Katelyn’s Story

Every day, it was the same routine: “Katelyn, wake up! Katelyn, wake up! It’s time to wake up,” he would say. I just took this for granted. Ugh, I’d think, I know it’s time to wake up. Why won’t he stop?

But suddenly, things changed. Weeks passed, when our friendly father-daughter car rides were becoming muted. I started to feel like a burden, an errand, a task.

Maybe my dad started waking up later—or, for whatever reason—we asked a neighbor to start driving me to school. So I just thought: Well, maybe he needs to be at work earlier. Okay, it’s no big deal. Until I realized that I wasn’t just losing a ride from my dad, I also started seeing him less and less each day—sometimes not at all. He worked all the time, and I missed him. When I did see him on the weekends, things were different; he seemed angry and annoyed.

“Why is Dad being so mean?” I’d ask my mom. “He’s just sick right now,” she would say.

At that time, maybe still to this day, I felt like I was the only one of my siblings that noticed the polarization of my dad’s moods. It was starting to affect me like cancer. Sadness and anger were slowly taking over my innocent, happy self. I was worried sick, but I didn’t understand what I was worried about. The word “depression” didn’t mean anything to me. Nobody even used that word in our house. For months and years after my dad jumped, I wondered—Why would my dad even be depressed? He has four kids, a dog, a loving wife, and a nice house. What’s his problem?

After a while, we drifted back to the old morning routine again. My father was driving me to school.

Then, one morning—a shock—I woke up myself! No alarm. No parents squawking.

There was nothing coming from my mom and dad’s room. I didn’t hear the usual chaotic noise of the morning rush.

I entered their room, saying “Dad, dad wake up we’re going to be late, come on!”

I walked over to his side of the bed. There was no movement, no response.

“Come on!” I insisted.

This was a big day for me. On this day, I was supposed to prac-tice one more time before singing a solo in front of my whole school—in front of 1,500 or so students. Maybe that’s why I woke up on my own, I thought. The excitement was overwhelming.

The moment I realized that my dad wasn’t waking up at all, my mom and I started screaming—“Dad’s dead! He’s dead! Kristen! Robin! Ryan! Daddy’s dead!”

His face was battleship colored gray, his eyes were filmy, and his body was frozen. We all panicked. My brother called 911—or tried, anyhow. He kept dialing wrong: 919, 119, 991. He couldn’t function; none of us could.

Finally, the call went through and the ambulance arrived. We also called a neighbor who was a nurse.

We couldn’t understand what had happened. Nothing was making sense. As they took my dad into the ambulance, they asked if anyone was coming with him. I guess my mom needed to drive her car to bring my siblings to the hospital. I said that I would go, and I sat in front of the ambulance on the passenger side.

I didn’t say one word. I couldn’t. I physically couldn’t move my mouth. I was sweating and crying. Thoughts and emotions were racing through my mind at an incredible velocity. I remember wanting to ask the driver, “Do you think he’ll be okay? Please, my dad isn’t really dead, is he?” But I remained silent. I wanted to talk because I felt rude. I felt uncomfortable for not making conversation.

When we arrived at the hospital, I realized that my dad wasn’t dead. They wheeled him inside and took him away to a tiny room that resembled a janitor’s closet. I remember that I wasn’t allowed to go with him. I had to stay in the Emergency Room until my mom arrived. Eventually, we were told that we could go into his room. He was okay but not making very much sense.

Later on that night, I spent time with my sister Robin and her friend, while my Mom was at the hospital. We went out and rented a movie and ordered pizza.

Eventually we got back to the house. Soon afterwards, the phone rang. It was my neighbor. She said she was going to be picking us up and that we needed to go to the hospital right away. Two minutes later, she was in our driveway. For nearly fifteen minutes, on the ride over, there was silence. I was frightened. Nothing was explained. I feared the worst, not knowing what to expect. My heart was beating uncontrollably.

As we pulled into the parking spot, my eyes shot directly to my grandfather standing on the sidewalk. We got out of the car and ran to him. He hugged me that moment tighter than I had felt anyone hug me before.

As I walked through the sliding doors, I saw a tiny room located diagonally from where I was standing, and there was my family sitting with the saddest faces I had ever seen. We walked in, and there was a priest or hospital chaplain trying to pacify them with his calm gestures and words.

Eventually the words poured out: “Daddy jumped out of the window three stories. He went out head first.”

Immediately, I knew he was dead. I don’t have a dad anymore. Why would he do this to us?

My heart crumbled.

My mother asked the nurse, “Is he going to be okay?” I felt sick and overwhelmed.

A nurse said, “He is alive but we don’t know the extent of his injuries—if his injuries are life-threatening. He’s in the operating room now. ”

It was uncomfortably strange to sit in a room for hours with no knowledge of whether or not my father was alive—or if I would hear his voice or feel his touch ever again. Hospital employees would pop their head in every now and then to see how we were doing. But there was no report on his status.

After a while, my sister and I left the room. We walked to the vending machine and we each bought a hot chocolate. We talked and we hugged. At that time in my life, I’m not sure that the two of us were very close. But, no other night would compare to the feeling of protection and love I received from her.

Many hours later, we were finally told that my dad was going to be okay. “His legs are mangled, but he is alive. It is going to take him a very long time to recover,” they said, but—miraculously— we would be able to see him within the next few days.

I felt grateful for this, but still things were eerie. My mom, Robin, and I walked out to the parking lot hugging and holding hands. I remember getting into the car and hearing the song “In the Arms of an Angel,” by Sarah McLaughlin, on the radio. I felt that it was a sign—that an angel had definitely been looking over my dad and the whole family that night.

We drove home to our empty, quiet house, and slept in my parents’ bed—just the three of us—exhausted and heartbroken, but grateful and extremely thankful.

The next day, waking up to the bright sun shining through the window, I was perplexed. I thought to myself, Wow, what a horrible dream! Then I looked to the left and then to the right. I was lying in the middle of my parents’ bed, between my sister and my mother.

It then clicked that it was reality. The next few days—maybe even the next few months—were a blur. My mom took us regularly to the hospital to see my dad.

The first day we went to the mental health ward was shocking. It was the first time I had ever witnessed people talking to themselves—I mean, having full, in-depth conversations with themselves. Some were staring at inanimate objects and giggling. These people were completely amused, seemingly for no reason at all. Others were cursing and angry.

This whole situation might have seemed amusing in a strange way, except that my dad was “one of them.” We were confused as to why they would imprison my dad in this peculiar setting, not fully accepting or understanding the seriousness of what being suicidal meant.

We wanted to keep his spirits high while he was in the hospital. When he returned home, I remember my mom telling my dad every day how her angel pin business was booming and how much money was coming in. I thought to myself, That isn’t true. Why is she trying to get his hopes up? I was afraid he would find out the truth and become even more depressed when he came back home.

My mom wanted my dad to not worry about anything. After a month or two, my dad came home. We set up a room for him in the living room of our house. He stayed in that bed for a very long time. Physical therapists would come, and make him do exercises that would help his legs become strong again.

I don’t remember much after that, except being asked a lot of questions from curious parents in the neighborhood. My friends’ parents would ask how my family was doing and what exactly happened to my dad.

I remained vague. “He’s fine. We’re fine,” I’d say.

We would tell different stories to people: “He fell down the stairs and broke his legs” or “He was in a bad car accident,” hoping that that would be sufficient. But, somehow, it wasn’t.

I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about how I was feeling. I was lying to my friends, and I suddenly felt like a completely different person. I was older.

I developed an emotional armor around me to keep others away. I wanted so badly to be strong and to not make my dad feel bad about this. I never wanted him to feel sadness or pain again. I didn’t want him to feel guilty for trying to leave us.

I actually felt guilty at this time, and for a long period thereafter, that maybe he had done this because of me. After all, I was always getting into trouble, wasn’t I?

Everything started changing.

Even before my dad left the hospital, the subject of selling our house and moving came up. The mortgage was too high, my mom explained. If my dad wasn’t going to be able to work, we would have to move to a place we could rent.

Each time my mom and I returned home from visiting the hospital, we would feel an immediate and urgent need to clean the house. I suppose this was our way of mentally cleansing ourselves. We decided that, if we cleaned, maybe we would feel better. Well, we weren’t just cleaning, but obsessively picking up items in the house, taking all of the decorations down from the walls, and dragging and carrying things to put at the end of the driveway.

We lifted the couch, the tables, the beds—anything we could get our hands on—and started throwing them away. After a while, almost everything was gone. Our house looked like we were moving out or had been robbed.

We felt better for having cleared out the clutter.

A few weeks after this all happened, I was looking for a notepad in my father’s top bureau drawers, when I found a handwritten list. It was a list of things he had written down that stressed him out.

I was feeling curious enough to read it. It listed: “work, money

. . . KATELYN.”

Me? I thought, shocked. I am on this list!! I recall not seeing anyone else’s name on that list but my own. I can’t describe the horrendous feeling that came over me at that second. It drenched me with sadness. I don’t remember if I showed my mom that day or if I waited. However, I was incredulous—so very shocked and mad at myself—or at him—I didn’t know which.

I was so angry that I was on that list. I think it said something about me fighting with my siblings. But, why was I the one to blame? They mostly initiated it, I thought to myself. Why was it so easy for them to get away with yelling at me?

I held on to this anger for a very long time. I was convinced that my dad didn’t love me—or like me, rather. I kept this belief for maybe five or six years. I stopped trusting him.

The therapist asked me if I felt guilty at all for my dad’s attempt. I would nod and indubitably say,” Yes, of course, it was my fault. I saw my name on the paper.”

We went to nearly a dozen therapists. As soon as we would become comfortable with one of them, our insurance would run out or the copay would increase, and we would move onto someone else. Each therapist would explain that it had nothing to do with me, my mom, or my siblings.

What my dad suffered from was a chemical imbalance, they would say, a disease. I remained firm with my initial response, though—that I was to blame—because I had made up my mind permanently. I didn’t want to accept the explanations they were giving me. I felt that they gave them because they felt sorry for me.

There were some sessions where I couldn’t get any words out of my mouth. I would start getting all teary. After my hour-long session had come to an end, I’d feel as if I had just sat through a funeral. I would exit the room with puffy eyes, a red face, and about ten tissues that the therapist would hand me on my way out, to use for the ride home. I tried my utmost to appear like I wasn’t crying, because I knew that if I walked out and saw my mom, she would try to find out what was said, and how I was feeling. This really annoyed me.

I didn’t want to talk to her, or to anyone. I was hoping that this pain would dry up—if I didn’t keep picking the scab of my internal wound. My mindset, at the time, was that the whole incident was just a really bad day. The next day would come, and it would be brighter. We should focus on the present, I decided. I didn’t feel that we were making the situation any better by reliving it on a daily basis.

It almost felt like a punishment that I had to talk to complete strangers and tell them how miserable I felt inside, as they would stare at me and then back at the clock.

“Okay, well that’s the end of our session. I’ll see you in a week,” the therapist would say. How, I wondered, could I feel any better with this therapy? I would be feeling fine earlier in the day. Then they would extract my emotions, and leave me feeling weak and upset when I left.

It seemed strange to me that I was going to therapy, but my dad wasn’t. My mom would get angry with him for resisting therapy. He stubbornly and repeatedly refused her attempts to help him. He didn’t think he needed to go, and he became annoyed with the nagging of her voice.

Their marriage came to a halt.

My mom couldn’t live anymore with his irritability, plus the burden of having to take on the role of “the only parent around.” Instead of doing therapy, my dad relied on antidepressants to numb the pain.

But, after a while, he knew that he had to talk to

someone—a therapist—if he didn’t want to suffer anymore. Seven years ago, I would never have imagined that my life

would be the way that it is right now. I guess the saying is true, that time heals all things (and that maybe therapy and/or medication helps, after all). I would never want to relive those years again. I just don’t think I could cope. People love to say “It’s going to be okay,” but when you’re in the moment and you feel the rain is never going to stop, it’s hard to think that there will ever be a good day again.

My dad has healed. I would say that he is 150% better now. He is loving, inspirational, and understanding in all situations. I didn’t used to feel that way about him. I know that he has become the man he has always wanted to be, and I really admire how he has overcome so many obstacles. My dad overcame his physical obsta-cles—healing his outer wounds by learning to walk again (even with metal rods in his legs). He has also overcome his mental obstacles of selfpity and stubbornness, in order to bring our family together. I am incredibly thankful for that.

Some additional thoughts:

I was thinking long and hard about whether or not I could think of any happy or funny moments I experienced during that time. I guess I enjoyed the new “Dad” I was introduced to after the incident. My dad started on heavy medication such as antidepressants and painkillers. With crushed legs and other injuries, the doctors hoped that the medicine would bring relief both physically and emotionally. He was as “high as a kite” at times, smiling and laughing. I remember we went to dinner at Pizza Hut one night and he was laughing and trying to take pizza and soda from another person’s table. This was so totally out of character for my father. My “old dad”, the one before the accident, really cared about appearances. It really mattered to him how he was perceived and would never do anything that would tarnish his or the family’s reputation. He cared about how he was looked at or judged ALL OF THE TIME. This is not something he would think about doing. He seemed crazier than ever, in a good way. He was childish and almost like a friend of my own age. He didn’t yell at me or any of us, because I guess he didn’t have the stress anymore. We watched movies together every day. His bed was downstairs now and he was always around. We weren’t used to this and it was really nice to get to know my Dad.

My mom was so busy taking care of Dad, Kristen and Ryan, and working on her new business that I knew I had to take care of myself. I thought I should lay low for a while and not cause any excitement. I longed for someone to look out for me. I guess that I was confused and didn’t want to stir up any trouble. I was forced to go to counseling; the counselor was the only person that I was really allowed to talk to about my problems. My mother told me later that the counselor said that I needed to get out and be with friends, that she thought I might be getting “border-line depressed.”

When I was 18, I started drinking and taking pills to ease some of the pain. I was seeking the attention of my parents, but that just made us drift further apart. I couldn’t deal with my anger and sadness anymore within myself or my family’s house. I then moved to Ireland to be alone and on my own. Since then, I have had a lot of time to think about the past and see why I did some of the things I did in order to survive my post-traumatic stress. It has always been interesting to me how my other family members were able to see the sunny side of the street again and I was not. I wonder if they were better able to cope than I was or if it was suppression that saved them.

This is an e-mail that we received from one of the volunteers who so kindly read this manuscript before publication.

Dear Katelyn,

Thank you for writing your chapter and for your candor.

I have found myself personally touched by your story, all along. When I was 17, I found out that my father, who was just 48, was dying of cancer. He, too, needed to keep his story secret. And I, like you, am a middle child—who had many of the same perceptions and needs that you have described.

As for the question about why your siblings were more able to see the sunny side than you, I do think your guess about suppression is part of the answer. I get the sense that you felt things very deeply, in a rawer and more immediate way than the others. You perhaps suffered more because of this. But, it seems to me, that this is at least partly why the thoughts and feelings of that time are more accessible to you. Your openness throughout has been a real saving grace—and I have total confidence that you will be able to move forward in wonderful, unimagined ways. Thanks again. I look forward to more exchanges—and, hopefully, to meeting you!