It Is Important to Respect the Perceptions of Others

My brother wrote the testimony "A Theory of Relativity".

And that's exactly what it is.  It is his perception on his own experience, and his perception on other people's experience.   Here is where I believe he does not do justice by other people.  He tells their story according to his own perceptions.  How could he do otherwise?  We can only tell our perception of others from our perspective.

However, I think it is far more healing to allow others to tell their own story and share their own perspective.  So here is mine:

My mother attempted suicide in the summer of 1970 when I was 10 years old.  This was 2 years before any of us even had the dream or notion of travelling to Europe.  (Age 10 was also the year I told her "I hate you" which she told me she would never forget I said that.  Talk about guilt! I never spoke those words again.)

We all went to Riverside Park, had Dairy Queen ice cream, and mom got very mad for reasons that not one member in my family understood.  She said she wanted to go home.  So we all loaded into the car (both of my parents, my 2 siblings and myself), and she started to lose it - screaming and screaming that no one loved her or cared about her or understood her.  (She was correct only about the latter - we didn't understand). I remember being in the car watching her kick the floor of the car over and over again with the 5-hole Dairy Queen cardboard holder on the floor where she was kicking.

We get home and she locks herself in the bathroom.  My dad is calling for her outside the door, all 3 of us kids wait outside the door as well, and my dad uses a bobby pin to unlock the door.

We see my mom swallowing a whole bunch of pills.  Dad is horrified and helps her vomit the pills back up.

All of us kids are crying and screaming:  "We love you mom.  Please don't do that.  We'll be good".  (Here's where I get foggy.  I think all of us were screaming that, but it could have been just me).

Unlike my brother who "woke up" after her death and never had an adult conversation with her, I started to slowly wake up in my teenage years.  I never had a dramatic realization after her death like my brother did (i.e. unconscious, then presto, suddenly super conscious), no.  My path was more like the plodder, that bit, by bit over an almost 40 year span, I've gone from completely unconscious and unaware, to more clear and conscious.  Apparently, I agree with my brother, that we are at a similar level of consciousness at present, but how we got there is vastly different.

For a decade before my mom died, with her, we had some of the most exquisite conversations.  Conversations about redemption (hers and mine), of motherhood, of suffering, of her experiences as a child, of my gratitude to her for being my mother, of letting go (I moved to BC), of dreams, of death, of God, of family, of love.

How did that suicide attempt affect me?

Early, I learned that if things felt so bad, that suicide was a possible option to end the pain.  The lesson was not a retaliative or attention-getting move toward people acting like "assholes".  I also first believed that somehow I was responsible for my mother's suicide attempt, and that it was my responsibility for helping her feel well.

Those early days led me to becoming a nurse and becoming a naturopathic physician.

Later, I learned that suicidal depression had lots to do with our life perceptions, with the food we eat (my brain and I'm sure my mother's brain, cannot tolerate gluten), it also had to do with exercise, rest, sunlight, bodily toxins, etc. etc., and I also learned that joy could be the predominant life experience.

It's important for people to tell their own stories, because that is where the power is.  The power does not lie in the words of others about us, but in our own perceptions of our own experience, and in the power of God (universe/guides/whatever suits your fancy), to help us know that we are already whole.