PART 1)
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,89560PART 2)
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,89661PART 3)
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,89810PART 4)
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,89922PART 5)
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,90090Time moved on, as it does, and I became increasingly aware that I probably wasn’t going to change. I had prayed. I had cried. I had done everything I knew how to do to make this “affliction” go away, to absolutely no effect. I continued chatting online, but instead of seeking out random sex partners, I went in search of someone to date. I figured if I focused my brain elsewhere, I wouldn’t be tempted to have sex. Plus, after what I had done, the thought of actually repeating the same mistake kept me in line for awhile. At that point, I had no idea sex could be anything other than smelly, disgusting and wrong. I still had a sex drive, sure. I was an adolescent boy in the height of puberty, after all. But after the horrific Chase experience, I was too scared to try again.
Things on the home front weren’t improving much either. In fact, things were getting drastically worse. By this time, my mom was nearly completely bedridden. Like before, years ago, any light she had in her eyes had gone almost dark. I did everything I knew how to do to help her, but being only a teenage boy my resources were limited. Not to mention the set of problems I was creating for myself without anyone knowing.
Carrying around a secret like that is sheer torture. The weight and taste of it gets so bad, there are times you’re sure you won’t be able to continue walking. But whom could I talk to? Who could I tell? My parents were certainly out of the question. The bishop? Hell, no. I began to feel trapped. I started having a whole slew of suicidal thoughts. Evidently, there was no way out of this except to die. I was tired of fighting to keep my family together, trying to help my mom, worrying about my dad, attempting to keep my brother shielded from the hell of what was going on in our house, all the while grappling with what I thought was an affliction. God had obviously abandoned me. My prayers had gone unanswered. All my cries for help fell on deaf ears.
I never attempted suicide, but there came a point when it was all I ever thought about. My mind became obsessed with thoughts of death. I had my funeral all planned out, right down to what music would be played. The only solace I found was knowing that once I got to the ‘other side’, whatever that was, all these problems I had would cease to exist.
As I said earlier, the specific times and dates get a little muddy, but I was in mid-adolescence when my dad had his first heart attack. He was in his mid-forties at the time. His family had a big history of heart disease; his mother passed away of a heart attack in 1984. I remember the ambulance coming to the house and taking my dad away. It was then that I understood how fiercely I avoid conflict. When the ambulance came, I was hiding up in my room, doing my best to convince myself I was completely aloof. And if I’m brutally honest with myself, I think I was a little desensitized by that time. So many shitty things had happened, this one felt like the proverbial drop in the bucket. In fact, it was eerily funny in some way. It was like, “REALLY? HOW MUCH MORE???”.
Even at her lowest, my mom was fantastic in a crisis. Shades of her old self really came shining through. At a time when it seemed she should have been falling apart, she completely came together and stepped up to the plate. She remained calm with the paramedics, with everyone. She went to the hospital with my dad and arranged for my siblings and me to stay with friends for the night.
Thankfully, the heart attack was minor, and there was little damage. It was painfully clear, however, that my dad needed to reduce the stress in his life. But how? His doctor ended up putting him on a fairly high dose of the antidepressant Zoloft. Unlike with my mom, the drug seemed to do wonders for him. He was much calmer, took things more in stride, and my parents seemed to fight less and less.
A year went by, and disaster struck again. My dad had another heart attack. This time, however, my mom was in no way, shape or form equipped to handle it. She completely shut down. She was taken to the hospital alongside my dad. They admitted both of them to the hospital; my dad to the cardiac ICU, and my mom to the psychiatric unit for observation.
My world was falling apart around my ears, or should I say falling even further apart than it already had. My parents were both in the hospital, I had no idea whether they would live or die. By this time, I had pretty much given up on God. Where the fuck had he been? What had all of us done to deserve having this much shit rain down on our heads?
My dad had dodged a bullet yet again, but this time the treatment was more aggressive. They went in and inserted stents into arteries in his heart to keep the flow of blood going and to help get rid of the blockages. This seemed to help for awhile, and my dad’s health improved.
My mom’s health, however, continued deteriorating. She continued seeing the psychiatrist and his wife, who was a licensed clinical psychologist. It seemed everything that could possibly be done was being done, and yet, nothing was working.
Later that same year, my dad had his third heart attack. This time, he was taken via helicopter to the cardiac trauma unit at St. Mark’s hospital. While en route to the hospital, he was given a shot nicknamed the Artery Blaster, which allowed just enough blood to get through the artery to keep him alive. This was the only thing that kept him from dying. The cardiologist delivered the news the next day that my dad would need to undergo a triple bypass surgery. My dad was still only in his mid-forties. What the hell was going on? They scheduled the surgery for the following day. My mom stayed by his side the entire time, and once again was back in survival mode and seemed to be doing quite well.
As we all know, most things aren’t usually what they seem to be. The REAL beginning of the end was just around the corner.
My dad had been in the hospital for two weeks recuperating from the very invasive bypass surgery. The surgery had been successful, but it left my dad completely unable to care for himself. He required round the clock care. My mom was at the hospital with him day and night, providing the emotional support he needed. My sister, brother and I spent quite a bit of time at the hospital as well, both to support my dad, but to support my mom as well. During the weeks he was in the hospital, he was healing faster than expected and seemed to be doing quite well.
Out of nowhere, extended family started swooping in. My dad’s younger sister, Linda, flew in from Texas. My mom’s younger brother Joe flew in from Seattle. There may have been others, but I can’t immediately recall. I believe at this point I was about seventeen.
By that time, my faith in the LDS church was all but nonexistent. I only went to church when I was forced to go, and even then, I usually only stayed for sacrament meeting. On the weekends, I was going out to clubs and staying out far too late. My grades weren’t that great, and school almost seemed like an afterthought with everything that was going on at home. Even graduating didn’t seem all that important to me.
While I was glad to see my extended family that came flying in while my dad was healing, I was beginning to question their motives. Everyone seemed really tense and something odd was floating around in the air. It was almost palpable. I chalked it up to everyone being concerned about my dad. If only that had been the case.
One afternoon, my aunt Linda and uncle Joe asked that I sit down and talk to them. I went into the living room and there they sat along with the bishop of our ward. Before I could even ask what the hell was going on, they launched in and explained that they were planning an intervention on my mom. They had decided that my mom was a drug addict and that her continued use of her prescribed drugs and her behavior were going to end up killing my dad. They were planning to completely blindside my mom. My dad was scheduled to be home from the hospital the next day and that was when they were planning the intervention. They explained in no uncertain terms that I was not to interfere with the intervention, and wasn’t to breathe a word about it to my mom. It was very “you’re either with us or you’re against us, and you sure as shit better be with us or else.” It was explained that my little brother and me were not initially going to be part of this intervention, but if my mom didn’t agree to go to rehab, we would be brought in, because we could be the key to making this a successful endeavor because my brother and me were closest to my mom. Out of all of what was about to transpire, I think this is what has scarred me the most. They were exploiting the close relationship I shared with my mom, and worse, they were going to do the same thing to my little brother.
And where, you might ask, was my older sister while all this was going on? Well, she had conveniently moved out of the house at this point and was living with friends in an apartment. I resented her for a very long time for leaving my brother and me alone to deal with all this, but I know now it was the only way she felt she could survive. As far as my sister is concerned, I have been able to forgive her for her part in what happened. She had helped coordinate this entire intervention. My mom’s older sister Karen, younger brother Joe, both of them recovering alcoholics and AA poster children, along with Bishop Chapman had been the masterminds behind everything that was happening. With all the time that has passed, I realize she was mainly just another pawn in the game
Mandi and my parents had a very rocky relationship after my mom began to get sick. Mandi was a party girl. She was drinking, experimenting with drugs, and having sex. Looking back, I’m sure this was her way of acting out and trying to deal with what was happening. When she was still living at home, she was gone most of the time, at her boyfriend’s house, her friends’ houses, basically anywhere she could be other than home. She loved my mom, I knew that, but she pretty much didn’t want anything to do with her. Mandi blamed her for tearing apart our family and causing all my dad’s health problems, and was pretty vocal about that.
And, while we’re at it, you might be asking, what did my dad think of all this? Later I learned that he agreed to it, because he was too weak to fight. This was quite literally an ambush and given his weak state, he was in a very similar position I was in. This was going to happen and there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do to stop it.
I was in shock. I couldn’t even begin to process all this information as it was flying at me. The only thing I could think of to say was “What?! You’re doing this the day my dad comes home from the hospital after having MAJOR SURGERY? ARE YOU NUTS? My mom isn’t a drug addict!” But they weren’t listening. The really compassionate response I received when I asked this question was, “Your dad’s arteries are clear from the surgery. He’s just fine.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was going to happen no matter what I did. And really, what could I do? I was one person up against all these people who were on a Mission- determined to do what they were going to do, and God save the people who tried to get in their way. They were armed with the weapons of God.
I told them flat out that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the intervention, and not to ask, but they made it clear that I probably wouldn’t have much of a choice. The phrase they kept using was “do you want your dad to die? Because that’s what’s going to happen if you don’t cooperate. In fact, it’s quite possible you’ll lose both your parents!” They also let me know that if my mom didn’t cooperate and go to rehab, social services would be called and it was very possible my brother and me would be taken in by the state and placed in foster care. I know now that my dad never would have let that happen, but at the time, the threats were very real, and utterly terrifying.
I was told to go to my friend Josh’s house the next afternoon and stay there until I was called. I spent the next day with Josh, as instructed. I told him everything that was about to go down. He was as dumbfounded as I was. He loved my mom almost as much as I did. But like me, he felt helpless. He gave me as much support as he could, and I will never be able to repay him for that. I never would have made it through without him.
It was becoming late in the evening and I still had not received a call. I was on tenterhooks waiting to hear what was happening. Around 9pm, the phone rang. I was surprised to hear my mom’s voice on the other end of the line. She was absolutely livid. Her anger was almost seeping through the phone. She told me to get home right then. The tone in her voice made me really uneasy.
When I got home, she began to grill me about how much I knew about the intervention. I told her honestly that I knew about it, but had outright refused to participate in it. She told me she wasn’t going to rehab, and there was nothing they could do to make her go. She was hurt, confused, angry, but eerily calm about the whole thing. We sat and talked for hours, and then she asked me a question that caught me completely off guard. She said, “If I had to leave, would you come with me?” I asked her what she meant by that, and she said she might have to pack up and leave and start a new life somewhere else, and she wanted to know whether I would come with her. I had no idea how to respond. A million thoughts were swirling around in my head. I thought about the gravity of what she was asking me. I thought about never seeing my friends again. I thought about never seeing my dad again. It scared me, but at the same time, I have to admit, I was intrigued by the idea. I also knew I loved my mom and wanted to do anything I could to support her. Somewhere deep down, though, I knew the escape would never happen. She didn’t have the heart to leave behind everything she had always held dear. The idea was born from fear and anger. She was feeling cornered, and wanted to do anything she could to escape.
We talked until the wee hours of the morning, and eventually she fell asleep and I went to bed. I slept fitfully. I knew the battle was only beginning, and I wasn’t sure I had the strength to get through it. I did something that night that I hadn’t done in a long time. I prayed.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2011 10:01PM by GayLayAle.