my "Iraqi in the back of the truck" nightmare and his observation that this appeared to be the "last straw" that had landed me in the hospital. So she had to ask me (and my sister) a question.

"Do you think he'd hurt a child?"

Well at that time, my sister believed seeing the pain he'd caused me, would deter him from perpetrating that upon anyone else. (Years later we'd find the truth - but that's for a future chapter.) I'd simply said that unless he got help - I wouldn't make any guarantees. Connie then proceeded to state her intentions to marry my brother, because she really wanted a baby and believed she was too old to start over with another relationship. So she restated her question and I restated my answer. Looking back at it now; (although I couldn't see this at that time) I think this is the point when Connie set her mind on a path to insulate herself from the future I think she knew she inevitably faced. Marrying this... (never did become a real...man) and having children with him would be a huge mistake; but if she could find "invariable proof" that I had Borderline Personality Disorder - somehow that would let her off the hook.

"... and knowing the truth they choose to believe a lie..."

The next closest incident to actual suicide I'd gotten was when I crawled up under the rigging of a large bridge that spanned a local bay. I'd parked my car on the bridge, climbed down the embankment to where the bridge met the hill and began to climb out toward the water. I stopped about twenty-five or thirty feet out, where the shore met the water and sat up there in the rigging of the bridge. It was windy and I remember looking down at a fisherman who had his boat tied to one of the bridge pylons. He was standing on the pylon and from where I was, he looked to be about the size of one of those little plastic soldiers you get in bulk packs in the box chain toy stores. I looked at him and then down at the ground directly below me. I knew at that point that if I had jumped or fallen, I definitely would not have survived.

I must have sat up there for about 20 minutes. "God what do I do?" I knew He wouldn't be happy with me if I'd actually jumped off; but I didn't have the will to live any more. It wasn't that I hated myself or thought I was this terrible person at that point - I was just so tired of suffering! I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't function. I'd been out of work on medical leave of absence for at least a month. I'd fought my entire life to overcome these monsters in my head and I couldn't do it. I had no hope and no strength to keep fighting this war. I just wanted it to end. I remember saying - "God, if You want me to survive this than You're going to have to do something because - I don't have the will any more."

Then I had a revelation of sorts. I'd survived much worse than a couple of nightmares. You get through the alcoholism, the abuse and the war - only to have the nightmares kill you? Does that really make any sense?

Well, no it doesn't; but I don't have the strength to keep fighting.

Well I'll give that to you! GET OFF THE BRIDGE!

And I obeyed. (The fortitude to get down and keep going; found me.) I remember being a little nervous and thinking to myself, well what if I slip and fall now?

My grace is sufficient for you!

Even if I actually fell off the bridge and in spite of my own folly. I knew God would forgive me.

So I got back to where the bridge met the ground and climbed back down the embankment. When I turned around to climb back up the hill, I looked down at the ground and saw a mess of Monarch butterfly carcases. So I picked one up and took it home with me. Later on, I'd take it to a craft store with the words to the song "When you set me free" (Sandi Patti) and have it mounted in a frame.

I still have that butterfly. It's hanging on my living room wall.

Years later, I would go to a church's winter retreat. One day, I shared the story about the bridge with the people in my small group.

One lady looked at me and asked: "Do you know why you didn't die that day?"

I just kind of looked at her. "Well..."

"You didn't die because God is the God of life - Not the God of death!"

I had to think about that for a minute or so; but she was right. I didn't jump of the bridge that day because God is the God of life; not the God of death.

From that point on, though I've had frustrations and occasionally fleeting thoughts of suicide; I never again came that close to actually carrying it out.


(Alright - on that "happy" note. It's time for bed.)