*Trigger Warning*
For the past couple of weeks, life in the King household hasn’t been good. Beth and I have been fighting over everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! The odd part about it is the fights will blow up out of nowhere over the smallest of things, escalating from a minor annoyance to a knockdown - drag-out screaming match in a matter of seconds. Then, 20 minutes later Beth will start talking to me like nothing has happened. The amount of stress I’m feeling from constantly walking on eggshells trying not to set her off has finally gotten to me, enough is enough. Last night I told Beth I needed a break and that I was taking the kids to my parent's house after our appointment the next day, and that I was unsure of how long we were going to stay there. I rarely come to tears, but I broke down crying while packing their clothes into bags. Just my luck that it was at that point Beth had come into the room and just stood there watching me without saying a word. With as angry, sad, and humiliated as I felt at that moment, I couldn’t even look at her. I ended up sleeping on the couch again, so when my alarm went off, I just got up and started getting ready. When I was almost done, I realized that I hadn’t seen Beth come out of the bedroom yet, so I went to make sure she was up and moving so we wouldn’t be late for our appointment. It was December 18th, and my wife was dead.
I walked into the bedroom and called her name loudly but she didn’t move or respond. Beth is usually a light sleeper and wakes pretty easily unless she’s been up all night for one reason or another. When she didn’t wake up, I assumed this was the case, there was also a good chance she took some of her sleeping meds much later than she should’ve and now was oversleeping. I walked over to the bed and shook her leg while repeating her name even louder than before. Beth still didn’t respond. I was already in a bad mood from the night before, so her not waking up and making us late was the last thing I wanted to deal with- or so I thought. I shook her a little harder while calling her name louder, and still nothing. I turned my head away from her while letting out a sigh of anger and frustration, and that’s when I realized what was on the bed with her. My heart froze, and time stood still for what felt like an eternity. There, strewn across the bed, laid several empty and half-empty pill bottles, a notebook with Beth’s handwriting in it, and her phone playing songs she often listens to when she’s depressed or emotional about something. One glance at the notebook where she had started writing goodbye letters to the kids confirmed it, the love of my life and mother of my kids had committed suicide.
A primal scream of fear, disbelief, and outrage roared out of me as time seemed to resume in a flash and the frozen blood in my veins started to flow again. I called 911 and explained to the operator what I had found when entering my room. Listening and feeling for a heartbeat, watching for the rise and fall of her chest, all seemed to fail. I couldn’t feel a pulse or visually confirm if she was breathing. Once I got off the phone I started CPR, but only had to do it for a few minutes as the firehouse was right up the street, so paramedics were there quickly. They took over and quickly found she had a weak pulse with very shallow breathing. After answering a few questions the police had for me, I was able to follow the ambulance to the hospital. They got her into the ER room and hooked her up to be monitored while I was asked to wait in the lobby and out of the way. By the time they let me back into the room, the doctors had already pumped her stomach, pushed some fluids, and said it was going to be a waiting game until she regained consciousness. It was sometime around this point that the adrenaline and shock of the situation finally wore off – that’s when the anger began to kick in.
I left the hospital and went home to wait, and stew in my anger for three days before she finally woke up. Our kids were with their grandparents as I did not want them around any of this. When Beth woke up and saw I wasn't at her bedside, she called and yelled at me for not being there and gave a list of things to bring to her for her comfort. How could she have the oblivious audacity to be upset with me after the stunt she had pulled? What gave her the false sense of entitlement to think I was all that concerned about how comfortable she was? The absolute nerve of this woman I loved was going to drive me to homicide! All of our recent fights, arguments, and stress for the past several weeks could VERY easily be laid at her feet (which at that point is EXACTLY where I laid them), and when she realizes I’m going to leave she tries to kill herself; tries to leave me and the kids in the most permanent way possible. The outright selfishness of it all was mind-blowing.
Things have gotten rough because of things she’s said and done, and when I felt it was getting to be too much, she thought suicide was the answer? How could she leave the kids to be raised by their disabled father – who also now gets to explain to them why their mother did what she did? How do you tell your kids it’s not their fault? And not my fault? At some point at least one of them, if not all of them, are going to ask, “Why didn’t Mommy love me enough to want to live?” How do you answer that? How is it fair for her to expect me to have to answer these questions when the kids ask them? It’s not fair, and it’s not right.
Set aside the struggles of being a one-legged, widowed, single parent for a minute and there are still more questions, thoughts, and feelings to unwrap. Most of these questions either come from being angry or feed the anger because of not liking the way they made me feel. What was wrong with me? Was I not good enough? Why do I deserve to have to go through this? Why didn’t she love me enough to want to stay and fight to make US better? What did I do wrong? These are some of the main things that were rattling around in my head when I wasn’t thinking about the kids. I’m feeling all of this, and she calls to yell at me about the things "she needs?" It was the final straw. I packed a bag of the things she asked for, and one thing she wasn’t expecting.
By the time I got to the hospital, Beth was not in her room since she had been taken to a mandatory group meeting/therapy session. I dropped the bag off in the chair in her room, told the suicide watch nurse to have a good night, and left again. Just as I got in my truck, Beth called. The first question she asked was what was in the long letter she had just found in the bookbag with her stuff. I told her it was all in there, all she had to do was read it. The letter was my final goodbye, I was leaving her and seeking a lawyer for a divorce. It explained that I would always love her, but the suicide attempt was too much, even for me. I couldn’t be with someone who couldn’t even muster up the courage to live and fight for us as a family. I deserved more respect than that. She begged me to come back upstairs and talk to her. I almost didn’t but then thought it only fair to hear her out since my letter got out all I needed to say. Beth tried to explain why she had done it, but it just didn’t make sense to me. I don’t care how bad I feel, nothing will ever make me not want to try and be here for my kids. I sat and listened to what she had to say and told her not to expect an answer right then. It had taken days of rising and building anger to get the decision to leave her, it would take more than just one conversation to change my mind and get me to stay. She begged me to at least agree to talk to her doctor and hear him out about her diagnosis. I agreed to do that much at least, angry as I was, I did still love her and wanted her to be safe and healthy.
When the doctor came in to explain things to me from a medical standpoint, he came in with a team behind him. They all got quite technical in their explanation of things, but the short and sweet version would be to blandly say that Beth is Bi-Polar. Once I got that part down, I decided to do some research on my own (I learn better by seeing things with my own eyes). I guess I wasn’t hiding my emotions too well because the doctors started reassuring me that being bipolar wasn’t a terminal diagnosis. The signs had all pointed to it, I just didn’t know enough about mental illness to make the connection. Much of what we had been going through over the past few weeks, and the build-up over the past few years, made a bit more sense. The roller coaster at least had been explained. Just because it was explained though, didn’t mean that all was forgiven or forgotten. In my eyes, even if mental health issues had her thinking turned around, she still made a choice to leave us in the most painful way possible. It would end up taking a very long time for me to fully get over that anger and resentment.
Suffice to say, I stayed and gave her the chance she had begged for. There were several stipulations placed for me to stay, and Beth agreed to all of them without complaint. Among these demands were things like requiring her to find a medication regimen that would get and keep her stable, and to stay on it. The other major one was to get into therapy to help her maintain control of her thoughts and feelings, even during the times when the medications didn’t work as well. Beth did it all and much more.
When my wife said she was overwhelmingly happy that the attempt failed because it could be looked at (in a way) as one of the best things that ever happened to her, I almost choked on my drink in disbelief. She explained that what she meant was that it had opened her eyes and given her a new lease on life. She is now able to see things from a different and better perspective than what she had before. Although I hate the way it’s said, I can admit in that regard she is right.
Things in the King household are pretty good these days. There are still ups and downs of course, but it is not the nightmarish roller coaster it once was. My advice to anyone out there who may be struggling with a loved one who is battling mental health issues would be to talk to them, help them know that it is okay to seek help. Educate yourself as much as you can on mental health issues to help gain a better understanding of what they are going through, and what you can do to help them, and help yourself.
NAMI has a great course they put on every so often that goes over many illnesses, and they also have support groups in some areas that can offer help as well. In today’s day and age of instant knowledge at your fingertips, there is no excuse for not taking any and all of the extra steps to help those you love. Knowledge is a power that can make life easier and happier for you both.
This is my side. There are two parts to every story.
Written by Jimmy King, USMC Veteran
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness): https://nami.org/Home
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