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Chapter 1
“My Emily”
My journey into the darkest corner of hell began on that fateful day in May of 2000. It began as I sat in my car enjoying my second cup of coffee. I was hurled into the darkness by a voice, my wife’s voice. Her message had been left on my cell phone.
“Wherever you are hon, pull over,” my wife, Rob, said on the voice mail message. “I have some bad news for you.”
Pull over? I hadn’t even started the car. Bad news? I had been braced for something bad because of the first voice mail from a neighbor. But it had been vague and my mind was swirling as I attempted to piece together bits of information. Besides, we always search for some non-threatening explanation. Maybe, just maybe it was someone else’s bad news. It’s called denial.
Rob’s voice cut through my spinning thoughts like a well-honed straight razor.
I noticed for the first time that the sky was overcast, almost gloomy. I realized that something terrible, unspeakable, hung on my wife’s words. It had only been a fraction of a second after her first words, but it seemed like an eternity waiting for what she had said next. With my stomach spewing acid, fear was rising up to form a steel shank in my chest; I held my breath waiting for the message. Dreading what was to come!
Then it came, “Emily is at the Hershey Medical Center. She attempted suicide this morning.”
Emily? My thirteen-year-old daughter? My baby? My God!!!
The message continued, “Emily had apparently overdosed on medication and then called 911. Don’t worry. They say she’ll be fine. I’m on my way there now.”
“Don’t worry? She’ll be fine!” I was piecing this together with the only other information I had. The first voice mail had been left by a neighbor, saying Emily had come home from school that morning, crying, and that later an ambulance had been parked in front of our house. My mind had raced through the possibilities!
I was numb by now. There’s no way to describe the fear, the confusion, the panic, the racing thoughts. Even today it is so difficult to recall.
Hit by a ton of bricks doesn’t even come close.
Then it got worse. The last part of the message was, “Don’t worry, Hon,” Rob said, “It’s not your fault.”
My fault? What the hell was she talking about? My wife had just told me my daughter’s attempted suicide was not my fault. My fault. The words fired off repeatedly in my head as I raced toward the hospital, about a half hour’s drive away. I’m sure I made it in twenty minutes, maybe less.
Of course this wasn’t my fault – but wait. A few weeks ago, at the dinner table I had screamed at Emily. I mean screamed. I swore she had lied to me and if there is one thing in life I will not tolerate, it is being lied to, especially by my teenage daughter. We fought so loudly I’m surprised the neighbors hadn’t called the police. Finally, Emily left the table and went to her room. I “won.”
I replayed that scene over and over again, as I raced the miles to the Hershey Hospital. I won. Why? Because I intimidated my daughter to the point of submission?
On the way to the hospital’s emergency room, I saw a woman I knew. She came up and wanted to talk. I flew right past her. I think I told her my daughter had attempted suicide. It’s all a blur now. When I arrived at Em’s room I quickly found that they were right. Emily was OK physically. She had been given whatever they give people who overdose on meds and she was lying on her back.smiling. My Emily was going to be OK. I remember hugging her, but not much else.
I only have this vague memory of my conversation with Emily. I’m sure I made a joke or two. My tendency in a crisis is typically to offer distractions, to find some humor. In this case, though, I can’t swear to it.
I remember two school officials showing up at the ER. Kids apparently had told them Emily was upset and had left school. They must have come with the police. The police and these two folks from school had searched my house, an unsettling thought, but an understandable one given the situation that they faced.
I would learn later that there was a suicide note. It had been left on her computer screen. Emily had come home and written it that morning. It expressed anger with her middle school friends. In it, she reassured mom and dad, she was not angry with us, in fact she loved us.
I assumed Emily would now be discharged to go home with us. No! The psychiatrist came in and told us what would happen. Emily would be committed to a psychiatric hospital for at least three days. An ambulance was on its way to pick her up and take her there. No, we couldn’t take her. No, she couldn’t go home with us. She had to go to the psychiatric hospital. Something about it being a state law. I don’t remember. I was angry, confused, lost.bitter!
I stayed that way for more than a year.
I call that day “My Emily.” Most of us who have lived long enough have had at least one. Many younger people think they have had one. Some of us think we have had more than one.
That day, May 18, 2000, was mine. It was a day that would change my life, forever.
This book is about how I climbed out of the depths of hell. It took more than a year before I began the climb, and I’m still climbing today. This is about my spiritual journey, Emily’s courage, and my family’s efforts to recover.
But this book is also about you.
God told me to write this book. To write it for you and people like you who have, are, or will experience that day I have called “My Emily.” That may sound crazy to some of you, never the less, I know it with my heart and with every fiber of my being. OK, you can be skeptical and that’s fine. But consider this, what if this book really is for you? Could you afford not to continue reading?
When your day comes – not if, but when – this book will help you deal with it. No matter the cause, whether it’s the death of a loved one, losing your job, a bitter divorce, or another type of personal crisis, you will experience your “Emily.” When it happens, you need to know that there is help if you want it and are willing to accept it. That there are individuals and experiences that will help pull you out from those now unimagined depths.
No matter when you have your “Emily” – your severest time of need – I hope that what I’ve learned will help you to prepare for facing that day. I learned the hard way. It doesn’t need to be that hard for you. Help is at hand. And that’s what I want – no, what I’ve been told – to share with you.
I am fifty-eight years old and my name is David Anderson Brown. I am a father, a husband, a son, a brother. I am self-employed. I’m a man of faith! I am a volunteer. I’m a person who always said, “Yes” until the day my world collapsed in upon me. I am a person very much like you.
I am also a storyteller because I have learned that some of life’s greatest lessons are to be found in stories.
What I learned has been working for me. I learned that along with life comes pain. Experience defines pain. Pain brings wisdom. Only when you acknowledge that the pain of where you are is greater than the pain of where you want to be, will you seek to change. Each of us need not deal with our pain alone. There is help available to us. We need to be aware of that fact and be willing to avail ourselves of it. I was in a world of pain. I needed help and I finally got it.
