The nurse paused and said in a calm voice, “She
came in after attempting suicide.†It was as if
the world stood still. I wanted to say, “Excuse
me, what did you say?†The words were clear,
yet they were incomprehensible.
The day started just like any other day. My wife
and I got up at our normal time to get ready for
work. Our son and 3 daughters were always
shortly behind us, getting ready for school or
work. We realized two of our daughters were not
in the milieu. Our remaining daughter seemed the
logical source of information. She, somewhat
reluctantly, communicated that she thought they
had gone to the emergency room at the local
hospital. We just assumed it was related to our
daughter’s recent knee operation. The first week
of grade 12 she had a major knee injury. The
subsequent operation took her out of all the
sports she loved. Basketball, soccer and
wrestling would not be part of her final year of
school. This was a big disappointment.
We headed to the hospital emergency room.
Checking with reception, they confirmed she was
there. Assuming this visit was related to her
knee operation we asked questions, as we
walked along with the nurse. The nurse paused
and said in a calm voice,
“She came in after attempting suicide.†It was as
if the world stood still…
The nurse went on to explain that she had come
in after having taken all the prescription pain
medication she had from her knee surgery. She
had to have her stomach pumped. When we got
to her bed she was sleeping. The nurse told us
that she would most likely not wake up for at
least 4 to 5 hours.
My wife and I both shifted to auto pilot. We
were stunned! We did not know what to do or
say. We did not have words to talk to anyone.
Questions invaded our minds: Why? What had we
missed? What had we done wrong? What were
the deep problems that led to this? How had we
failed so badly as parents?
Maybe this was just a bad dream?!! Please,
please … let it be!
Several hours later our daughter started to wake
up. Once she was fully awake we tried to talk,
hoping for some answers. She simply said, “It
has nothing to do with you.â€
A Perfect Storm of Disappointing Circumstances
Eventually we got the whole story…
Our daughter had recently gone out with a friend.
During their conversation this “friend†told her:
She did not want to be friends and no longer
wanted anything to do with her,
She pointed out all her character flaws,
Questioned why anyone would want to be her
friend,
Then she went on to speculate that even God
would not accept her.
To make matters worse, our daughter had
already felt rejected by another set of friends.
After this conversation, our daughter came home
and went into the hot tub in our back yard. As
she sat there, the darkness closed in… no
sports… no friends… no hope… By this time we
were already in bed. Feeling totally overwhelmed,
our girl got out of the hot tub. She downed all
the prescription pain killers. She did not think of
suicide when she did this, she just did not want
to feel any more pain , physical or emotional.
It wasn’t that she wanted to die she just wanted
to escape the pain that seemed so
overwhelming.
Thankfully, she soon realized that what she had
done was a HUGE mistake. Hoping to hide this
from us, she asked her sister to drive her to the
hospital. Her plan was to have her stomach
pumped and come home before we were up. She
did not realize hospitals do not let people who
take massive amounts of pain killers just leave
the hospital. She ended up spending few days
there. The doctors felt the attempt was due to a
perfect storm of disappointing circumstances.
Our daughter would later say it was the dumbest
thing she had ever done in her life. She realized
that by giving into despair AND to the opinions
of others, she lost sight of how loved she was by
us and by God. She also forgot that He had a
good plan for her life.
