John’s Story

 

“Trish, there’s something wrong with me. . . . I tried to kill myself. I was driving around. I was going to drown.”

Trish got me to lie down; she covered me with a blanket. Then, she called my office and left a message for my boss, telling her that I would not be in for the rest of the week—that things were seriously wrong. She got Katelyn, age14, Kristen, age 12, and Ryan, age 9, off to school, then called my doctor. Robin, age 16, was already on the school bus.

“This is Patricia Gallagher,” she said. “I’m John Gallagher’s wife. He’s been in to see you a few times. Doctor, he needs to go somewhere to have a rest.” She continued: “He’s been driving around for an hour this morning. I didn’t even know he was out of the house. Doctor, something is wrong. Where can I take him?”

On the doctor’s recommendation, Trish made arrangements to take me to a hospital where there was a psychiatric unit. It was a beautiful day but, as usual, my mood was totally flat.

“John, do you want to go to Denny’s and have breakfast?” “I don’t care,” I replied.

 

 

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“Do you want to take a ride?” “I don’t care.”

The I don’t cares were my only response.

As we drove on, I said plainly—almost matter-of-factly—“I’m going to die.”

“No, John, you’re just stressed,” Trish insisted. “You need a vacation.” She strained to speak calmly.

As we pulled into the Emergency parking lot, I blurted out: “Take me to the ER. I’m going to die. I took carbon monoxide.”

I confessed that, when I went out driving around, at approximately 6 a.m., I had pulled the car over and breathed the exhaust from the back of my car.

She asked how long. I said, “I guess about nine or ten minutes.” I didn’t want to say anything more than that. I knew she would just try to placate me and tell me everything was going to be okay. For me, I didn’t think that things would ever be okay again. So we went into the hospital, hoping upon hope that we would somehow find relief.

As a man in this world of ours, I am expected to hold a job, make enough money to pay my bills, provide for my four children, and be there for my wife. But sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of daily life, all the tasks and responsibilities cascade into over-whelming stress. That’s what happened to me nine years ago.

On the outside, everything looked great. I had an MBA, a job as a financial analyst, and a wife and four children. But, on the inside, everything had begun to fall apart. My company was cutting back, and I feared being laid off and rendered incapable of providing for my family. I also feared telling my father and my father-in-law about the possibility of losing my job.

I had a perfectly good job in the Advertising Administration department of a major pharmaceutical company. But, even be-fore the announcement of future lay-offs, I didn’t think that was good enough. Recently, I’d started thinking that I should be-come a pharmaceutical sales representative. The people in that department seemed to be the “beautiful people” in the company and, I figured that, if I made it into that elite group, I’d have success.

Come to think of it, I had always felt that I wasn’t good enough. I would get good jobs with Fortune 500 companies, but, once on the job, I’d start to think that I wasn’t up to par. I would try to follow the adage, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” but doing so was very stressful for me. I also tried to go with the saying, “Don’t let them see you sweat,” but, since I was always worried about being fired, I wasn’t very good at that either.

Following popular wisdom didn’t do me much good.

Life began to overwhelm me. What I didn’t know then is that my high degree of worry and anxiety, coupled with the sense of not being good enough, were classic signs of depression.

About two years after my accident, my family and I went to visit my aunt at the New Jersey shore. I asked her about my mother, who had died when I was only nine years old. I really didn’t have many memories. I did wonder why God did that to me, have a little boy lose his mother so young. I knew that she was very beautiful. I had seen so many pictures, wonderful pictures, but I really didn’t know much about her. I knew that there were many gifts my mother had given me, in my genetic makeup, and I treasure all of them. I know that she had strength in the face of setbacks and that she was very creative. All of the photos showed me that she was very particular about the way her children were dressed and cared for. When she did a job, and when I do, I do it right. I guess we were both perfectionists. My grandparents were Polish and very loving to me. I remember that after my mother died, my grand-mother always stroked my cheek very tenderly. We always had a houseful of relatives there and laughed with our grandfather until our sides hurt. I remember people being very nice to me after my mother died and giving me candy.

During the conversation, my aunt said, in passing,

“Oh, your mother was so good at flower arranging! See that wall hanging over there, Johnny? She made that for me, and I’ve saved it for forty-five years.”

My mother, my beautiful mother had so many talents and gifts. How I wish somebody had told me more about her over the years. I never knew how my mother died. I don’t remember her complaining and I don’t remember her being sick. No doubt about it now, she must have been terrified about leaving her family. I guess a lot of other relatives knew and never talked about it. I can almost imagine my mother saying, “Johnny, I am proud of you and I love you so much!” How I long to hear those words. I feel connected to my mother in a special way now.

A few hours later, as Trish and I were walking along the board-walk, I started to cry. I cried another time, uncontrollable sobs. I was looking at our wedding picture and so many relatives had passed away. A sadness hit me that would not go away. That could have been me, another Gallagher missing from the family, I thought. The thought of how I had almost left my family terrified me now.

“I wish my mother was here,” I said. “She’s the only one that would know that it’s not my fault, that I’m not a wimp.”

That’s what it had seemed to me—that being depressed was like being a wimp because it meant I was too weak to take charge.

As we walked, moments of depression came flashing back. The first was when I was about 18. I woke up and felt like a massive freight train was running through my head. I never told anybody about it.

The next time I had this frightening experience was when I was 24 years old and out at a club with my friends, dancing and partying. Suddenly, I started feeling strange—not intoxicated, not drunk, but strange. I was sure that somebody had put something in my drink. I went home, feeling dizzy; my head was spinning. When I went to bed, I couldn’t sleep. My heart was racing. I felt as if a massive freight train was running through my head again, at a hundred miles per hour.

That lasted for a couple of days. Again, I didn’t tell anyone. For many years, I believed that it was all a matter of some prankster putting a drug in an unsuspecting guy’s drink. Over the years, though, the same feeling would come back sporadically, when there were no drinks and no possibility of pranksters. And there was no possibility of me being at a club called Uncle Sam’s American Flag.

When it came back in 1990, the circumstances were entirely different. I was happily married, with three children and one on the way. But just before my son Ryan was born, I started getting anxious. The symptoms were more intense than the first time, and the time frame was slightly longer—four days.

The first night that this was going on, I asked Trish to call the doctor. It was the middle of the night. He told her that it sounded like anxiety, and said that it wasn’t necessary for me to go to the hospital. I kept insisting to Trisha that she had to take me to the ER. The doctor did not give me the required referral to go to the ER. He said, “Just tell him to relax.”

The next morning, Trish asked me not to go to work, to just stay home and rest but I insisted on going. I hated to miss work but it was tough going there that day. Once I got there, I found myself completely unable to handle things, and ended up leaving work before noon.

While I was at work for that short time, Trish had invited some of the neighbors over for tea and a playgroup. She told her friends what had happened during the night. Diana, an ER nurse, told her that it was anxiety. The word “depression” had not yet come up.

I was able to take some time off from work and stay home; this seemed to do the trick. But I just wasn’t myself. I know now that doctors would describe me as having “no affect.” Trisha tried to lift my spirits by involving me in her projects, and then taking a ride to Core Creek Park. I felt like I was just going through the motions. I wasn’t able to even have a conversation with her.

After four days off, I returned to work and started functioning normally. Whatever the case, my symptoms went away as quickly as they had come. They did not return until 1998.

In March of 1998, I was working at the same pharmaceutical company as in 1990, but in a different capacity. Now I was a financial analyst. I had been doing a lot of overtime at work, and was starting to feel that my job was over my head. I was stressed out from a long commute and the strain of trying to learn new computer programs.

It was about a year before I jumped. Little by little, month by month, day by day, I was starting to feel different. I was scared, sweaty, anxious, irritated, angry, and so confused.

My symptoms had returned with a vengeance. My condition was worse than ever, and I couldn’t seem to shake it.

Many evenings, when I was helping the kids with their home-work, the headache, the racing heart, and the feeling of helplessness would come back. I couldn’t focus on helping them.

I remember coaching my daughter’s basketball team, and feeling and looking like the living dead. My wife now recalls watching me as I coached, and seeing how timid and uncertain I looked. To both of us, I seemed like the shadow of my former self. Yet, it wasn’t constant. I remember being elated when Kristen’s basket-ball team won the championship and by all accounts, the home videos look like I was one happy dad cheering from the sidelines.

One night, I was at the mall with the kids, when Kristen asked, “Dad, are you all right?” I felt as if I was having a heart attack, and had to leave the mall. I was afraid I would embarrass my family. I hated the thought of embarrassing them.

Something else started happening. My worrying started to invade my sleep. Sleep became frightening and stressful, then, ultimately, impossible. My initial episode of frenzied sleep paved the way for three solid months of insomnia—something which further incapacitated me.

During that first night of troubled sleep, I experienced a sense of obscuring darkness, followed by a different, more palpable darkness that stirred inside me. I awoke and felt my brain racing in a way that I had never experienced before. It was worse than the time when I was in my twenties, and worse than the time before Ryan was born. I thought to myself, What is going on? Did I eat something? What is this? I prayed to God for this foreign and scary feeling to leave me, but it did not. I got up, walked downstairs and turned on the television. My head throbbed and my heart raced. Could this be a stroke? I wondered. Or a heart attack? I began pacing up and down the house, focusing on the agonizing pain in my head and wondering what it could be.

The noise of my footsteps awoke Trish. “What are you doing?” she asked, sleepily.

“I don’t know,” I responded. My head writhed with pain as I spoke. “I think I have a brain tumor. My head is killing me. It’s excruciating.”

After a restless night, I still had the throbbing headache from the night before. Though I didn’t feel like I could do anything, I went to work.

At work, I felt unable to function. I couldn’t concentrate. Everything faded into nothingness and seemed unreal and insignificant, compared to the ever-present, searing pain that was splitting my head in two. My coworkers noticed that I was not my-self. They had no idea just how disoriented I felt.

This time, the symptoms alarmed me. I knew enough to know, by now, that it was something serious that was not likely to just go away. I had been seeing a family doctor for months. I prayed earnestly, “God, please help me with this headache. Please help me go to sleep. Please help me to get to the right doctor. Please help me beat this thing.”

My family doctor prescribed several medications as he tried to help me find relief. He also listened patiently, as doctors do, and prescribed yet another drug for anxiety. The drug did not seem to help. I took it for a few weeks and I didn’t like the side effects. I went back to the doctor. He reminded me that it takes time for medicine to work. “Give it time,” he said.

In my depressed state of mind, I probably was not hearing what the doctor, or anyone else, had to say. My brain was often racing, and I was distracted and impatient. I stopped taking the medicine, not realizing that this could make things even worse. But honestly, the word depression had no meaning to me at the time. I just felt physically sick with headaches being my chief complaint.

What I know now, but did not know then, was that a family doctor may not be equipped to deal with the sort of chemical imbalance that was going on inside of me. At this point, my anxiety had progressed to a serious level. I needed to see a psychiatrist, but did not realize it at the time.

As time dragged on, the unbearable feeling in my head persisted. On one occasion, I went with my wife to a healing Mass, where I pleaded, “Please, God, let this Mass work. Let it take my headache away.” But I returned home, still unable to sleep and without relief from the headache.

As time went on, my situation only worsened. In addition to the pain, anxiety surged, and, increasingly, heart palpitations took my breath away. Sleepless nights became the norm, and eating became an undesirable chore. I simply had no appetite. I had lost close to 60 pounds and had gotten into the habit of wearing two sets of clothing to try to hide how thin I had become. Feelings were absent. I could not concentrate, and felt powerless. My wife and kids were supportive and loving, but I was growing frustrated, and so were they.

I tried everything I could think of to deal with the darkness that had descended upon my life. I even went to a neurologist to check for a brain tumor. There was none. Then I went to a cardiologist, who told me it was high blood pressure. From a multitude of doctors, to healing Masses and prayers, nothing seemed to help. I felt betrayed by God, and completely abandoned in my suffering.

I was beginning to have crazy thoughts inside my head, but I didn’t share them with anyone. I thought of running in front of a car near my workplace in Princeton, and of trying to drown myself in our bathtub when my wife and kids went on an outing. I even held a knife to my chest at one point, but the blade was dull. I thought of jumping from the roof of the building where I worked.

These thoughts terrified me. I had always been very sensible and logical. After all, my background was in accounting, where everything had to line up evenly. Thoughts like this were torturing me, and nobody knew but me. Where were they coming from? They were absolutely crazy, illogical thoughts. What was happening to me? My thoughts were fractured, frazzled, and clearly not mine. But I still had to do my work and take care of my family, even though I was falling apart, with irrational thoughts echoing through my head. It seemed like life was going on for everybody else. They were laughing, smiling and all was well, but for me, I thought that I was dying and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I was the kind of dad that worried about my kids getting hurt, probably known as a “worrywart.” I worried about the kids falling from their bikes, running in a parking lot, going out too far in the ocean or falling off the second floor of a railing at a hotel balcony.

Suffering was one thing, but the feeling of isolation and loneliness was another. I felt that no one understood and that no one could help me. I felt hopeless and helpless.

Finally, something inside of me snapped as I drove to work one day. I started to think about going to the bridge. I planned to jump but I couldn’t do it. The thought of inhaling gas fumes gave me a sense of peace. I pulled my car to the side of the road, got out of the car, and put my mouth to the exhaust pipe of my car. After a few minutes, I lifted my mouth from the pipe and got back in my car. Somehow in the midst of this decision, I was aware that my link with God, though thin and worn, was still intact. He still had a hold on me. I knew—at least theoretically—that my life was to live, not to take. I didn’t want to die. I just wanted this pain to end. I drove home and told my wife what I had done.

I let my wife drive me to the hospital, to continue our desperate search for help. They kept me for one night and discharged me in the morning. A day later, I was admitted again. When I arrived at the hospital that day, my blood pressure was still very high. After several hours being treated in the ER, they decided to admit me for the blood pressure issue and they took me to the cardiology wing.

Soon after I was settled into my hospital room, Trish came in. She stood patiently by the chair where I was sitting, and started showing me a photo album filled with pictures of my kids—kids that I love with all my heart. Interspersed with the pictures were hand scrawled red heart-shaped Valentine cards with paper lace, stickers highlighting birthdays, words in the margins, tickets from concerts, grade school report cards, reminders of involvements with our church’s service projects, and little reminders of all of the love I had in my life. A life of former happy memories. Katelyn and Kristen singing the Ave Maria on the altar at church. A baby cradled in my arms. Pictures on the beach. Class trips. Christmas lights. Birthday parties. Photos with the Easter Bunny at the mall. My son with his baseball cap and wiffle ball playing in the Youth Baseball program. Small cherubic faces giving me homemade gifts. How would I ever recapture those moments that had brightened my life? All of the wonderful memories of my “old life” were there. I never thought I would hear “Batter up!” again. I wrestled with so much doubt and believed they were gone forever.

Trish told me that she and the kids loved me and that everything was going to be okay. I had lost faith in myself. I thought,

What is wrong with me? I had tried talking to God and listening to God.

Now, all help seemed remote and I felt so afraid. The life I had seemed to have dissolved, no interest in hobbies, reading mystery novels, driving to look at beautiful houses, or going to flea markets with the family. My mind could not penetrate the heavy fog that blocked all rational thinking. I felt trapped, raw, broken and mentally exhausted in this hospital room. I needed a break.

The pictures were meant to cultivate some feelings of happiness in me. The summer before, my girls had gone to repair a house for a mission trip. A photo of them beaming, with hammers and paint cans in hand, looked up at me. Instead, the photos began hammering away at me and made me feel all the more desperate, convinced that the best was all behind me now. The sadness I felt eclipsed everything in that album.

Then, Trish left the room to phone her mother. She wanted to tell her that I was doing fine and ask her to bring me a pair of shoes. Robin and Katelyn were out with their friends and the two younger ones were at Trish’s mother’s house.

Alone in my hospital room, I reflected on my loving family, thinking that the best of life was now in the past and could only haunt me. My twisted thinking led me to imagine that they would commit me to an insane asylum, a place I had heard about in movies. The thought terrified me. I wasn’t thinking clearly and even said to Trish, “They’re not going to kill me, are they?” Where were these absolutely torturous thoughts coming from? This wasn’t me. I had a world-class wonderful family and a great life, but it all seemed to be crumbling beneath me. At that point, nothing was able to shine through the darkness in my mind. I was stunned about all of this, more like numb, gripped with a doubt that offered no hope.

I looked at the window, which seemed to be calling me, challenging me. I saw the same thing I had seen in the exhaust pipe of my car—a way to end my suffering. I arose from the chair, and approached the window. The raw throbbing in my head had dulled my thought process; I acted without much thought beyond the drive to escape. Numb from everything but pain, I looked down. I can do it, I thought. I will do it.

I jumped, relieved that the pain would finally go away.

It did not. The descent was frightful; the impact was heavy, obliterating.

When I jumped, I had no idea how high up I was. I didn’t know whether I was 1000 feet above the ground or 50. I have been told since then that I fell 40-45 feet, and landed in a cement window well, or—as the ambulance attendant called it—a “viaduct.” I think I may have hit the side of the building on the way down.

I heard that there was one eyewitness in the parking lot. I wish that I could talk to that person and find out what really happened. But it took me nine years to want to know—and nine years to go back and stand in front of the window from which I had frantically pitched my body.

I returned to that spot with my wife and my daughter Katelyn in July, 2008. When we got there, Katelyn and I stood in front of the building and stared up at the window together. After my first startled glimpse, I shifted my eyes to the tangible details of the scene—the window well, the cement walkway, the trees—and contemplated the enormity of what had happened.

It struck me then, as now, that I am amazingly lucky to have survived—that it is only by the grace of God that I am not a quadriplegic—or dead. As I stood with Katelyn in front of that window, I pondered the fact that my remarkable family was with me once again in the same place—still with me, despite the intervening an-guish. I prayed to God with gratitude for their presence and my safe-keeping.

I started walking away from the window, then went back—ready to remember and reconstruct the deadly moment.

I flipped in the air and then landed on my legs; they crumbled under me. Rage exploded inside me. I’m still alive, I cried. I could not even kill myself. I lay on the asphalt, bleeding and cursing my survival.

Before I slipped into unconsciousness, I saw Trish’s terrified face staring out from the window above me.

Landing on my legs had saved my life, but they were now crushed and broken. The police and ambulance arrived in minutes.

“Cut his jeans off!” one of the paramedics yelled as they slid me onto a stretcher. Voices shouting commands seemed far away, until they faded into nothingness. I fell into unconsciousness.

Shortly afterwards, a doctor awakened me. “Turn your neck,” he was saying. “Turn your neck,” he repeated, evidently worried that it might be broken. My neck was not broken, I heard him saying, but I had completely crushed both of my legs and sustained head and arm abrasions.

I screamed in agony as he tried to straighten my mangled legs. Several years afterwards, I found out that a nurse had told my wife then that I was not out of the woods—that I still had injuries that were potentially life-threatening. There were bone chips in my blood stream that had caused doctors to worry about infection—an infection that could have done what I had failed to do—end my life.

The next day, my wife and children came to visit in the Intensive Care Unit. They didn’t recognize me. When the nurse directed them to my room, they all glanced in and said to the nurse, “That’s not our dad.” She assured them that it was indeed their father, and that they were in the right room. My head was swollen—like a beach ball, one of the kids later told me. I had a tube in my nose. The kids said that my hair had turned gray. I have heard that sometimes that happens after a shock. I couldn’t really talk, but I know that I mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”

Trish’s patience through it all has been disarming.

“I want you to know that I love you, the kids love you, we just want you to get better,” she said, consolingly. “Whatever you need us to do, we will do for you.”

Every day she came in to reassure me, “Don’t worry about work, don’t worry about money, and don’t worry about getting better. As soon as you start getting better, you’ll go home and we will all take care of you.”

The jump landed me in the mental ward of the hospital, with 24-hour security to keep me from trying to kill myself again. I was there for five weeks, doing rehab for my physical injuries and beginning the process of trying to put my life back together. I needed both physical and mental healing. A psychiatrist was assigned to me. He and I began working on helping my mind, while an orthopedic surgeon began putting my legs back together.

I remember having some strange thoughts while I was in the psychiatric ward. They had aides in the room with me at all times. I was still despondent, and would spend my time thinking of ways to harm myself. I would hold my breath, hoping that would work, or try making myself anxious, in the hopes that I could induce a heart attack.

On one occasion, I had a very strange experience. During this experience, I actually believed that I had died. Perhaps it was a matter of the medication playing tricks on my mind, or perhaps it was my guilt surfacing.

Whatever the case, this is what happened. A nurse was tending to me. As I looked at her, I saw that she had the face of Jesus—the face I had seen in many depictions in books.

Jesus said to me, “Why did you do that? You shouldn’t have jumped.”

I thought I had died, and that this was Judgment Day. Afterwards, my sister came to visit, bringing magazines and

candy. She was being so nice and so compassionate. I felt and thought that I was dead, observing all of this from another vantage point. What a waste! So I played the game. I knew that I had died, but I wanted her to feel that I was still alive.

Then, after my sister left, Trish came in with Ryan. At that point, I was stunned. “You brought my son!” I exclaimed. I had thought I would never see them again. In a state of absolute euphoria, I thought to myself, Maybe I am alive!

Trish has since told me that it was at this moment that she left the ward, in despair, to call her mother and say, “Mom, John’s never coming back. Something is really wrong with him.” But I did. And that moment may have been part of the reason why—for it increased my appreciation of what it is to be alive. It was an epiphany.

I had a few nightmares. I recollected waking up and feeling that I was in a swimming pool and somebody was pouring cement on me. The other was that I was running down a street and somebody was chasing me and I couldn’t get away from him.

Everyone visited me faithfully. They sent cards of encouragement and decorated my hospital room with things that they thought would cheer me up—a poster of a horse, stuffed animals and my favorite snacks.

After being discharged, I had to continue doing physical therapy to help repair my battered body. I also had to see a therapist and go to therapy sessions to help repair my psyche. The antidepressants began to kick in, and I started to be able to sleep again at night. My headaches soon faded into memory.

The support of friends and family contributed further to my recovery.

My neighbor rearranged his work schedule so that he could drive me to therapy every day. He lifted my wheelchair into his car, and helped me to get settled into a day program facility. His wife brought meals to my family. They took my son on many outings with them, to baseball games, snowboarding, and amusement parks. They were our lifeline; they knew what had happened, and they gave us tremendous support.

My sister and her family, too, were there for us every step of the way, preparing meals, driving me to appointments, and offering us money to help sustain us. One of her children helped my children with homework while another prepared a delicious chicken casserole.

My wife’s family, too, was ever present to help—taking care of the kids, doing odd jobs around the house, and supporting Trisha. My father-in-law was a man of action and he was always coming over, toolbox in hand, grouting the tile, building a bunny hutch or carpeting the patio. My mother-in-law bought new sheets for our bed, left candy on the pillow, and in general was “on the spot” to help wherever needed…anticipating things before she was asked.

All of our neighbors reached out to help, throughout our or-deal, but they did not know what really happened. Several tried to call and visit me in the hospital but I was not where Trisha told them I was. I was in a different hospital, having my mental and physical needs taken care of and could not have visitors other than the family. Someone later told me that it was in the newspaper but nobody let on that they had seen it. Neighbors invited us to picnics and graduation parties that summer but we declined. Trisha just didn’t know what to say when neighbors asked questions.

My boss felt really bad about what had happened to me. She wrapped beautiful gifts of books, get-well cards, and a bird feeder and sent them to us. She did many sweet, thoughtful things to tell me she cared. The kids were excited to receive the presents but at that point, I couldn’t even manage a thank-you. They expectantly tore away the wrappings, knowing that treasures were inside. The sad truth is that only one person other than my boss contacted me from work. You would think that after more than 11 years, people would reach out. But, I guess because of the nature of the situation, people didn’t know what to say or do.

A volunteer visited me in the hospital on a Tuesday morning. She asked me what my favorite dessert was. I told her apple pie. The next day she came back with a little red and white Igloo cooler, with, you guessed it! An apple pie. Not only for me, she brought special desserts for all of the patients. Another volunteer brought a dog. The dog jumped up on my lap. My bones were broken but it was such little acts of kindness that helped me to heal.

I now knew how much everyone loved me and cared. Everyone in our immediate family and our two closest friends did everything they could to help.

I didn’t tell my father what had happened, for two reasons. First, he was at the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease and secondly, I felt a deep sense of shame. It didn’t feel manly to have done what I did.

I missed a lot during that time. My daughter Katelyn sang a solo at the junior high, and Robin went to a prom. Kristen had her elementary school graduation, and Ryan was pitching for his base-ball team. Trish told me later how sad she felt to be at the elementary school, being alone at all of the special events, watching the recital, the graduation ceremony and the game—and thinking of me lying in a hospital bed.

There were positive things that came out of all of this, though. When working full-time, I had spent a lot of time at work and very little at home. The kids now had two stay-at-home parents. When I began to feel better, I was able to help Trisha with carpooling and the whirlwind of our kids’ activities.

The downside was that my out-of-work status depleted our savings. Disability did not cover our mortgage, insurance and house-hold expenses.

Now, as I was home recuperating, I spent time with the kids, watching movies and plowing through pizza, chocolate cream-filled Tastykakes, ice cream and lots of microwavable popcorn— many nights into the late evening, when they should have been in bed. I really got to know them and their friends, and enjoyed being with them. As I became able to walk and drive, I would take them to school and walk them up to the door. We often came together and gave each other our traditional bear hug which we affectionately called “The Family Squeeze.”

I helped Trisha with her “Team of Angels” project, and spent many afternoons with my sister, watching movies and enjoying home-cooked meals. I even took a cooking class at the adult evening school.

However, even though I was on the road to recovery, I was still very irritable and weak from losing nearly sixty pounds and being confined for a time to the wheelchair. I was very worried about where I would work and how I would provide for the family again. Though my family was supportive, it became a lot for me to handle.

After about a year and a half, my wife said we needed to have a serious talk. “I can’t do this anymore, John,” she said. “We need space. We are going to have to work on all of this apart for awhile.” There was a moment of stunned silence and then I responded.

Trish had been going to the monastery of the Poor Clares every day to pray during this overwhelming time. She often sat there in tears, but I did not know this. She had also been going to a family therapist who said,

“Trisha, by the look in your eyes, and from all that you have told me over the past year, I am worried about you. I think you are sinking now, too. Your children need at least one healthy parent. You are going to have to make a very tough decision. I think that you and John need to separate so that you can both work on things and heal separately. You can continue to see each other and plan a date once a week but, for now, it is too much.”

Trish asked God to give her the words to say this to our children. She wrote them down in a notebook:

Daddy and I love you all very much but we can’t live together right now. We need some ‘space’ for a while. Daddy will still come over, but we can’t all live in the same house right now.

I knew that I had been miserable to live with, and that Trish and I had been struggling to get along with one another. But I did not want to leave them, or to be alone.

I agreed, adding, “It will be better if you go your way. I’ll try to heal and get better. You go to therapy and we’ll heal separately.”

I first went to my sister’s house, then I went to live in my father’s apartment in Philadelphia. Trish and I maintained our relationship, but it became more of a friendship than a marriage. I was still there often, to remain a father to my kids. We all got together every Sunday and holidays. I never stopped loving my family.

Everything got buried under the rug, all of our emotions, problems and my depression. All of our “sorry-looking baggage” was just packed up and put away. It became a family secret that we hid with all sorts of explanations and excuses. There’s that word “embarrassment” again. I didn’t want anyone to know. This, in retrospect, was somewhat selfish. I didn’t realize the burden this placed on my family.

It probably would have been better if we had just told the truth from the beginning—if we had simply said that I had been suffering with depression after the fear of the downsizing, and that depression had led to a suicide attempt.

If I had acknowledged, earlier, that it was a health problem rather than just an impulsive act of despair, I might have been able to be more forthright. Now I have more of an understanding of what was happening to me. My body’s reaction to fearful events had led to a chemical imbalance. The chemical imbalance was related to the stress, and the impaired thinking that resulted from it led to feelings of hopelessness and despair.

I am sure that other people can relate to that. Depression, after all, isn’t a new disease in the medical journals!

I believe that we should all be able to talk about depression as we would talk about any other illness. If people were able to do this, the shame of a guilty family secret could be eliminated.

While I was struggling with depression, for the 13 months, before I actually jumped, Trish began writing poems—devotional poems. It was her way of coping, day after day, as she prayed. She called upon a team of angels to help. The first poem was entitled a “Team of Angels for the Overwhelmed.” She had never really given a hoot about angels prior to this so my only thought was that it must have been divinely inspired.

She began pairing each poem with a little trio-of-angels pin— something she had started making when the “Team of Angels” concept came to her. She created these pins from materials she purchased at a craft store. Then, after she made pins to go along with her poems, she began making pins by the hundreds, and passing them out to friends, neighbors, and others.

The three angels on the pins were meant to represent peace in our hearts, peace in our homes and peace in the world. And they did, in fact, bring peace to us as a family. The Team of Angels became Trish’s lifeline after the tragedy—and something that bridged our family during the ensuing separation—enabling us to heal as a family, and to bond again after we were reunited.

Little by little, almost without even noticing, we did heal. For me, the negativity and irritability began to fade as a more positive me emerged. Medication and therapy sessions slowly gave me back my life. I also took a less stressful job selling clothing. At one point, I worked at a sporting goods store and then sold luxury cars.

I was actually shocked when Trish asked me to come home after a five-year separation. One of our children was going through a tough time, and she needed my help. I, too, wanted this opportunity to be at the center of my family again. The life I had thought was only a memory was beginning to return. Healing is a long process but, little by little, I began to heal, and so did the family.

On February 2, 2006, the day that I returned to live with my family, a new chapter began for us. Trish scheduled a Retrouvaille weekend, something designed to help couples in troubled relationships to heal. At this retreat, we found the tools to bring about healing, knowing that we still had to continue with counseling and to work hard on our marriage.

At around this time, I became actively involved in the Team of Angels project, working with Trish to broaden its reach. During the summer of 2006, Trish and I, together with Ryan and a few of his friends, traveled several thousand miles in a gold van, distributing the pins to those in need. And we began to transform the project into a family business as well as a ministry—one based on the principle of providing encouragement.

The experience of working together on this kind of enterprise brought us closer together spiritually, and gave us the satisfaction of sharing in the creation of something meaningful and sound. Indeed, it seemed that a team of angels had directed our journey from pain to contentment; it had given us a purpose.

On January 20, 2008, yet another chapter began. I read a newspaper story about a high school student who had survived a nine-story jump. What struck me was that he was willing to speak out about his experience. It was then that I began to ask, Why did I survive? Why did God give me that second chance?

For some reason, reading that story made me feel not so alone.

You mean somebody else had actually done what I had done. I am a stable guy, level-headed, responsible, and love my family so very much.

What happened to me that night was truly the result of a buildup of stress that so altered my body chemistry, that so literally took me out of my mind, that so made me do something that is literally not comprehensible. I will never forget the feeling of utter despair that I felt at that time. My heart breaks for those who are suffering now. I truly would not wish that on my worst enemy.

How did the idea for writing the book come about? I am not a writer and I never even thought about getting a book published, until the Sunday that I read the four page article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about a handsome, popular, 17 year old athlete, who had done what I had done.

I said to Trish, “I am not going to let this happen to one more family! This boy is telling my story.” I asked her to call our three daughters over for a Sunday dinner. I told them that I was going to write a book and call it “Don’t Jump!” I asked them if they would each write a chapter. They were shocked. My son lived at home with us, so all four kids were there for dinner.

Trisha passed around the Philadelphia Inquirer article and they all read it, or least they started to. They scanned it and laid it down. Perhaps, it was too sad or just too much to absorb. I noticed that none of them read it like my wife did, sobbing throughout. Trish cried as she read each page and said, “John, I never knew you felt all of these feelings.” When we each wrote our chapters, it was the first time that we had insight about how this event affected each family member. Many of my notes were on scraps of paper, handwritten on lined notepads. I told my ideas to Trisha and she encouraged me. Then while on my breaks at work, I tried to flesh them out and make sense of all of my ideas. When I told my customers that I was thinking of writing a book, they all said they would want to read it.

Some people warned me that it would be really hard for me to relive all of this and perhaps, I should just forget all about the past and move forward. I certainly never really wanted to be in the limelight, especially for this topic. But if it raises awareness, I am up for the challenge, and committed to doing something about it.

At times, I was nervous about doing this. I was reluctant to share the details. What would people think of me? How will I ever get another job if I go public with this? But then I remembered what I had felt like. I told one person and then another. Once I did that, it be-came easier and I found that people were interested in my story.

I wanted to make a difference. My depression taught me that. I remembered my shattered spirit in 1999, the shock of the tragedy on my own family. I knew that this project was more than about me. It was God guiding me, to look at my life through a spiritual lens, and find a lesson of faith and trust through the event. It was as if God was saying to me, “John, you are not weak because of what you went through. You are strong.” We started our own non-profit corporation, The Team of Angels Program, which is all about helping families. God saved me and I believe that there are thousands of families that need to know that they are not alone. The work is both satisfying and challenging.

Every time that Trisha and I speak to a group, we learn more about each other. People ask questions and as I answer them, Trish gets a little glimmer of how painful life really was for me at that time. I hear her innermost feelings as she shares with the audience. This is not what I would have planned for my life but hopefully, I can be a voice of hope for someone else.

My four children, now ages 18, 21, 24 and 26 have been guests on radio and television interviews. I am so proud of them. They are all studying psychology in college and I know that they will use their life experiences and compassion to make a difference in the world. I now fully understand that depression brings pain and disruption, not only to the person who has it, but to the whole family. I also know that bringing all of this out in the open may feel uncomfortable for them. So as much or as little as they want to be involved is fine with me. I am so grateful for their love and support. I have a grateful heart that God saved my life and I am able to enjoy life with my family. I want to make the most of the second chance I have been given.

When I decided to speak about my experience, the same Philadelphia Inquirer reporter that covered the story about the young man who brought me out of the shadows to tell mine, called for an interview. He asked when I was planning to speak next and by chance, it was that weekend. He came with a photographer and our story was featured on Good Friday, 2008, on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The headline read, From truth, a way back…..Speaking of suicide restores a man and his family. It included three photos and a good size news story.

Something very curious happened and I still don’t quite under-stand it. The Philadelphia Inquirer is a major newspaper, with a very wide circulation. The article was on the front page……but nobody that we knew contacted us. Nobody called from our old neighborhood. Our relatives didn’t call, nor did our friends from past associations, nor from our former church congregation and clubs. We were puzzled. I think the subject of suicide and depression carries such stigma and talking about it makes people uncomfortable. I can understand that completely. I probably would not have reached out to another family. You just don’t know what to say, so you say nothing.

But something very amazing happened. Strangers called. People we didn’t know looked us up and emailed us or called on the phone. We received many letters, all encouraging us and thanking us for putting a face on the families suffering with depression. They told me I was brave or that I had guts.

They told me about their experiences with depression. They shared that they too felt empty, sad, like nobody cared about them, or worthless.

I work in a clothing store on the Philadelphia Main Line. My employer, Joseph A. Bank, is a pricy retail clothier whose clientele live in affluent neighborhoods, drive expensive cars and seem to be on top of the world without any problems. The day following the Philadelphia Inquirer article, several men came into the store to speak to me. They were not all customers but people who wanted to acknowledge that they were personally touched by the newspaper article. They took me aside and thanked me. They thanked me for telling “their” story. They asked me questions and whispered their secret fears, with candor. “John, I don’t even feel like watching football any more. I just don’t have any energy,” one well-dressed man said. “Do you think I should go on medicine?”

Men of diverse backgrounds including a bank president, rabbi, police officer, college student, a few well-respected community leaders, and even two young returning Iraqi war veterans confided their concerns about themselves or their loved ones. They shared about a child with an eating disorder, panic attack or obsessive compulsive issue. One shared about his son serving time in jail for a crime committed when he stopped taking his medication for bi-polar and robbed a mini-mart.

When Sean Andrews, a football player for the Philadelphia Eagles, spoke out to the media about his bout with depression this past season, I was contacted by a public radio station to offer a commentary. Men may be consoled to know that statistics indicate that an estimated 6 million men in the United States have a depressive disorder, but most don’t even know it and don’t reach out for help. (National Institute of Mental Health)

Unexpectedly, and quite by accident, I became a “support person” for family, friends and even strangers who ask me about medication and talk therapy. I tell them that it takes courage to ask for help, and that it is a strong man, not a weak one, that admits that he wants to get to the root of his feelings of anger, irritability, pessimism and agitation.

Over the years, Trisha brought up the topic of what had happened to me on that beautiful April evening, and I would say, “I don’t want to think about that. It’s too painful.” Sometimes, I would be in such denial that I would say, “I was never depressed. I just had a chemical imbalance.” That’s true, I did have a chemical imbalance but I also had depression, which is hard for most men to admit. And prior to the depression onset, I had anxiety.

I have now committed my life to helping other “real families with real depression” and specifically “real men with real depression.” I feel like a sack of bricks has been lifted from my back, now that I am being open about what happened to me.

My message is that depression is a treatable disease and it can happen to anyone, whether you are a CEO, a Brigadier General, a firefighter, or a priest. I am certainly no expert but after living through this, I want to dedicate my life to educating people about the causes, symptoms and treatments. I want to raise awareness and share my personal story openly. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone!

I came to the conclusion that God spared me for two reasons: so that I could heal and be a father for my kids, and so that I could help other families deal with comparable experiences. My family and I learned the hard way that hiding this kind of truth is unhealthy and unnecessary. Once I came to this insight, I began thinking that sharing our story might help others break out of this pattern of self-imposed suffering. And that is just what is happening: we are reaching out to others, and giving them the comfort that comes from openness and acceptance.

Recently, a journalist who was working on a national magazine story contacted me. She asked if I thought I had found my vocation. She asked me to explain how this event was life changing. I had to be honest and tell her that the decision to talk about all of this was a tough one to make. I know my book is not a “masterpiece” but it is an honest account about a family man, a “normal kind of guy”, John Gallagher, who grew up in Philadelphia, and just planned to be an accountant, certainly not a writer or spokesperson for mental health issues. A person who wondered over the years about the reason his life was spared on that fateful April evening. She even sent a photographer out to our house to take pictures to accompany the proposed article.

Although, that particular article never made it into the national magazine, it confirmed that our story is mainstream enough for publication.

Imagine my surprise when I got a call from Esquire magazine for an interview!

I guess the biggest shock was when a Producer from the Dr. Phil Show called Trisha and asked us to share our story. To be considered as guests, they wanted to include the whole family. Two of our children said they were not ready for that. I certainly respect their feelings and appreciate so much, whatever our children are comfortable doing.

I recently spoke at an in-service meeting for the staff at a psychiatric hospital. Also in attendance were a group of patients from their outpatient day program. Many folks came up to me and said how nice it was to hear from someone who had once “walked in their shoes.” They told me that it gave them hope that they too could feel better. They felt frustrated because many people thought that they should just “snap out of it” or “pull themselves together.”

Now that I have begun speaking out, I find people coming forward to thank me, with a gratitude that is sincere. (I must admit that I have never had so many ladies hug me.) Most are dealing with depression in their own families. Most express the sense of relief that honest dialogue brings.

Reaching out to others has helped our own family to heal. Instead of hiding, Trish and I are reaching out to others by sharing the truth about the pain we went through. Our children, too, have spoken their stories.

I never would have chosen the path of pain I have walked. But now, I can see how that path served to strengthen our family bond and to deepen our appreciation of the spiritual side of life. I am living proof that, no matter how bad things get, there is always a road towards healing, and a plan for our lives. God indeed, works in mysterious ways! Our family’s journey is proof of that.