Introducing the Family and Their Backgrounds

Part 1 of 5 · Ep. 275

Guest [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

Guest 2 [00:00:07] Mormon Stories podcast is a production of

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:09] the Open Stories Foundation.

Guest 2 [00:00:11] All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:29] hello and welcome to another episode of Mormon Stories. This is Natasha Helfer Parker, and tonight I'll be interviewing a mother son team regarding some mental health illness that has affected their family experience. Due to the sensitive personal nature of some of the information that they will be sharing, we will be conducting this interview anonymously. The son in this team is known as JMB275 on the blogger NACL and writes for the site Wheat and Tares, correct?

Guest 3 [00:01:06] Yes, that's right. I also wrote for Mormon Matters for quite a while.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:10] Okay. And he's 30 years old and he's an engineer, currently getting his PhD in aerospace engineering at, quote, a rather large university in Michigan.

Guest 3 [00:01:22] You can guess which one.

Guest [00:01:23] Okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:25] Before going back for his PhD, he worked for a national laboratory in California. And his dreams include continuing to play with aircraft for a living after he's done. He's married and has three children. I will call him Jay throughout this interview. His mother was born in Oregon and has lived in Salt Lake City since the age of seven. She's 59. She was in banking management until she decided to stay home with her children when they were born. She's married and has two sons, both pursuing advanced degrees. Both she's very proud of. And I will be calling her One of Me during this interview. So hello, One of Me.

Guest 2 [00:02:08] Hello.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:08] Okay, so welcome. And I just want to kind of just throw out there that I'm very, very appreciative of the two of you coming on our show tonight and sharing your experiences as mother and son. Because I know a lot of what we're going to be talking about. You know, it's difficult. You have a difficult maybe history together and you have been through a lot together and you've really come across with a great, sounds like a great relationship on the other end. So I just appreciate you're willing to do this.

Guest 3 [00:02:37] Thanks for having us. Hope it helps somebody.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:39] Yes, absolutely. So in good Mormon stories fashion, I think we'd like to get started just with some history. And I think one of me, I'd like to kind of start with you and give you a chance to kind of tell us a little bit about your background, your upbringing, how Mormonism fits Into that and is that. Let's just start there.

Guest 2 [00:03:06] Okay.

Guest [00:03:07] I

Guest 2 [00:03:10] like church background. How that part.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:03:14] Sure. Well, and just your growing up years and just tell us a little bit about yourself as far as where you come from.

Guest 2 [00:03:21] Okay. Like you said, I came from Oregon and moved here when I was seven years old. I was always a very good student, quite bright and always in advanced classes. Didn't understand what it meant at the time because you know that many years ago they didn't tell you what it meant. But I just. I liked school. I loved learning. I've always loved to learn. I love to read. I enjoy a wide variety of interest in books and subjects and topics and read voraciously. I was born. My family were lds. I'm not sure they were terribly active. I guess my biggest memory is that I was always forced to go to church meetings and that caused huge rebellion for me because forced just doesn't. It's just not. That's not my thing.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:27] You're talking about, like during your teenage years and.

Guest 2 [00:04:29] Right, right. Teenage years. And

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:36] were your parents both like longtime members of the church or converts or like, how far does the church history go back?

Guest 2 [00:04:43] Do you know what? I'm not really sure about that. I know that they originally were not married in the temple, but I think my mom was a member of. I'm not sure about my father. And that's really sad that I don't know that, but I don't. But I know somewhere along the way, if he wasn't a member, he became a member. I think he was a member and just inactive because they did eventually. They were eventually sealed and they were doing what they thought was right and having us go to church. My only objection was things were forced and I don't respond to force very well. I tend to get really rebellious. There's a strong family, a strong pioneer lineage in my family, and even stronger for Justin because it's not just on my side, but on his father's side also. So that's kind of how. That's kind of our long. Our past history and background. The lineage for my son Jay is even stronger because there's a strong pioneer lineage from both my side of the family and his father's side of the family goes way back to the earliest beginnings of the church, connections with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. So we have that strong background. And at different times, it's, I think, been kind of a source of pride for us. And at times it's been like so big whoop, you know, as things ebb and Flow in life and different things become important.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:48] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:06:51] I was married civilly first and sealed later.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:55] To a member of the church.

Guest 2 [00:06:57] Yes. And he was always a member of. Always a member of the church. I was always a member of the church. I was just think I wanted to be inactive and couldn't. I don't know. And it's not that I didn't believe that. Again, my resistance was to the force. My parents forcing me to do this.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:20] And this was a parenting. A parenting paradigm that they did with all the kids. Like how many? What?

Guest 2 [00:07:27] Yes, how many? There were 10 children. 10 children. There are six girls. Six girls and four boys.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:34] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:07:34] And yes, that this was how they parented. Well, I should say down to about seven. And then the last three, perhaps they got tired and didn't force things quite so much on them as they did the older ones. But I can't speak to that. They would have to. But that's how it appeared to us who were older?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:04] What order were you? What birth order?

Guest 2 [00:08:07] I was sixth.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:08] Okay. And how many of your siblings have kind of reacted like you did as far as the rebellion or not liking that. That style? How many are still active, for instance, or.

Guest 3 [00:08:19] That's a loaded question.

Guest 2 [00:08:23] Not so loaded. Let's see. Let's see. One. Gary. I would say there's probably three out of the. And I'm. And I'm including me because I still consider myself. I love the term active versus inactive. I consider myself an active Mormon because I basically believe whether I attend. I know that's not their definition, but I still believe. Okay. And so I'm counting myself in that. That number. So I would say that there's two boys and then me who have remained active. And I had. I have been very active, held many responsible positions for a long, long time. It's only probably the last about three years where I stepped back and evaluated a little bit. And some of it had to do with some of the mental health issues and things that I encountered within my ward. And I just. I had to put that together for how it was going to work for me and how it fit, because not everyone just accepts that, and that's hard. When we preach accepting each other, we, our religion preaches accepting and loving one another and extending your hand and reaching out to help. When you live the reality that that doesn't happen quite the way we hope it does always, then I think it's a good thing to look at it and step back and examine and decide for yourself where and what weight you want to give certain Things.

Early Signs of Mental Health Struggles

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:26] At what point, Wenomi, did you begin to notice that you were having issues surrounding mental health? What, what age did that all begin for you?

Guest 2 [00:10:43] My first suicide attempt was at 16.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:45] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:10:47] And some younger, but I'm not as, as Definite as at 16. I know that one really clear. And then it kind of backed off and I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 35 and the kids were 1 and 6 and. Yeah. And I was told I probably would not live year. And so that became a real point for me in trying to figure out my spirituality and what I believed and what I didn't. I always wondered when the times really got tough, did I have it in me to make it through the tough things? And I found out that I did. And that's a good thing. And it was, it was a real journey. It was a real journey and I came out on the stronger end of it and I'm grateful for that. And then I went through extensive chemotherapy and was given a huge state calling after that and after about three years and my mother in law who was dying of Lou Gehrig's disease and I was nursing her quite a bit so she could pass away at home and a neighbor who was dying of breast cancer and having this huge church position and My youngest was 3 years old and things just started to unravel and I knew I was in trouble. I knew real fast that I was in big trouble and I needed to get somewhere right away. And I made a call and within about two days I had an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:12:44] So by being in big trouble, are you meaning you were suicidal again?

Guest 2 [00:12:47] Yes.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:12:49] And so between the ages of kind of like late teen, young adult to 35, you weren't experiencing as many symptoms. It was really after the breast cancer incident that things became much harder.

Guest 2 [00:13:03] I would say I still experience depression. I don't, you know, I don't really remember not being depressed. How does that sound for a happy mother to come and live with? I don't. But it was in varying degrees and I, I could hide it a lot or cope with it. I would just throw myself into, I threw myself into my kids lives a lot. Became very, became very involved in school, in their football, in whatever they were doing. And I think because I loved them so tremendously, that kind of helped stave off the boogeyman of depression for a little bit, or at least I could keep him at bay a little bit because I knew I had something important coming up with them and I had to fulfill a commitment. And yet there, there has Always been an underlying depressive part of me. Okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:11] For as long as you can remember, like even before you were 16?

Guest 2 [00:14:14] Oh, yes, yes. From very young, very young.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:19] So when you received this state calling after having gone through chemotherapy and all that, was that something that you were excited about? Like, oh, here's this great opportunity and I can kind of, you know, relax into this responsibility or was it a burden from the get go as far as, oh, I can't believe they're giving me this responsibility when I've had so much to deal with it.

Guest 2 [00:14:44] That's a good question and I think I have what for me is a good answer. It at first was a burden and then it became okay. We had just been put into a new stake and I was upset because I had had the cancer diagnosis and I thought I was leaving the people I knew that were going to pray for me and going to another stake and they didn't know me, oh, I was going to die. All of these things that you do and. But the good part about it is because I had previously been president of two organizations, I wasn't a newbie. So when they called me in and extended the call, I was able to say to them straight up, okay, there's a question I have for you. I have to know, I have to ask you, I have to know. Have, have you been on your knees? Have you prayed about this? And how sure are you? Because you know what my family has been through. You know, I am just recovering from chemotherapy, my hair is just starting to grow back. We buried my mother in law. There has been so much that's gone on that's impacted my family and I've been drawn away from them and callings for 10 years and I feel like it's the time for us to regroup and pull together and spend some quality time. And they said, sister Bradley, believe me, we have prayed. We have gone back and back and asked the same question that you're asking because we do know what you've been through. And each of us have gotten the answer repeatedly. And I said, okay, then this is what I need to say to you. I need to go home and I need to do my homework. You need to give me time to pray about it, to ask the questions, to read. That's where I get my answers most of the time is when I read the scriptures and I will let you know. And I came home and I did that. And in reading I did find the answer and I knew why the calling was extended and I felt like I did need to Accept it. And once I was able to do that, once I do that and commit, I commit, I do what I say I do. I'm not a slacker. And I threw my little heart and soul into it. But young women's callings are particularly difficult. There's a lot of time out of the house, out of the home, girls camp and sports programs and activities constantly, and youth conferences and on and on. And so they're tough callings. And yet I knew there were things at that point that I had learned that I had an opportunity to teach and responsibility to teach a particular thing that I had learned in answer to a specific prayer. And so I knew that they were right. This was something that I needed to do. And then I jumped in, threw my little heart and soul into it, and went for broke.

Navigating Church Callings and Leadership

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:18:30] So two things that stand out for me that seem actually pretty healthy in that, in that interplay between yourself and your leaders are one, you didn't just say yes right away. You challenged them as far as, are you sure this is what's right? Are you aware of my current circumstances? It seems like they were sensitive to some of the things that you've been through. And then two, you didn't have to give them an answer right away. You were able to go home and think through things, maybe discuss things with your husband, even kind of go through your own personal revelation as far as this being something that was going to be healthy for you at this time.

Guest 2 [00:19:13] Right. In fact, what I remember saying to them is, I'm not a newbie. I've made all kinds of calls like, we've got to have someone to do the job. And I know this person is a follow through person. I done a. Well, this person needs to grow and maybe I can work with them. I've made all kinds of calls. You guys have to do what I, I need to know you have done this. And if not, then I would ask you to do your job, get down on your knees and ask again if you have not done those things. And I was, I was very, very direct with them. And they accepted that, which is to, to their credit.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:19:51] Right.

Guest 2 [00:19:53] They were, they were willing to see that and accept it. And, and I admire them for doing that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:20:00] Do you think that that's something that you learned how to do over time? Do you think that, I mean, is that how you originally took callings in? Do you think that this is something that women maybe struggle with as far as how to hold their leaders accountable or how did you learn to do that?

Guest 2 [00:20:19] Absolutely. I think it's something that women need to do is hold the leaders accountable for callings that are made. How I learned to do it. Like I said, I had been president within 10 years. I had been president of organizations three different times. If I was not a president, I was in a presidency. And so, like I said, I wasn't a newbie. And we never had enough people. And I knew if they were looking for someone, they were going to hit my organization and I was going to have to replace people. And so I knew the hard work. I knew the buck stopped with me. I'd learned that part. I'd gotten the calls on Sunday mornings when you had classes, need to talk, being taught, and gee, can't make it, sorry. And, you know, so you shuffle and fill in. And so I knew all of the prac. I knew what some people think is the glory of a calling. I don't know how else to say. It's because I got a lot of flack. When they extended that state calling to me, it was like, oh, well, I've never done anything like that. And I'm like, whoo, here, have it. Because you know what? I know what this is going to require, and it's a lot. And I know, you know, who's responsible in the end. But because I had done it,

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:53] I

Guest 2 [00:21:53] think I became stronger just in seeing the logistics of those kinds of callings and how they impact families. And also, we weren't supposed to be able to have children. It took 10 years to get J and another six years to get my other J. And. And so I. And we almost lost him in childbirth once I was able to get pregnant. And so they were extremely important to me. They were at the top of my list. And so I think all of those things factored into because. And this will. I don't mean this as a criticism to the church. I would hope that maybe anyone that listened to would learn from it. Sometimes they speak out of two sides of their mouth. And one is the family is the very most important thing. And this is what you need to do. Yet here we need you in this position, and it's going to take you out of the house this much of the time. And we expect you to be responsible and do it. And so there you're sitting. Well, okay, which one do you want me to do? Because I can do both halfway, or I can do one really well, or I can, you know, so it. I think it puts not just mothers, fathers too, in a position where they have to really examine and decide for themselves. And that's why? And I think as women, because the caretake, the caretaking of children is generally ours. It puts a little bit heavier burden. And because we do guilt so well. And I will state that women do guilt so well that it's like if I say no, then, oh, I have to live with this. I said no. And what are they going to think about me? Will they ever call me to anything again? Da da da da da da da da. Our minds go crazy. And I had made it past all of that and was just to a place where I could honestly say, this is what it is for me. This is what my expectation is of you. If you did not do that, I need you to do your homework, get back on your knees and try again.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:24:23] And do you think that if he would have gone home and prayed and not felt comfortable about receiving the calling, do you think that you could have said no?

Guest 2 [00:24:32] Absolutely. At that point, yes. Had it been my first calling, no. But at that point after the cancer, after knowing that perhaps my time was very limited with my children, I would have had no problem saying no.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:24:48] And do you feel that that permission is given by church council or church leadership? Or do you think that's something that you had to learn on your own?

Guest 2 [00:24:59] Again, I will say that's one of the things I think that kind of comes out both side of their mouths. I think they, they, they say to us, you are the only one that knows your total family situation and you have to speak up. If we extend a call, you have to let us know if there are valid reasons why you can't take this. Because we don't, we don't always know. So they say that. But then on the other hand, how many times I've heard people stand up and say, oh, I was taught never to turn down a calling. I was taught never to turn down a calling. I've heard it so many times. And so that kind of gets ingrained in our heads and people remember that and oh, because I was taught this and I'll go in and say yes, and I guess I'll get through it somehow. And so again, I guess there's no. I don't have a clear cut answer. I think that's one of the things that as individuals we kind of have to own our own responsibility for that and be willing to speak up or not speak up and be honest and open if things aren't in a place for you to say yes to, to callings, no matter how big or. No matter. No matter. I don't mean big or small. No matter the time, involvement, whatever's going to take, it's still going to remove you to some degree from your family. And I think it's healthy for us to examine that and say at this time, is this a good, good thing for my family? Because my family unit is what's important.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:56] Yeah. So you're. Yeah. I mean, you're talking really about correct. Having correct personal boundaries and being able to make healthy choices for yourself and for your family unit as a whole. And sometimes that does go against, you know, maybe what. What calling is being offered or things like that, which can be a conundrum for people because, well, this. Is this coming from God or not then kind of a thing?

Guest 2 [00:27:19] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:19] Yeah. Okay, can you go back really fast? You say that you were given a year to live at age 35, two young children. Can you speak a little bit about what that was like and the emotional kind of fallback about having something like that said to you?

A Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Its Impact

Guest 2 [00:27:42] Yeah, yeah, I can. My youngest was 16 months old when I stopped breastfeeding him. And I found a lump in my breast and went immediately. And. Well, we don't think it's anything because, first of all, you're only 35. We don't even do mammograms at that age. And when you've just stopped nursing, you don't know exactly what you're feeling in, you know, the milk ducts. It could just be, you know, residual milk. And so what we normally do is let it go to two months. You feel it after every cycle. If you feel something, get in here immediately. If you don't, then, you know, we'll just figure things are okay. That was what I did. As I look back on it, that was. For me, that was a mistake. For the kind of person I am, that was a mistake or what? I. Before two months was up, I felt lumps in my. Under my arm. And so I immediately got in, and he called a doctor from across the hall that was a cancer specialist. He felt it. He said, I don't care where you get her in for a mammogram. You get her in today. I'm setting her up for surgery at the hospital tomorrow. Yes. And when you get the mammogram report back, call me, and I will call her and let her know what time to be at the hospital tomorrow. And. And I was not surprised. I. I knew. And so this is the part that upsets me, and this is what I tell women. I did reach to recovery with a cancer society for quite a long time. And I said, this is what for me was hard. I'm the person that wants to jump on something. If there's something, let's get on it. What I learned was if it was nothing, it would have still been nothing in two months. But if it was something, then let's lose the two months, get on it, get treating it, and on the way. And I asked them, so what difference did two months make? Well, probably not a lot, because see, I had seven tumors in one breast and 24 out of 26 lymph nodes were positive. And so then the question was not, has it spread? Where else has it spread? And so they say, well, okay, you might not have had as many lymph nodes. You might have had, like, say if you had 16 out of 18, but at that point you're still in trouble. It still spread. But that wasn't the issue to me. The issue to me was getting on. Let's get on and start doing something about this. And so, yes, the very next day, I was in, I had the surgery, had a transfusion. I'd lost a lot of blood. My husband was a rock. He stayed with me that night. In fact, he told them, I'm not leaving. I don't care where you find a bed, I'll sleep on the floor, whatever. But I am staying with her. Whenever a nurse walked in to the room, he was up by my bed immediately, what are you doing? What are you, what, what are you doing now? Because he knew I was still in and out. I was still recovering from the anesthesia, and I couldn't speak, speak for myself. So he was doing that for me. And he was rock solid and had to have a transfusion. And I remember I had my family up there at the time, and I didn't ask them to give blood. And later on, I thought this was right when AIDS was becoming a problem. This was in 1987. And I thought later, after chemo, I'm like, that was so stupid. I know they wouldn't have had aids. Why wouldn't I have asked that? Now I get to worry about aids. But I was devastated, totally devastated. I remember this was when I really started reading the Book of Mormon. And I've said a million times, there's no one in, in the church that's read I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents more often than I have. And that was as far as I got. But I would wake up at three in the morning and I'd say, well, I'm awake and it doesn't look like I'm Falling asleep. Let's get this out. What's it all about? And I was led to read them a different way. I didn't start at page one and start going through. I went to the topical guide index, looked up the things that I looked up. Healing, because I needed to know about healing. And I read each reference until I got to the one that I knew that reference was for me. That was the one I needed to hear. And it was, if you're not appointed unto death, then with faith you can be healed. Oh, great. Okay, more questions. How do I know if I am appointed unto death? But I was. I. Yeah. But finally, after pondering and pondering, I got the answer to that review. Your blessings. And so I did. And I was able to determine I was not appointed unto death. Oh, great. Okay. Now how do I have, how do I measure? Do I need a cup of faith? How much faith do I need in order to pull this off? And so, and what is even faith? And so you start to look. I started to look at the things in my life. What constitutes faith? Well, gee, would I even go to church? Would I take the sacrament? Would I pray if I didn't think that these things ultimately would help or make a difference in my life? No, that would be, that would be ludicrous. Why would I do that? So, but I mean, I didn't know that there was that hope that these things would be beneficial. And so I realized those were elements of faith that I had not even understood before. But the part of how it impacted me with my kids. I remember going into the bathroom, my bathroom, and shutting the door and just crying, sobbing silently to myself because I was not going to see my kids. The age that I love is teenage. I work in a junior high with teenagers and have 4, 13 years. I love the age. I wanted to see what my children were going to grow up to be, what their interests were going to be. I wanted to see who they dated. I wanted to experience all of those next coming of life things. And it was going to be robbed from me. And why would I be told I was angry at God? Why would you tell. Why would I be told I can't have children? And then I get to. And now I don't get to raise them. I'm sorry, I. I think that's not very fair. And all I'm just a ton of emotions and talking to my husband about it. And he kept. And I'd say, okay, so what is it you're going to do? You know, when I'm, If I Don't make it. And I'm not around. Oh, you're going to make it. And I'd say no. We need to seriously talk about this. Don't blue sky me, because I might not. And it's my life that's on the line, not yours. And so a lot of it took him a while to understand. I didn't want panacea. I wanted truth from him. And finally I hit a place where, you know what? I don't get to choose what happens to me. I only get to choose how to deal with what happens to me. And so how are you going to deal with this, Sal? What's the best way that you can think to deal with this? You need to find that so that you can still, however long you are here, you can still be the best mom that you can be and most helpful to your children and your husband.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:36:19] Was your husband ever able to join you on those types of conversations? Or was he so scared to even imagine you not making it? Or how did he get through to that point?

Guest 2 [00:36:33] At first, I think he was scared and not able to join in, not able to accept that. What I needed was honesty. I think he was afraid to give me honesty in case I couldn't handle it. Before we left the hospital, we had had social workers come and talk to us and tell us how many marriages don't survive breast cancer. And that was just never, thank heaven, an issue for us. He was there for me, period. And through many crises since then, we have been there. We have had our little family of four, has been through many things that most families don't ever see in a lifetime. And we went through them in a very short time. And it was hard, but we became stronger for him. But it was very hard for him to know that ultimately I did want the truth and I needed to hear his truth, not just blue sky. And let's talk about this, because if I do die, this is what I would like to see you do. Because my children need a mother. And we were able to get to that point, but it took a while. It didn't come easily. There was a lot of pain for both of us involved. He was scared of losing, you know, his wife and the mother of his children. But I didn't understand his fear for a while. And that was interesting to me that it took me a while to understand his fear. And of course he would feel that way and. But eventually, you know, and it didn't take that long. When you're in a crisis situation, you work through things a lot Faster. At least we did. Maybe not everybody kind of forces you to.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:33] In a way.

Guest 2 [00:38:33] Yes. Because, you know, if we only had a year to work through some of this stuff, then we had to hit it and hit it fast and get some direction for where we wanted things to be and hopefully go. And so you let a lot of empty things. You get to what is critically important, what the truly important things are, and you let the fluff go.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:59] Right. These social workers that met with you and explained kind of the, I guess, the pitfalls or the things to watch out for, what were they telling you?

Processing Grief and Terminal Illness

Guest 2 [00:39:11] The really good thing that they were telling us and I thought was positive was they. They explained that a diagnosis of potentially terminal illness was much like a death. And the stages of grief that you go through in adjusting to a death. And I know that there are definite, you know, the loss and the grief, and I've forgotten all of them now. I think there's seven stages that you would remember. Seven stages or something. And, and they said what they have found is that if you go through those stages honestly and, and lit. Literally face each step and examine what it's going to be in your life and, and go walk through it that way. They found that those people tend to do much better survival rates and statistics than those that just kind of blue sky and say, oh, I'm going to be okay. Kind of the Pollyanna version. Oh, I'm going to be okay. This isn't going to happen to me. This is. And they said not to put them down because everybody deals with these things in their own ways. And we can all handle different things. Yeah, we all, We all handle different. What am I trying to say? Different traumatic events in our lives. Some, Some are able to breeze through them and others get hung up in them. And that's just how we are as people. But they, they, they were really honest in saying that a lot of times the husbands can't handle the possibility of losing their lives. Their wives, they can't handle that their wives no longer. They don't feel complete to them. They've lost. If they've had a mastectomy, which was what they were doing mostly when I had it. Not the lumped lumpectomies. They. It's hard for them to look at their bodies and, and the wives have a different body image because they have lost a breast. And so there's many things that come into that and not just a lot of marriages aren't able to bridge those things and the marriages don't make it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:41:44] But did you End up. Did you end up having a mastectomy yourself or.

Guest 2 [00:41:49] Yes, I had a modified radical mastectomy, and I did not do reconstruction for quite a few years because I was like, well, you know, if I'm gonna. If I'm not gonna make it a year, and. And literally I was like, you know what? My breasts have served their purpose. They fed my children. If it's not, well, take it off. And yet, I'll be honest, it was hard to look in the mirror and know that there was supposed to. I was supposed to have two bumps there, not just one.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:42:30] Well, this is so tied to our images, women, and the femininity and our sensuality, and obviously, they are sexual organs as well. So that must have been a big part of it for you, too. Is that loss of even maybe feeling feminine or sensual or sexy.

Guest 2 [00:42:50] Right. Well. And then when you lose all your hair on top of it, too, and you're going, hey, I'm not stupid here. I know I look better with hair than without it, and it's coming out in droves, and it's all over your pillow and all, you know, and it's. Yeah. So there's, you know, a lot of factors that come into it. But what I think. I'm not an optimist. Jay will back me up on this. I'm not an optimist by nature. I don't know that I try to be pessimistic. I think I try to be a realistic mostly and say, well, you know, if I'm not going to make it a year, then why would I want to go through another surgery and be sick longer when I'm already going through this extensive chemotherapy, which. It was a new regimen. It had a new drug in it. And literally, the first time I was given it, I thought, perhaps it's better to die of the illness than the cure, because I heaved, like, every three to five minutes for, like, eight or nine hours trying to get that toxic poison out of my body. And I had to do this four times. And I was like, how can I do that three more times? And. But I. In going through the steps of grief that they had talked to us about, I think that we both approached those realistically and. Faced what was there and said, you know, nobody can predict the future. And, in fact, I came to understand that having gone through infertility and being told that I probably would not have children or if I got pregnant, I probably would not. Would not make it past five months and lose them, I think that was a plus in my Dealing with cancer. Because what I knew was the doctors know a lot. There's been a lot of light and knowledge come to our earth, but they don't know everything. And there's only one person that knows me totally knows my body, and that's God. And so I had awesome doctors. I trusted them. But I, I knew they, there were limitations. And, and because I, I, I was able to have children, eventually, I, I knew of that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:45:34] Sounds like the limitations is what gave, gave you hope, in a sense.

Guest 2 [00:45:38] Yes, Yes, I would say.

Grief, Faith, and Family During Cancer

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:45:42] Well, just for our audience, there's five original stages of grief, and then there's other programs that have made those into more. I think there are seven stages as well, and you can Google those. The original five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance. The only other thing I'll say about the stages of grief is that although we tend to sometimes to go through them linearly, there are many people who will cycle back and forth. It's not just because you're done with one stage that now you can just cleanly move into the next one. So there's obviously a lot of fluctuation between those.

Guest 2 [00:46:20] Yes, and they did warn us about that. They said you might think that you're okay, and then you might have a particularly bad chemo or whatever, and then you might drop right back into, you know, grief again or denial or those places. So they did. I had good people talk to us all the way along, and I linked in with a really good oncologist, and that was helpful, too. I had a good support system.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:51] Okay. So, Jay, I promise I will get to you. You're still there, right?

Guest 3 [00:46:57] Take your time.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:59] Okay. I'm just connecting here with your mom. So anyway, can I tell you something

Guest 2 [00:47:05] incredible that Jay said to me? And he was only six.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:47:08] Yes, please.

Guest 3 [00:47:10] But as long as this advertises my brilliance, right?

Guest 2 [00:47:15] It will. It will. He. He was an interesting baby. He never slept. He was not a snuggler, which I thought, well, I'm sorry, you're supposed to be if your babies, you're supposed to snuggle. He didn't. He didn't sleep. He was. He's a lot like me. And still to this day, we. A lot. In a lot of ways. Very active. It's hard to keep feet, hands still. Our minds race. Da, da, da. Anyway, he had been around some friends, neighbors. He had heard neighbors, kind of. Apparently the neighbor children had heard their parents talking about me and that the surgery that I had had, and he had overheard them talking about me having my Breasts cut off and that I was probably going to die. And he came home one day and he, oh, I need to back up and preface just to little bit. Because he didn't sleep. We had Power tales tapes and things that we had him listen to at night to help him kind of unwind a little bit. And we had the scripture stories, okay? So he, after hearing this conversation with the neighbors, he came home and he said, mom, are you going to die from this thing? And I looked at him and I said, you know, I don't know. I guess it just depends on what Heavenly Father wants, what he has in store for me. I said, why wouldn't Heavenly Father want you to live? And I said, I don't have. Again, I don't have the answer to that question. I just. I don't know what to say to you. I hope that I live. I want to live. I want to be your mother for a long time, but I don't know what the future holds for me. And he said, well, mom, in my scripture tapes it says that if you have enough faith to be healed, you can be healed. And I looked at him and this kid's six and I said, you're absolutely right, but right now I've been through enough that my faith is just a little bit shaky. And in fact, it's a lot shaky and I don't know if I've got that much. And he says, mom, don't worry about it. My other son, I'll call Jay also, because he says, jay and dad and I have enough. We'll do it for, for you. And I was so totally blown away that a six year old. Could reason through that and pull out information that he had heard and apply it to his own personal life and family life and encourage me the way that he did. I'll never forget that, ever.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:33] Yeah, that's fabulous. Of course, my mind immediately goes to the situations where the mom does die or the dad and then that little kid feeling I didn't do it for my mom or dad, and the immense amount of a shame that can come from that. And so, yeah, it's so hard because when these stories turn out the right way, right with you alive and well, these stories are so amazing. It can become such a powerful narrative, I think, within families. And they're stories that will get passed down to grandchildren and all that. And then yet when the outcome is different, there's obviously a different emotional outcome as well.

Guest 2 [00:51:23] And I knew that I have buried quite a few friends from breast cancer and one not too Long after my diagnosis. And I was the first one to say, why them and not me? I mean, my diagnosis was much worse. My situation, I was stage two, was much worse than theirs.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:51:47] Why.

Guest 2 [00:51:48] Why would I have made it and then not. And that became kind of hard for me to go and support them and see them and visit them and encourage them, because there was a sense of guilt that I felt because I was doing well and they weren't.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:04] Survivor's guilt. Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:52:06] Yeah. And so you're absolutely right. And I should have brought out that piece because there is no given. It was just. I was just impressed that he remembered it enough and could apply it to something that was important to him. I guess that's why I brought that up.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:24] No, and I think that's a beautiful story for your family. I don't think you should feel bad about bringing that up. I just wanted to make sure that we also address the other piece of that, because I do think that these stories about faith and healing are incredibly beautiful and true and real for many, many people, but it just doesn't always turn out, you know, the way we want, so.

Guest 2 [00:52:48] Exactly.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:50] Okay, so then, moving on to. Well, before we move on. And, Jay, I'm not going to have you do your intro right now. I'll wait a little bit to do that. But do you have any recollections of this time? Do you. I mean, you're six. That's, you know, somewhat early for a lot of memories, but. But do you have any memories about your mother's breast cancer and your family surviving that?

Guest 3 [00:53:13] You know, I actually don't. I feel kind of bad about that. I do remember my grandma. My paternal grandmother died when I was 5 before the breast cancer. And I remember that vividly, but I don't remember. I'll tell you what I remember about breast cancer. I remember being at my uncle's house, setting a field on fire at his house and getting spanked. That's my recollection of breast cancer, which is probably not that good of a memory, but that's what it was.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:45] You mean because you were at your uncle's house while your mother was getting treatment or something along those lines.

Guest 3 [00:53:50] Exactly. So, you know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:52] Yeah.

Guest 3 [00:53:54] What I remember more about cancer. Cancer is all these scares afterwards. And every time she would go in for a checkup. And hopefully this time. Hopefully there's nothing wrong this time, and then the next time around, hopefully there's. And I remember when it was five years out, it was a big deal, and, oh, I hope we make it to five years out. And then it was 10 years. And then I remember, ironically, we actually had a party, a family get together scheduled for, I think it was, was 10 years out. Mom. Perhaps. And on the very weekend of this supposed outing, I came down with knee infection. So the irony of having an illness prevent us from celebrating the recovery from another illness. That's all I really.

Guest 2 [00:54:42] And it was the severe knee infection, too. They were really concerned about it. And I had to go, had to go over to school and make sure that he had injections during the day because. Yeah, yeah, so there, so there have

Guest 3 [00:54:57] not been very fortunate in the physical illness category.

Guest 2 [00:55:02] And yet I laugh because I tell people, gee, I don't get sick, I just get breast cancer. I mean, I don't get colds and things like that. I just get things like breast cancer. I mean, I'm going to say very seriously. Yes, yeah, go for.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:55:15] Right, right, right. So, Jay, I think what you're kind of alluding to though, is that when you do have something that's scary and that's terminal, such as cancer, it's not something that's just cured and then you don't have to worry about anymore. It's an ongoing, long term kind of underlying fear within your family.

Guest 3 [00:55:35] Yeah. And we've had scares even fairly recently. I mean, within the last year, we've had scares where it was, well, we've got to call her back in for, for another appointment and check it out again. And, you know, we've. We've been fortunate enough that, you know, 25 years later, nearly, we're doing okay.

Guest 2 [00:55:59] 24. Yeah. Bone scans. You know, I've had bone scans because they thought it was maybe in my bones and I had pneumonia, very, very bad. And they were sure with how virulent it was, it was recurrent cancer in my lungs and it was not. So, yeah, it hasn't been just easy slippery slide. It's been filled many boulders placed on our slippery slide as we went down.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:56:31] Right, right. Okay. So I guess the sex therapist in me wants to just kind of go back to restructuring your breast. And you very clearly expressed, why am I going to even worry about that if I may not even be alive in a year and I'm going through. I mean, you obviously had more important things to worry about than whether or not you were going to restructure your breast at that time. So at what point point did you feel well enough or that had hope that you were going to live, you know, longer than had been obviously initially predicted and decide to make that decision? Because it sounds like you did make that decision at some point.

Guest 2 [00:57:13] Yes, I did. I think. I think it was about between four and five years away from the surgery when I finally thought, well, okay, maybe this is something that we'll talk about. And I went and I had it done. I was not happy. I did not want. He wanted to do an implant, and I wanted to do what they call tram flap. And that's where they take muscles from. I mean, fat from your abdomen. They. So they cut you from hip bone to hip bone, and then they channel it up underneath your skin and actually reform the breast out of your fat tissue so it. It's yourself. And I was really adamant that I did not want anything foreign in my body. And I let the first doctor talk me into an implant because a tram flap is much longer surgery, much longer recovery, and there was no need when you could just, you know, plop in an implant. And so I had that done. And then after a number of years, I was not happy. The anorexia hit, and here you've got a breast one size that used to be and then the other one's. And I kept going, this isn't working for me. And so I went to a different plastic surgeon, and he agreed with me, and he says, when we take your own fat from your body and do that, then if you lose and gain weight, then that adjusts also and you don't have those problems. And. And I. So then I went ahead and. With that surgery. So I actually had two reconstructions, but the first one, I think is right around four, five years out.

Guest [00:59:15] Okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:59:16] And you were happy with the results of the second surgery then?

Guest 2 [00:59:20] Yes.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:59:20] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:59:21] I was very happy. Never regretted it. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out@sabre rattlers.com the Mormon Stories

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:59:37] logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Guest [00:59:42] Come, come, ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy when you're away Though heart to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to the San Joel your hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well. Why should we mourn? I think our lot is high Tis not so, all is why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight Gird up your lo fresh courage take our God will let ever us for sake soon we'll have tales oh, all is well all is well oh, all is well all is well. And should we die before our journey's

Guest 2 [01:02:41] through

Guest [01:02:43] Happy day All is well we that are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the saints the rest obtain I will make this glorious well oh, all is well all is well all is well

Guest 2 [01:03:35] all is well

Guest [01:03:38] all is well oh, is well, Will all

Guest 2 [01:03:54] is

Guest [01:03:55] well all is the way.

Part Two: Anorexia, Depression, and Early Trauma

Part 2 of 5 · Ep. 276

Guest [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3. Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:09] the Open Stories Foundation.

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Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:30] okay, so you mentioned anorexia, and, you know, we probably spent about 10 minutes or so before I started the interview just kind of getting some basic history from you. And I've got quite the list here of diagnoses that you've been given throughout your life. So can I just kind of go down that list and then we can kind of just get a little bit of your history on some of these and whether or not you feel like you truly had all of these or if they were just given to you because of all the complications and, you know, whether maybe some mistakes were made. But I have down dissociative disorder. I have down depression with obviously extreme to the point of suicidal ideations. And also you were cutting and burning yourself. I've got dysthymia, which is a lower case of depression, which is more chronic depression, but maybe not as severe. We've got bipolar, which is also another form of depression that includes manic episodes. We've got borderline personality disorder and passive aggressive personality disorder, which is no longer in the DSM IV, but I remember it was in the DSM 3. We've got a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. We've got anorexia. We've got OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, which falls under the anxiety camps. We've got generalized anxiety disorder. And then currently you've got, again, under the depression family, something called severe refractory depression. So am I covering it all there?

Guest [00:02:10] Yeah, pretty much as much as I remember and as plenty if I don't remember the rest, so that's okay.

Suicidal Crisis and Childhood Abuse

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:16] Okay, so going back to your telling me that your first suicidal attempt was when you were 16 years of age, can we go back and just maybe slightly discuss what kind of family you grew up in and why were you depressed? Was this genetic, biological depression? Was there trauma? Because I'm assuming if you were diagnosed with ptsd, there's been some trauma in your life. Was that childhood trauma? Why don't we go back to just maybe some of the environmental factors that were affecting either your childhood or adolescence to start some of these things.

Guest [00:02:53] Interesting. The first child was a boy, and then there were like, five. Five girls. Let's See? One, two, three. I can't remember. And I knew. I knew my dad wanted a boy, and I was not. I was a girl. And I had felt kind of in my heart all of my life that he resented that I wasn't a boy because he had wanted one. And he was in Massachusetts. We lived in Oregon at the time. He was in Massachusetts when I was born. My mom called and told him that I was born. It was something that was just kind of in my head, in my body, somehow. I just knew. It was never confirmed until my dad passed away. And my sister was going through, you know, trying to sort out letters and pictures and stuff to whose they were and who they belonged to and everything. And she sent me a letter that my mom had sent to my dad. And he. She had actually said, now it's a girl, and this is what we're naming her. And she's so beautiful. I hope you'll come to love her. She's got dark hair and dark eyes, and I hope you won't be. I hope you'll be able to get your. Over your disappointment that she's not a boy. And when I read that, it was like I knew. I knew. And so somewhere that was a piece of. But there was also my dad. My dad was physically abusive as a lot of. I'm not the only one. You know, you talk to people in my age group and, you know, their dads did that they were raised. Doing that was being done. Okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:54] Being done to them, you mean? Yes, yes.

Guest [00:04:57] You know, you pull out a belt or the. The strap that you used for shaving or whatever, and, you know, you. You would beat the kids. So the thing that made it particularly damaging with my dad was that he. And this is why, I'm sure, biologically the depression in him. I remember he was so unpredictable. I remember we knew what time he came home from work. And I remember hiding out in my room until I knew which way the wind was blowing and who was in trouble. And if it wasn't me, then I could come out of my room. But if it was me, then I stayed in there as long as possible because if I came out, then I was going to get it. And that was my survival technique. I remember being so angry at him when he would. Would be to me. And, you know, my mom would always try to pull him off of us. It was very hard for her that he would. I was the mean one. I was the heart. I was like, you can hit me all you want. You are not going to see me Cry. And I think now that I look back, I had one brother that was the same way. And my mother has since said, for more reasons than this, that I was the hardest out of 10 to raise and this other brother was the second hardest. And I think that kind of spurred him on the fact that I didn't cry. And so that he would maybe extend the beating for longer. And as soon as he would go leave the room, I remember I would go to the bottom of my close pile clothes over me, and I would just in my mind scream, scream. Why can't you just talk to me? Why can't you just talk to me? I can answer you. I don't understand why you have to do this. Why can't I can understand things? I'm not stupid. Talk to me. And being so bitterly angry and I hate you, I hate you. I hate you just so. There was that along with the uncertainty. And we weren't allowed to cry. He didn't want a lot of crying and he didn't want to hear our feelings. You weren't allowed to express feelings even if you had them. It was very oppressive. Is very oppressive. And then for me, there were some other factors. And this is really hard for me. This is really hard for me because I was in denial for a long time. Even though again, it's one of those things I knew. I knew in my body that it was right. I was sexually abused at 3. And it went until I was about 12, not with the same person. One of the people was a family member. And I shoved it and I was threatened not to tell or I would be hurt further or they would hurt someone in my family or. Well, when you're three years old, you don't even know how to frame something like that. You don't. You're not even really sure what happened. You just know that you've been told that if you say anything, someone's going to be hurt. And so there were those other factors, and I won't go into that a lot more just to say it created. And there were environmental things also accompanying the genetic predisposition to the depression. So my. My house was. I have to give my dad credit. He always took us on vacations, made sure that we did that. He would take us fishing, he'd come home early on a Saturday, we'd go up to the mountains. But I learned at a really young age that it felt dangerous to be around him. And so I tried to get out of the outings. And sometimes I was successful and sometimes not. But they Weren't particularly happy. La la la la la. Family outings, you know, I think he meant well. I think he wanted to try. I don't think anyone. No one's all good, no one's all bad. I'm not sure he even knew what was going on with him because, you know, that many years ago, people didn't talk about it. It's not as open as it is now. I don't know that he understood it all. I know that by the brother just younger than me, There were three kids after that. And I know that a lot of the physical abuse stopped at that point. But because we weren't allowed to express freely, express emotions, cry. When I did start therapy, the doctors would say, well, what are you feeling? I had no words. I didn't know. To this day, I still struggle. If something happens to me, I go to someone and I talk to them, and I think, this is what I'm feeling. And I say it. And then as I talk more or they ask me more questions, I realized, no, that's not what I'm feeling. It's this. It takes me a long time to put a real name to what's going on inside me, because I shut those down so effectively at 3 years old. And I remember one of my psychiatrists said to me, I've noticed that you cry three tears and then you stop. And I said, oh, three. I usually don't let it get to three. It's usually two. And that would be it. And sometimes I would say, you know, I just wish I could cry inside. I wish. I just wish I could cry for like an hour and just get some of this out of my body. And he'd say, I wish you could, too. Go for it. Just let go. And I can't. To this day, I can't. I don't cry. It's minimal. And then I. And then I go on, and I don't. I don't. I don't know. I don't. I don't care. There's no label, good or bad. It's just what is. And you find ways to deal with it. So I might be sad. I don't have to cry. I can still feel sad, but I don't. There doesn't seem to be a huge need for tears, but. So it's taken me. My husband used to wonder why I couldn't communicate easily with him or a lot with him. And it's just because I. You can't know what you don't know. You can't do what you don't know how to do. And that wasn't modeled for me. In fact, it was discouraged. And so. And quite a few of the people in my family, my brothers and sisters, have problems with the same thing, expressing emotions and talking. And some of us have finally learned that we can have a voice. I can now talk about things. I would sit in on group therapies and not say anything. And they'd get to me and Sally, what do you have to say? And I would not talk. And it took a long, long time for me to learn that I wasn't that age anymore and my dad wasn't there. But you start out gradual. You start out really gradual. And it took a long. Neighbors and friends would call because I was a great listener. It was easier to listen to them than to talk about me. And so I would listen and ask questions and what are they going to do about it? Or how do you feel about this? And so I was a great listener, but I couldn't talk. And it took a long, long time to find, like I said, that I had a voice and I had things to say. And when I raised my boys, when they talk to me, I have always tried to remember to say, well, so how did that make you feel? And what did you think about that? Or did you learn something from that exchange? And what would have been a better solution? And I've tried to throw out things like that to let them know that they can think and feel and express and. And not hold it in. Jay is really good at doing that. My younger Jay is not as good at doing that, but he was five years younger when I was in the psych hospitals a lot. And I think of what both of them must have gone through, wondering, oh, she's gone again. How long before she comes home? Two weeks, seven weeks? Is she going to attempt suicide again when she gets home? I can't even begin to imagine at their ages, how they put that into a place to get up and go to school every day and be the star students that they were. We never had problems with our kids. They're awesome kids, very smart. Both of them are very smart, very intelligent. They're the kinds where you walk in and you see a chalkboard and it's got numbers all across the chalkboard. And you go, oh, that's not really a problem. And they can work the problem. You know, they know what the symbols mean. And I'm going, nah, that's not really a math symbol. And they are very bright and never worry about them. We'd set Curfews. If they were going to be late, they would call.

Guest 1 [00:15:54] Never.

Guest [00:15:56] They'd tell me, oh, yeah, we have kids on the way home all the time, ask if we want to do drugs, but we don't want to. Why would we want to do that? And so I was very, very fortunate, very fortunate to have gotten the children that I did because I fully realized life could have been much, much harder than it was had I been worrying about, you know, kids dating girls and getting them pregnant or on drugs or. And legitimately, with all that was going on at home in the depression, if they did that, I don't think I would have blamed them, you know, to try to cope with that and handle it any way they could. I would not have held anything against them for that, but I'm awfully grateful that they didn't.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:16:50] Right. So going back to your 16 year old self, it's not so hard to imagine why you might be suicidal or why you were severely depressed. You didn't have really emotional coping skills. You were living kind of in a chronic state of anxiety and fear and tension in your home. Was this mainly just with your father? What role did your mother play in this? What was their relationship like? Like, did this violence and tension also take place in their marriage? So you saw that as well in the marriage piece or.

Guest [00:17:31] I did not see it between them, but I have older sisters that say that my dip. My dad did hit my mom a few times, but I never did see it. So. But yeah, there was a. There was a lot of tension between my parents, you know, raising 10 kids. This is really expensive. And, you know, there was. There's never a ton of money and, you know, there's lots of things that cree can create tension. My mom was very good hearted, I would say. My mom tended to be an optimist and so they were probably not real well suited to each other.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:18:17] Did they stay together throughout their marriage? You mentioned that your father was in Massachusetts. I didn't know if that was work related or.

Guest [00:18:23] Oh, it was training for the field that he wanted to go into. But yes, they stayed together. They were together and my dad passed away first and then my mother passed away and they were married, lived together right to the end.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:18:40] And were you ever able to discuss any of this with either one of your parents or did that just not really ever come up as far as how you felt you had been treated or some of the family dynamics there?

Guest [00:18:53] I discussed it with my mother. Almost in a way to hurt her. That sounds awful. I wanted her to know how much it hurt us. But in letting her know that I knew it hurt, too, and that she had already paid that price, but I didn't know how to let her know the damage that it had done and without getting real intense with her and telling her the impact. And so I know it hurt her. I'm not sure that it was intentional. I just knew that it would hurt her if I brought it up and talked about it. But after enough years, it was time to bring it up and talk about it. And then eventually I was able to talk to her about the sexual abuse, and we were actually. Because I kept doubting it. I kept doubting it with the psychiatrist. Oh, no, no, no. And the one said, you know what? You have more information to back up that that happened than most people I talked to that say there was sexual abuse. And he says, why. Why do you keep resisting that? And I said, really? Really, wouldn't you want to keep resisting that? Who wants to. Who. Who wants to own that one? Who wants to say, yeah, this happened to me. And, you know, it is an awful, terrible, horrible thing. It's. And especially when it's someone in your family that's supposed to care about you and love you. And I couldn't get that. You know, he couldn't quite get that, but maybe he was looking at a different angle than I was. But I. I had talked to her about it, and she talked to my grandma about it, and my grandma absolutely supported me and what I said had happened and that she. She didn't doubt for a minute that it had. I had a sister that supported it. And so do you know if this

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:09] happened to other sisters of yours as well, since it was a family member or.

Guest [00:21:15] They all say no. Okay, they all say no. But I have one sister that I particularly. The one time when it was the family member, she was the only one that was with me at the time, and she ran out, and I was left there. And she says that she heard me crying, and she kept throwing rocks at the trees so that she couldn't hear me crying. And all the way home, I sat in the corner of the car and wouldn't talk to anybody. And she remembered everything. The swimming suit that I had on, and. And I told her I remembered it, too. So she says that it did not happen to her. We have another sister, and I have wondered, but it took me a long time to get to where I could say, yeah, sexual abuse. And so she may or may not ever get there, and it may not matter or be important for Her. So I don't know that one for sure. I just have my suspicions.

Guest 1 [00:22:27] Okay.

Guest [00:22:29] My dad, interestingly enough, my dad, when he heard about it and who it was, wrote me a letter saying, well, do you understand that he would have been like 83 years old? 80, I think 80 years old at the time this would have happened to you. And I, I hit the fan. I'm like so freaking. What do 80 year olds not. Do they lose their attraction or, you know, so what are you calling me? You're not supporting. But he did go on to say, but I'm not saying that it didn't happen. I'm just giving you another piece of information. But I thought that was a little bit not supportive and, and it made me doubt again. And mostly you hit a point. I mean, for a long, long time, I could not hear about children being abused without taking that on myself. I could not hear about in the news about children being sexually abused without having that hit me again. And going through that. And now I still sorrow, I still sorrow that it happens, but I don't tend to take it in once in a while. I still will because I know what the family will have to go through.

Coming to Terms with Surviving Sexual Abuse

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:24:02] And how old were you when you kind of started having these thoughts of allowing yourself to, to see yourself as somebody who had been sexually abused?

Guest [00:24:16] Let's see, the breast cancer happened. I must have been in my 40s, early 40s, 41, 42, maybe before, maybe even 43, before I finally could whisper, yes, I think I was. Yes, I think I was. And then I couldn't say it very loud. And then as soon as I did, I kept denying it. So it was a, yes, denial. Yes, denial. A constant battle within me because, you know, who really wants to think they were, who wants to accept that one, you know, and so denial is an easy place to go for that one. Until finally, I guess I decided, you know, I may never know the truth of this anymore. Now, again, you don't get to decide what happened. You get to decide how you're going to deal with it. Are you going to let it control your life and be the impetus for what. And so eventually I started, as I started getting a little bit stronger, I started making different decisions, different choices about

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:25:29] how you would think about this or.

Guest [00:25:31] Yeah, about how to. Yeah, about the importance of whether it was true or not. Because that was what was hard for me to accept. I didn't want it to be true. And that was why I kept vacillating and going back and forth. And finally I decided you know, I wasn't critical whether I knew the absolute truth or not, if it's something that I believed had happened. And interestingly enough, I don't know if I said this before. When I mentioned it to my husband, after I finally had said it, he said, sally, I've known that for years. And I said, how did you know? And he said, just. Just in our relationship with each other. Our sexual relationship with each other.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:25] Wow.

Guest [00:26:27] So finally, I just decided not to give a lot of things a lot more power and just say, well, okay, here it is. And if I get to wherever I get and see whatever truth is there and it's different, then I'll shift from there. I have no problems making that shift. But if it was. What if it is what it is, then I've also decided to move on and not let it overtake me anymore. It is a long process. Yeah. It doesn't. Doesn't happen overnight.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:05] Right.

Guest [00:27:06] A lot of pain.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:08] Right. And do you think that. Because I think what I am hearing is that. That you would say at this point, you would couch yourself as a survivor of sexual abuse. So you would say that that did happen to you, correct?

Guest [00:27:20] Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:22] So can you walk me through a little bit? Because I find this a lot with the people I work with in these similar situations. As far as the kind of what you spoke to earlier, as far as the. If I even think that this happened to me, what does that mean? Not wanting to accept that. Can you talk a little bit more about why you feel that, you know, you talk about, yeah, who would want to think that? And I totally get that. Can you extrapolate on that more? Can you give me more about that? Is that shame? Is it about blaming yourself? Is it about what that means as far as how you define yourself as a person?

Guest [00:28:03] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, the. The biggest thing became, once I understood that, once I got that, it happened more than once, and over a period of years, it was like, oh, my gosh, what did I walk away with? A stamp on my forehead that said, here I am. Easy mark. Get me. You know? But it was, okay, so what did I do? Why did this keep happening? Why did it repeat itself with me? And I'd have them say to me, well, predators are really good. They watch how a person walks. If they stand up straight, they tend to be able to spot victims and people that act and walk like victims. They'd explain all of those things. Well, great. Knowing that didn't really help a lot.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:28:59] There's still a sense of maybe Blame there in the sense of why was I acting like a victim?

Guest [00:29:05] Right. And what was I doing? What was I putting out there that kept bringing this to me? It must be something I'm doing because it didn't look like it happened to anyone else in my family or anyone I knew. And so there was that part that was really hard. Then there was the part of why didn't I tell somebody? Why didn't I go tell my dad, why didn't I go tell my mom, why didn't I tell a brother or sister, hey, this happened. And the only thing I can go back to is you're terrified. You don't know if they're really going to carry it out or not. And they've threatened people, me or parents. And you don't, you don't want to bring out. I don't want to bring out. I didn't want to be responsible for anybody else hurting. And so you just shut your mouth and do what they tell you to do. And yet, as I look at myself and I tend to be a fighter and I think a survivor that goes so against what. What I am. But then I have to remember I probably wasn't a fighter and a Survivor at 3 and 5 and all of those years I have learned to grow into that. One of the big things that I learned through therapy was victim and how much I. And I would have doctors say, you know, how big a big. I was just a victim, acting like a victim. And I remember just being mad as heck at him and saying, well, you think. Because guess what? I was a victim. I was. I'm a, you know, what do you want me to do? And. But then I started when I finally accepted that there was a certain way that I was acting as a victim that I didn't like and that it wasn't serving me to continue acting like a victim, that then that helped turn things around. And yes, sometimes still things happen and I drop into victimhood. But I recognize it right really fast now and I try to go, oh, okay, you were being a victim again, let's move that to that other place. Because, you know, that does not serve you to be in that place. And. But yeah, can you talk a little

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:31:50] bit about what some of those red flags are for you? Like, how do you recognize that?

Guest [00:31:57] Oh, yeah. When I. Oh, like somebody might say something and it's really kind of a benign statement or it should have been a benign statement. Not real hurtful, but I would take. Tend to take it personally personal that it was aimed at me. And it hit kind of at a core piece of me or a core belief of myself. And so I immediately drop into that insignificant person who has no confidence, whose self esteem is in the toilet, who isn't worth anything, who doesn't have anything to offer the world, who is less than. Less than. I drop into less than.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:48] So it's almost like this self critique voice in your mind that you start listening to.

Guest [00:32:54] Yes. And then I drop into blaming. I want that person to be at fault and that person to be at fault and that person to be at fault. And then I go, whoa. And then eventually I'll go, whoa, wait a minute, I get it. I'm doing victim again. Stop, go back. Let's look at this and where we're at and decide how we're going to make this shift for it to be different. And that's an ongoing process. Process. And it is easy. And depending on what it is, sometimes it takes longer. And sometimes I can shift right out of it and be okay. It depends on what other factors are going on, I guess, in my life at the time, how resilient I feel at the time, how willing I feel to be able to fight through and say no and to acknowledge no, I, I don't have to be a victim. That's a choice I make. That's a choice I make. To be treated like that or to feel like that. And if that's a choice I make, then I can choose it another way. So it's those kinds of things that happen when statements are made that I don't always understand or I'm treated a certain way if I'm yelled at when I think it's undeserving. You know, just different things like that. Did that answer the whole question?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:34:23] Yeah, absolutely. No. And I, and I think I just want to kind of just point out a few things that you said. I think it's very important to address this shift from going from victim status to survivor status, which I think is very commonly used language in the therapy world. And I think one thing that you said that's very important is this idea of just because we do want you to move from victim status to survivor status doesn't mean that you need to be ashamed or blaming yourself for the fact that you are in victim status. In other words, very much like what you said, you were a victim and there's no shame in that. So just because there's something that you're working towards doesn't mean you have to feel awful about yourself because you're a victim. And then the last thing I think I wanted to say about it was, you know, when you talk about yourself at three and you said, you know, I've become strong and powerful and more able maybe as an adult and I didn't have those traits as a child. I guess I would only counter that in the sense that I think for a three year old to stay quiet when their parents are being three threatened or a four year old or even a ten year old actually is a powerful thing to do. I think that that child is surviving and I think that is a powerful thing to know how to do is to survive something. And you know, now when we look at it with, through our own adult lens, we can see, boy, I wish I could have done something a little bit different. But you know, kind of, I guess giving that child. Yeah. And giving that child do, I guess, due respect for what that child was able to do.

Guest [00:36:11] Yeah. And I hadn't thought of that. But you're right. So I, you know, I made it through three because I, I did what I was told and, and yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way. But that's a good, and that's a good, I think that's a helpful and hopeful way for people to look at that if it happens to them. And instead of just looking at the fear and what I didn't do. Well, not doing that. Yes. Kept me alive to see another day, perhaps. Or kept me from being hurt again. That's right. And there's another thing that, and I've said this a lot to my kids. I'm a product today of everything that's happened in my life. And so there were things and they made me who and what I am. I'm evolving and changing. But there are some fundamental things that are, that made me who I am and what I am today. And I, but I don't have to feel guilty or bad or I just have to maybe give them their due and then move, move on. But all of us are products today of what our upbringing was and how, how we interpreted it, the lens that we viewed it from. Some of us had better lenses than others.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:37:44] Well, better environments. Yes, for sure. Yeah. That have colored our lenses. Well, one of my issues right now is that I can tell I'm going to want to talk to you for like two days.

Guest [00:38:01] I thought something like that might happen. And Justin's the talker. There is great power in me muting the microphone.

Guest 1 [00:38:11] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:14] Well, and then there's, you know, there's this list of issues that, you know, You've been diagnosed with. And I feel like we could spend two hours easily on each one of these. I guess in the interest of time, I guess what I'd like to get to right now is walk me through kind of the history of your symptoms. And you know, you've mentioned hospitalizations, you've mentioned, you know, going to group therapies, going to. I'm sure you went to individual therapy. I don't know if there was family therapy, you went to psychiatrists. So what I'd like to kind of get to right now is just what were the symptoms that got you to that point where you knew you needed help? What did you physically or emotionally go through? And then I'd like to kind of maybe get to the point where we incorporate Jay and get his perspective of what it was like to live in a family where there was all this stuff going on.

Mental Health Hospitalizations and Family Crisis

Guest [00:39:09] Yeah, the thing that I, as I look back at it and it didn't take too long for me to do that. I had too much going on that I couldn't deal with. My mother in law was dying of the Lou Gehrig's disease. I was in there taking care of her. She wanted to die at home. And Lou Gehrig's is a horrible, horrible disease. You're fully sharp and your body just cannot function. And so there was a lot involved with that. There were three. My husband had three sisters, but the one sister and I did most of the care caretaking for her that was going on. I had a neighbor who had breast cancer and she, she was dying of it. She thought because I had breast cancer I was the only one that could truly understand. I fell into that. I won't, I don't want to call it a trap. I fell into that kind of thinking, easily thinking. And she was right. I understood it in a way that most people didn't. But it didn't mean that other people couldn't understand that this was traumatic for her and help her in whatever way they could. I did not have to take that whole thing on, especially when my kids were as young as they were and I was still trying to be stake Young Women's president. And I'm like, it finally just hit me one day. We're putting together girls camp on a Mountain for 150 kids and the people I care about. My mother in law is dying. Wait a minute. What's wrong with this picture? She needs help and I need to be there for her. I want to be. Was such a sad time. And yet I am so appreciative that I had that opportunity. I got to know her in a way I never would have known her had I not been able to be in there and take care of her the way that I did. And she was the most gracious, caring, she was just. She was wonderful mother in law and she was my mother too. And. But something had to give. I couldn't do it all. And one day I woke. I just woke up and I was like, I remember this feeling and I am in trouble and you need to get in the phone book right now and see where you can go for help. And I had heard about the University of Utah. They're psychiatric doctors that you could call in and maybe get a resident or in with somebody. They also had a psych hospital, it was called WIN at the time. And so I called and they assigned me to a resident and I worked with him for quite a while, for a period of time. And then I had a really bad attempt and I was. A suicide attempt? Yes. And I was taken to the hospital and it was in icu. And he had called that morning and I had asked him, I think how long it would take. I can't remember what I asked him, but he knew from what I was asking him that I was going to attempt. He tried to get hold of my husband, get him to come home and he couldn't. And I literally had the day planned out. I have this much time to do this. I need to go to the store and buy food for the kids because there's going to be a lot they're dealing with and my husband's not going to have time for. To shop for food. So if I hurry and do this, then I can get that done. Then I want to come back and clean the house because he's not going to have time to do that for a while and there's going to be a lot of people coming in. I. And then I think at this time of the day I can finally take the pills. And. And I had it all mapped out and I took particularly. It was. They were an older antidepressant that were particularly, particularly deadly. And. And that was the first of. That was the start of the attempts again. That was the first one, the first in the new series. And then. So, yeah, I was in psych hospitals quite a long time, bless his heart. I had one psych tech who didn't believe I should be in there. He kept telling me I was intelligent and he didn't understand what my problem was. And he had counted up and I had this many visits and what's that all about? And something like 17 visits or stays or something. And yet part of him was when I was anorexic too, not just deeply suicidal.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:45:09] And this anorexia was something that developed again in your 30s and 40s. This is not something that was in your adolescence or had you had some eating disorders in adolescent. And now you were having some recurring.

Guest [00:45:25] I think the root of it was when I was in high school, the foundation. But I didn't understand that until a lot later. I never have. I have always weighed under what I should for my height, but finally when it hit really big and I got scary, was in my. In my 40s. And so I had a feed tube put in and they were cramming food in it, and they kept accusing me of dumping because I wasn't putting on weight as fast as they thought and, you know, went on and on and on. But.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:15] And when you say there was 17 visits, that means there was like 17 hospital stays.

Guest [00:46:22] Yes.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:22] In the psychiatric department.

Guest [00:46:24] Yes. In varying lengths of time.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:27] What were the, what were the times about?

Guest [00:46:30] Well, like, some of them would be seven weeks long. Sometimes they might be two weeks long. I don't know, maybe. Maybe the longest was like maybe two months or a little over two months. I don't think ever any longer than that. But varying lengths of time. And I'm not sure all of the things that. Constituted how long I stayed, probably how well they thought I was doing or not doing. But I, I remember laughing at him because it's like, oh, okay, so we're going to discharge you tomorrow. And, and you're. And everything's going to be okay. And you're going, yeah, this is so funny. You just had me in lockdown. And you're in there, I'm in line of sight, and you got people checking on me and sleeping in the doorway and watching me all the time. And I'm on a camera. There's nothing in my room but, oh, guess what? Today I'm okay to go out in the world. And that was always so, so humorous to me. But. But it's kind of the world of mental health. They can't keep you in the hospital forever. And we do want to see if you can function again sometime in life. But there are just some things that are odd about it, but they probably, you know, they need. And insurance is a huge issue, so

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:48:06] how long they will pay for a stay and all of those things.

Guest [00:48:09] Right. And. Yeah, yeah.

Understanding Mental Illness as a Disease

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:48:14] So was this. Would you say then that this was A combination of. You're saying genetics, you're saying previous history that left you with low, low ability of having emotional tools readily available to you. And then what really kind of maybe was the straw that broke the camel's back was you care took yourself to. To unhealth. You know, you're a caretaker, so you. I just probably made that verb up. Care took yourself to kind of having a more serious bout of symptoms.

Guest [00:48:53] Yeah, I think. And then I think having had a number of friends die from breast cancer, so the grief.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:03] Grief added to that.

Guest [00:49:05] Right. Grief and some guilt. And I think there's just a combination of things. Everything aligned in my universe just right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:20] Yeah, there's like. I mean, there's like six, six to ten major factors. I mean, the stress of being a mother, the, you know, the breast cancer, obviously, and the surviving that and the infertility issues that I'm sure caused emotional stress earlier in your life. I mean, yeah, there's. There's many, many things here that you had to deal with.

Guest [00:49:42] Well, yeah, and that doesn't count. Like, I had 14 surgeries in 16 years. I blew my knees skiing. I had, you know, had to have that reconstructed. Well, went gonna do that and stopped and did breast cancer instead. And, you know, there just kept being a lot of surgeries. There's just. There was just. Life was insane at our house. I do not know how my children and my husband have stayed with me and made it this long, because it truly probably felt like, what. What planet is this world on? You know, does this really happen? And I. It was really bizarre. As I look back, it. It was probably just really bizarre to everybody. It felt bizarre to me. I. I can't even imagine how it was.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:25] Yeah, I can imagine. As your therapist, trying to put together a timeline for you would be a pretty ongoing. That would take a while. There's all significant issues that happen to you.

Guest [00:50:39] I think the thing that finally what kicked in, both the cutting and the anorexia for me, because they both basically arrived at big time at the same. I mean, where I was really into it at about the same time. And it was that element of control. Okay. This is something I control. I can decide what goes in my mouth and not and what doesn't. I can. And I know with anorexia, that is a lot of it. And so when things start to feel really out of control in my life, guess what? I can decide what goes. What I eat and what I don't. And the cutting, I was real clear early on. The cutting was not suicide. Attempts a cutting was a release of pain.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:51:28] Right.

Guest [00:51:29] I would go in and cut and I would. I would watch it bleed. I would gather all the stuff I needed, have it sitting out there, and I'd look at it and I'd say, well, is this one that needs to go for stitches or can I put on a better fly and wrap it up and be okay? And. And it took me out that process, took me out of the pain and. And just I could not deal with that internal pain anymore. And it took me out of that and put me into a release and a thinking mode. And so that's what it was for me. I'm not saying for everybody, that's what it was for me.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:04] I think that's actually a very good kind of, you know, small overview of what a lot of people who cut. And it isn't suicidal. It is not suicidal behavior. Now, it seems like you did have suicidal behavior that went along with this as well, but that's not what the cutting was about. You also mentioned, I think that you burned yourself as well.

Guest [00:52:22] Mm. I would take a curling iron, really hot curling iron, and roll it up my abdomen, and so I'd have burn marks all up and down my abdomen, and they were easier to hide, you know, if I did that or cut on my abdomen or on my upper legs. So that's what I would do when I was in psych hospitals where you can't get ahold of things to cut yourself with. Ha ha. That was kind of a little joke there. A mental health joke.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:50] Right, right, right. So. And I think it's. I mean, without going into, you know, another three hour podcast explaining each one of these things, it's probably, probably very difficult for people who might be listening, who have not experienced some of these things, to understand how these things even happen. And even, like you said, you know, your psych tech who said, well, you're intelligent, you know, well, most of the cutters that I know are pretty intelligent. You know, I don't think intelligence is the factor here.

Guest [00:53:19] So, yes, I remember saying, what is. What does intelligence have to do with depression? And I mean, I don't get it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:27] Right.

Guest [00:53:28] So I. It doesn't matter.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:31] Yeah, well. And I think it's important for people to kind of have the concept that these are diseases, these are mental health diseases that affect the brain and make people act in ways that they wouldn't normally act. And that this does not have to do with willpower or having more faith or, you know, being a good person or not being, you know, those kinds of choices. It really is something that affects, you know, the brain is sick.

Guest [00:54:00] Or as my best friend said, you know what to do. You just pray and ask Heavenly Father to take it, and he'll take it from you. And I looked at her and like, oh, my kid, really, what planet are you from? Do you think that I haven't done that? I mean, do you think that this is how I want to live forever? And I would not have done that. It's just like, well, or bake more cookies. And I thought, hey, if it was all about more cookies, hey, there's no way I'd be here because I've done that for years, you know? So it's just a little simplistic sometimes how people. But again, if they've had no experience with it, then they don't know where to come from with it. We can't know. Like I said, we can't know what we don't know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:45] Right?

Guest [00:54:50] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out at saber-rattlers.com the Mormon

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:59] Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Guest 1 [00:55:05] Come, come ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to dry do the San Jo hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well. Why should we mourn? I think a lot is hard Tis not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight Good up your lo fresh courage take Our God will never us for sake soon we'll have it's tale to tell oh, all is well all is well all oh all is well all is well. Sam. And should we die before our journey is through Happy day All is well we that are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared Again Just be the same the rest obtain I will make this chorus well oh, all is well all is well all is well all is well all is well well oh, is well. All is well. Sa.

Part Three: A Son's Perspective on Growing Up

Part 3 of 5 · Ep. 277

Guest [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

Guest [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org okay, so let me get.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:30] I'd like to make a segue here maybe to include Jay, who hopefully is not feeling too neglected here, but I definitely want to get back to again, some of the Mormonisms about mental health and some of the things that maybe either were said to you or some of the things that even you maybe said to yourself as far as coping with mental health, illness. And so let's get back to that. But Jay, hi. Let me get back to you. Why don't we start, Jay, with kind of. You're giving a little introduction about kind of yourself and jumping right into what this was like. Because if we go back into your childhood, Obviously from age 6 on, you were very much dealing with this and it sounds like your mother probably dealt with these kinds of issues all throughout your adolescence.

Guest 2 [00:01:25] So, yeah, as a side note, I hope that I can. One of my goals is to try to help those who might not understand why they can't see it. My goal is to sort of, I hope, help them at least understand how I came to be able to see it and came to understand what is seems to not be that easily understood by those who haven't experienced it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:52] Right.

Guest 2 [00:01:52] So I hope that gets across somewhere in my blabberings here.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:56] Yes, yes. And we definitely, I think that we'll probably close the podcast with maybe some pieces of advice that both of you would have. But yeah, so go ahead and get started.

Guest 2 [00:02:06] Okay, so background, let's see. So I was obviously born and raised in the church, as it were, born in Salt Lake. I think my experience in life perhaps, and particularly religiously is best framed as a sort of unleashing of an analytical mind, so to speak. As you could probably tell from my mom, I think I inherited a lot of the traits of analyzing and lot of worrying and things like that. And that's sort of what happens anyway. So as my mom mentioned, pioneer stock, sort of both sides of the family, I don't know, sixth or seventh generation Mormon somewhere in there. Anson Call was an ancestor. Brigham Young was an ancestor. I don't recall ever being real pressured to do church or to do anything in particular. Like, I don't recall my parents pushing me to do. Well, in school or to enroll in sports. A lot of these things just came for me fairly naturally. I always just did well in school, and church was always very important to me. I played a lot of sports when I was young, a lot of basketball. And that sort of went all the way through high school as far as church was concerned. My dad was a finance clerk when I was really young. And obviously we've heard from mom. She was the Stake Young Women's president, among other callings, but that's the one I remember most I did. Scouting earned my faith in God when that was something they did. Gospel in action earned Eagle Scout. Eventually, when I was a teenager, the gospel became really serious for me. I always took it very seriously. Not, like I said, without my parents pushing. I don't recall ever being even really asked to go to church. In fact, I remember many times I would wake up and my mom would be like, you know, you don't have to go. I just went. I just always went.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:38] Interesting how, you know, he or she grew up in a home where she was forced to go and hated it. And you're kind of allowed your own thing and even given permission not to go, and you're like, I'm gonna be there. Yep.

Guest 2 [00:04:53] I don't know why it was so important to me, but it was. I had a very influential friend who became a kind of counselor for me. And interestingly enough, he ended up becoming a social worker. So I think there was some of that influence. I always had good friends, good LDS friends who.

Guest 2 [00:05:18] Who.

Guest 2 [00:05:19] It just was never really a thought in my head to do anything other than what was expected of me in the church. I knew I wanted to go on a mission real young. It was always very important to me. In fact, I remember when I came home from my mission, I didn't know what to do because my whole life had been built up to that point on this concept of going on a mission. I think I thought life ended after mission.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:48] Now what?

Guest 2 [00:05:48] Now what do I do? So I didn't question a lot of things, but I had some questions. I often, like I said, took questions to friends, not just about church or anything, but questions in general about my mom, about things I was dealing with. And like I said, he was a sort of counselor for me. You know, I remember my parents. I don't know if they pushed or suggested or what it was, but I remember there was some mention that I ought to go see a counselor of some kind. And that was never an option for me. I refused that from the get go.

Guest [00:06:34] Wait Let me. I need to interrupt. Just a second here. We did take you and Joshua to be evaluated with us as a family. And then you two talk to the therapist, Al, because they felt like that was very important to make sure that you were okay. So there was that. I'm sorry. Now I'll back out.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:53] And this was at what age? I guess I'm wanting to know.

Guest [00:06:57] I'm thinking probably maybe like, 13. And what? Josh is 5, 8. 8 and 13, maybe.

Guest 2 [00:07:08] So it's entirely possible that I blocked that out. In any case, that must have been the only time, because I don't. I don't recall ever going.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:16] And these are your feelings as an adolescent. You're saying that counseling was out of the question?

Guest 2 [00:07:21] Yeah, I very much fell into the stigma and the stereotype that it was a choice, that my mom was a victim, that she was doing all this to get attention, and that the only real impact on me was that it made my life really inconvenient. That's a horrible thing to say. I know, but that's. That's what I was as a selfish teenager. So, anyway, I sort of want to emphasize that I took church and I took those kinds of things really seriously, which I think is what largely shaped how I saw everything. I read a lot of church books. I read my scriptures every night, starting from age 14 or something. I was just very diligent about that kind of thing.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:14] Are you implying, then, that this kind of hardcore line of accepting everything in the church is what made you less empathetic to your mother's situation?

Guest 2 [00:08:25] I don't want to suggest that, because I do think there was a cultural element at the time, whether or not that stemmed directly from the church or Utah culture or American culture. I'm not exactly sure where it all ties together, but I definitely had that. And I know that some of that was definitely because of the theology I espoused. Now, perhaps my theology wasn't very well suited in what we now consider to be Mormon doctrine, but it was what it was. It was how I viewed the world. It was how my friend, I think, viewed the world, since he and I counseled together. And as my mom has said, I think that view was espoused by other people in our ward and whatnot.

Guest [00:09:10] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:09:10] And taking into account, too, that adolescent. The developmental stage of adolescence is very black and white, very in tune to hypocrisy. Very. And then also, I'm sure your mother wasn't explaining to you in great detail what we've spent talking about, you know, the Last hour, two hours, whatever. As far as the trauma that she had experienced and all that, yeah, I didn't have that in sight.

Guest 2 [00:09:33] I didn't even. I don't think I knew anything about the sexual abuse until I was a teenager. The first recollection I have of it really impacting me and knowing that, you know, cognitively knowing that that was something that happened was probably 15 or 16, maybe it was told to me earlier and I don't remember, but that's the first recollection I have of really understanding that. So I think I had a fairly self righteous attitude when I was that age. I had a very black and white worldview. And like I said, I did read a lot of church books. So I read a lot about compassion. I read a lot of books by general authorities. I read history books anyway and I was a good kid. My mom talked a little bit about curfews and things like that. I don't recall really ever having much of a curfew. At least not one that I couldn't just call and say I'm gonna be late. My parents trusted me. I don't think I ever did anything to really betray their trust. My friends, I. I kind of want to emphasize that my friends were really an anchor for me. Not just this one close friend, but in high school I developed a close knit circle of LDS friends and they became a real support for me. Had a lot of spiritual experiences with them. They all got called to be on seminary council senior year of high school, which I didn't, but that's another story. But anyway,

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:11:24] we can do a podcast on that later.

Guest 2 [00:11:26] Yeah,

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:11:28] the trauma of that, the trauma

Guest 2 [00:11:31] of not getting called the seminary, Seminary council. It seemed traumatic at the time, I'm sure. Anyways, so after high school, got a job at the church distribution center after I graduated. And I had that job until I went on my mission in December of 99. I went, got called to Russia, so served in Siberia. I had a great mission. I grew a lot there. I think that's where the beginning seeds of trying to repair relationship with my mom sort of took root. So I have this sort of intro divided up into sections and later on is this section where I talk about the relationship with my mom. But that's where those seeds were planted. I was very, very obedient as a missionary to the point of probably being ridiculous. Sure. My companions couldn't stand me. After three companions, I started to sort of get the vision that perhaps being a missionary was more than just getting in the door at 9:30. But I had a lot of great opportunities to be zone leader and I eventually got to be an assistant to the president so that I could. I got to translate a lot and things like that. I had a great mission, really. I still cherish it a great deal. Came home, didn't know what I was due. Like I said, I didn't go to school before I went on my mission. Worked at the distribution center instead. And like I said before, I sort of thought life ended, that the mission experience was like the culmination of life. But anyway, I came home and enrolled at BYU purely for economic reasons, I'm assuming.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:34] Provo.

Guest 2 [00:13:35] Yeah, Provo. I got a scholarship there and for me that was a done deal. I loved byu, always thought I wanted to go there. Anyways, I married in. Got married in August of 2002 after I was home from my mission for about eight months. The girl my wife is, I knew her in high school. She was actually one of those small circle of friends who got called to seminary council. So we didn't have a lot of get to know you time because we were friends in high school. Let's see, enrolled at, like I said, went to byu. Eventually we moved down Provo. I pursued engineering, computer engineering at BYU and had a good experience with that. I mentioned at the beginning of this sort of the unleashing or freeing of the analyst in me. And I think this is where this started to happen. In 2005 I finished my BS and started an Ms. In Electrical Engineering. And I found out, surprisingly that I actually could think for myself and figure out problems on my own. And this started for me academically. I didn't need to. I didn't need to talk about or I didn't need to take my professor's word for various issues. I could actually affirm for myself what they were saying was whether it was true or not. And I started doing research as graduate students in engineering tend to do. And that was very motivating and very satisfying for me. But I didn't lend that same sort of problem solving and analysis skills to the church or to relationship with my mom or anything else. It was at that point pretty limited to my career choice. In 2007, I took a job at a national Laboratory in Livermore, California. That was in 2007. I think I said things were going really well for me there. We had two kids at that point. And then Prop 8 reared its ugly head. I always knew that I didn't fit in with either Republicans or Democrats. And I started pursuing politics a little bit And I started looking at yes on Prop 8 and no on Prop 8 campaigns. I felt like both of them were spreading sort of half truths, and I didn't feel like either of them were very good, I guess. And obviously at that point, we were being encouraged to donate time and money to the yes on Prop 8 campaign. And I was having increasing anxiety with this. But I sort of relied on a strong testimony of God's prophet. To get me through that period of time. I also, during that time, was involved in a political forum. And that political forum challenged a lot of ideas that I had in my worldview, not just politically, but religiously, spiritually, emotionally. And I found that I didn't feel like I had good answers, despite having felt like I'd received spiritual witnesses lots of times to various questions about the church's truthfulness and things like that. And I think the important realization for me, and one that I think shapes a lot of the things that I've dealt with in life, including the relationship with my mom, is that it might be me that doesn't have it quite right. In other words, at some point, I realize that I might have it all wrong, that it might not be everyone else that's wrong. I might be the one

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:18:28] to include your Mormonism. As far as, like, did it go that far?

Guest 2 [00:18:32] Yeah, it went that far. I realized I might not belong to the true church. I might not have all my beliefs quite right about that thing. So that really opened up the can for me of investigating things and learning and growing. So I investigated a lot of church history, which, as I mentioned, I thought I knew because I'd read a lot of books, done a lot of research, and took it very seriously as a teenager. But I learned that I didn't know as much as I thought I did. And I found that I didn't have. There weren't a lot of satisfying answers out there. And I found that I was pretty unsatisfied. I felt like, as a scientist, engineer, I felt a bit disappointed by when I read apologist works, and I felt even more unsatisfied when I read anti Mormon literature. But by that point, I had become. I started to feel betrayed by the Church is the best word I can describe. I think this is what a lot of people who go through this end up feeling like sort of anger at the church. Why have they lied to me all these years and things like that. I couldn't understand why, despite my diligence, that despite having read so many books that I wasn't aware of so many of the things and had not considered them at that point. That was a real rocky time for me in life in general, as I think has been explored many times on Mormon stories. But I found at some point I was pretty ready to leave church. Had investigated how to write the letter, all kinds of stuff, how to make a clean getaway, as it were. And at that point I found Stay lds, which John Dehlin helped or founded and started up. And for me, the admins there, Ray, Brian, hot girl, were really influential in my life. It was the first place that I felt like people were willing to openly acknowledge issues and talk about them without telling me to shape up. I had seen a bishop about this, about some of my concerns, and

Guest [00:21:34] in

Guest 2 [00:21:34] more or less words, told that I should, that I needed to, you know, vote. I needed to go with Prop 8 and stay, you know, true to the faith and shape up type of a thing and not let those kinds of things get me down and things like that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:55] Not too dissimilar from maybe some of the same messages your mom got about dealing with her depression and things just shape up.

Guest 2 [00:22:06] Yep.

Guest [00:22:08] And interestingly, we started talking a lot more at that time.

Guest 2 [00:22:14] Yeah, this is really when things started. So to backtrack just a hair, I've mentioned a little bit about what it was like growing up and. Hold on just a second here. And it very much was that way. I very much had that attitude. Like I said, you know, why couldn't my mom just choose to be better? I couldn't understand how, you know, all she needed to do was have enough faith, all she needed to do was pray. All she needed to do was choose to see the world differently and that somehow this was going to get better. And like I said earlier, the mission experience was the beginning of planting the seeds to root out that opinion, that ideology. And when I got home from my mission, I think a lot of what happened was that I was able to see compassion or have compassion for my mom, see the kinds of things that she was dealing with and internalize them. It also, I think, helped. We've talked a little bit about genetics and personality and environment and how those things combine to take one into depression sometimes. And I think I have the genetics and I think I have the personality for it. And I think I'm fortunate enough that my environment has been good enough for me, that I haven't had serious problems because I do think that I'm prone to it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:24:28] Meaning that you haven't had a full fledged depressive episode, but that you may feel like low mood Sometimes. Or have bouts where you're not quite sure why you're feeling low.

Guest 2 [00:24:40] Certainly I've been depressed before. Not chronically depressed, but nonetheless depressed. And at some point, I was able to take that feeling and say to myself, now imagine that. That was several orders of magnitude more intense. Oh, that must be what my mom feels like. Oh, my gosh, I can't imagine how that must be. And all of a sudden, the implications for all of that just manifested themselves. And it was like, oh, geez. So that must be how she was feeling and how she must have had to deal with so many of these issues. And, oh, it's amazing she's made it this far and just a complete shift. And I'm not saying this happened immediately, but this was sort of the process in the. I would say, three or four years after my mission. And there was a point I wanted to. To mention some of the things that helped me make that turn. One of the very first thoughts that I had that helped me make that turn was an analogy. And I'll share that analogy with some caveats. But I had this analogy in my head that, you know, imagine that there was this person bound to a wheelchair for whatever reason, and this person wheeled themselves up to a building, and I look at the person and I see that they can't open the door. And I open the door, walk through and let the door close behind me. And it occurred to me that this might be how I was treating my mom, that I was, you know, to those of us on the outside looking at the person who thinks they're anorexic, it doesn't make sense. And it's hard to wrap your mind around why this person would possibly think that they are fat when they're not. And. And once I started applying this analogy, it started to become clear to me. You know, it's not fair for me to just. Like, I wouldn't expect a person in a wheelchair to open the door and go through themselves. I would try to open the door for them and help out. Likewise, it might not be fair for me to expect my mom to see that she's not fat. Like, I see that. It just wasn't a reasonable expectation.

Living with a Dissociative Disorder Diagnosis

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:38] No, I love that. And I think it's very important to draw parallels to things that we do understand more, which is more like physical health. You know, we talk about mental health, the physical health we get. You know, if there's a broken bone, it's pretty easy to see. I use the analogy a lot of times of a track runner on A high school team who's broken his leg, well, we expect maybe for that person to still go to the meets or to support his fellow teammates. There's still things that person can do to go to physical therapy or things like that. But we would never say, well, buck up, get out there, do the race. But yet with depression, we do expect people to be able to do what we're able to do.

Guest 2 [00:28:21] Yeah. And the unfortunate part is that it's masked with the, the physical ailment. You can see the person in the wheelchair, you can see the broken leg. And unfortunately a lot of people, my mom, for example, in public situations is excellent at not letting on that she has any problem at all. And so how do you know? So that was sort of the first main turnaround I had. Shift in thinking that started this. But going back to where I was in my sort of bio, that is not so brief anymore. I decided at some point after finding stay lds, I listened to a lot of Mormon stories, podcasts and got involved with Mormon matters blogging for them. And I decided that it was important for me to stay with my. What I considered like has been often said with my tribe, my people. So I decided to reinvent a lot of the beliefs I had, a lot of the worldview I had. In fact, I really broke down my worldview completely and accepted at some point there might not be a God at all and the whole story of Christ in the New Testament might be a big fabrication. I accepted all these things as possibilities and rebuilt a worldview from scratch. And for me, I found enough things as, as I during this time I was fortunate enough to heed good advice from people. So I kept with expectations that were had of me at the time to obey the word of wisdom and stay moral and things like that. So I remained temple recommend worthy and decided to stay that way. And so that, that's been my drive ever since.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:30:42] I guess what was useful about that as far as keeping the more basic commandments, did that help you really focus on the spiritual aspect of your worldview? Because I know that there's people that go through this crisis of faith that that kind of go one of both ways. One is, yeah, I want to just kind of like you're describing, just keep all the basic rules while I, you know, decide what I'm gonna do in my mind. But then there's others who will be like, well, you know, now I feel kind of liberated. I can have a drink of wine or I can, you know, I don't know, do some of these Things that maybe before I felt so guilty about. What were the pros for you as far as staying?

Guest 2 [00:31:31] Yeah. So I guess in the interest of being honest, I should say that I experimented like once with alcohol. I felt this need to prove to myself that I wouldn't be struck down from a lightning bolt from God if I had a beer. So when I say I remain temple worthy, I guess in my mind I don't consider this one tryout to sort of nullify my entire recommend. It was one time and I kept it ever since and before. And so I felt. But to answer the question, I guess I. I'm always one to never want to live in regret. And so I simply heeded what I thought was good counsel. And it's not any more complicated than that. Someone told me, probably Ray or someone, that I ought to stay the course until I figure things out. And I said, okay, you're older than me and perhaps I've been down this road and I'm going to heed counsel that is beyond my own, which I think is important to point out as a theme throughout my life. Like I said, I've been someone who was stalwart and did the things I was supposed to do, and it's served me pretty well over the course of my life in taking things slow and heeding counsel of those in a position of more experience relative to my own.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:30] Yeah, that's great. Were you able to include your wife in these types of discussions and, like, let her know what you were thinking and feeling and finding out, or was she not part of this process?

Guest 2 [00:33:43] It was mostly a personal process, but she was aware of it and. We didn't have a lot of discussions, but particularly when I was. I didn't get a hold of good advice quick enough. And, you know, if I'd have found stale DS first, I perhaps could have saved myself a lot of grief. But because I didn't find it till later, you know, I did learn or I did say a lot of things to my wife when I was in my most angry phases, and that did not serve me well. And my wife, not to speak for her, but she has her own understandings of the gospel and has her own views, and she had been exposed to many of the things that I had just been learning and had already come to terms with those. So she wasn't surprised, shocked, betrayed, feeling

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:34:54] all that betrayal that you mentioned? Yes.

Guest 2 [00:34:57] Right. So most of it was me her having to put up with some ranting that didn't go on for that long. I went through this Process fairly quickly. It's been three years since then, and I've been in a position of participating happily, albeit perhaps unsure about a lot of things for two years at least. So. Yeah. So that's good background.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:35:39] Yeah. So can we go back to your adolescent self and have you describe a little bit of what it's like to be in a family where there's a mental health illness going on and being a child in that environment? It sounds like it was a pretty positive environment as far as you had loving parents who loved you and cared for you, but there was still a lot of. It sounds like ambiguity and unknowns and kind of your mom not being around as much as I'm sure you would have liked.

Guest 2 [00:36:14] Yeah. And I'll say a little bit more about that towards the end of this little segment here. But I think as I tried to think about what I might say about this, it occurred to me that it's just plain hard to describe because it was when I was young. I didn't have the tools I have now to describe and to think about things when I was young. Quite young still, I think eight, maybe eight through 12. I think I was too young to make sense of much of it. I thought my mom was just sick. I just remember thinking she was sick. She had breast cancer. I did know that. I was aware of that. And I think maybe I thought that her hospital stays at Wynn, as she mentioned, and the university hospital were nothing more than an extension of physical ailments. I don't know that I really pieced together that this was something else. Like she mentioned, she's had plenty of physical illnesses as well, various surgeries, elbows, knees, things like that. And I think I just lumped these. These other problems in with those when I was still, you know, preteen years. Like my mom said, she was in the hospital quite a number of times, usually for at least a couple weeks, sometimes up to two months or a little more. I think my dad perhaps did a lot to shelter me and my brother from the realities of what was happening. I remember at some point, I remember and noticed that my mom wasn't really making me breakfast anymore and in some cases dinner, too. I remember her spending large amounts of time in her room with her door shut. And I remember not knowing how to deal with this situation. I just. I think I just shrugged. I don't think I knew what to think or what to do. So I would say, you know, preteen years, the best description I can have is that I just didn't know what was going on and thought that this was a physical sickness or some kind that my mom was just had and I was just unfortunate enough to have a mom that had these kind of problems, but I didn't understand more than that. As I became a teenager, particularly in high school, a lot of the realities started sinking in. We had, I think, typical teenage parent drama in a lot of ways and various arguments. And I think they were complicated a bit by the knowledge that my mom wasn't really well. And so I often turn to, like I mentioned before, this, this friend, and I don't think he or I really had any idea what we were talking about, but he had a way of saying things in a way that made sense to me and that was satisfying for me. And so a lot of my ideas, a lot of the things that I thought, I think were things that he and I came up with as we talked and counseled with each other. I remember lots of times as a teenager sitting in a parked car in my driveway for several hours, talking with this friend and sharing a lot of these issues, not just related to my mom, all kinds of issues, but definitely ones related to my mom. You know, oh, my mom's in the hospital again. And a lot of times it was, oh, well, you know, she must be doing this to get attention. And if she just prayed and had faith and she just could choose to, and she's being the victim again. And my mom said something earlier about how she's always liked to be involved in her kids lives by being in pta, being in joining the group of parents that helped with football or with whatever it was. And I resented that a lot in my teen years. To me, this was my mom stealing my thunder. This was my mom turning the attention which should have been on me onto her. And it was an attention grab. And when it wasn't an attention grab, it was her playing the victim and thus getting the attention anyways. So I think that was how I framed it in large measure as I went through my teenage years. Go ahead.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:41:52] Well, it just sounds like, I mean, it sounds like there was some hurt there which maybe then developed into maybe some anger or resentment which then, you know, we can get into kind of those blaming stances. I mean, would you say that you knew that you were angry at your mom or would you say that now?

Guest 2 [00:42:10] I would say before that I turned to apathy. So maybe perhaps confusion to apathy and then to resentment. And I won't say just anger. I resented my mom in high school very much. Yeah, this is not News to her,

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:42:28] because you were supposed to be having all these moments, you know, your high school moments, your this is the time of your life kind of a thing. And here your mom is ruining that for you.

Guest 2 [00:42:40] Yeah, it was interrupted by her victimhood, her attention grabbing and her, you know, having whatever problem she was having. I mean, at some point for me, her going to the hospital resulted in a reaction of a shoulder shrug from me. Oh, here we go again. What this time? How long is it going to be for this time? At some point for me, the coping mechanism became apathy and then that turned to resentment later on. There are a few things that really stand out in my mind that I think are worth sharing. I remember one time I came home from school and I found mom out in the car in the garage, passed out.

Guest [00:43:38] She

Guest 2 [00:43:41] done carbon monoxide type thing in a car with a vacuum hose attached to the exhaust pipe and into the window of the car. And I drug her into the house and called my dad and rushed home, I think, and called her to the hospital. I don't know if that was one of the times that an ambulance came, but I don't think so. I just. I think my dad rushed home and took her to the hospital, but I remember that vividly.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:44:07] How old were you when that happened?

Guest 2 [00:44:09] You know, I don't know. I think. I think junior high, but I'm not positive.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:44:16] So not very old then? Like 12 or 13 or not.

Guest 2 [00:44:19] Not very old? No. And I don't. And I don't even remember what my brother, if he was there or what he thought. I don't even remember that bit. I remember coming home, finding her, dragging her in the house and calling my dad in a panic. This was sort of, I think, right before I flipped into an apathetic view of it as a coping mechanism. I remember several times finding her shortly after cutting herself. And I think at that point I was probably the most ambivalent about it. Like I said, just apathetic. I just shrugged. Oh, Mom's cut herself again. Probably need. Excuse me, probably need to go get some stitches. I wonder how many this time. And off I go to do my own thing, Go down in the basement to read my scriptures or whatever it was.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:45:23] Right, right. Well, I mean, you keep saying coping mechanisms, so I'm hoping, and I'm assuming that you understand that these were actually somewhat healthy and protective measures that you were taking.

Guest 2 [00:45:36] Yeah, yeah. In retrospect, it was a survival technique. I don't know that I could have done it any other way given the circumstances. You Know, except for. Or had I been more willing to go to a counselor, perhaps I could have developed coping tools. But, you know, that was what I had to work with, and that's what I came up with. And aside from, it hurt my relationship with my mom, but it allowed me to survive emotionally and not just survive, But I think some important things came from this for me personally, one of the most important ones is that, like my mom said, I've always been able to let out my emotions and what I was thinking. I kind of tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve a bit. And that was the way it was with my friend. I just would tell him everything. And that was the therapy for me that's always been. Been therapy for me is to talk about whatever I was thinking or feeling.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:47] Verbalize your angst.

Guest 2 [00:46:50] Yeah. And it has nothing to do with whether or not the person could respond intelligibly or not, though I think that maybe helped with my friend. It had more to do with me just ranting for a bit. And when after I ranted, I felt better. And that's been a theme throughout my life. I rant to people, various people, about my problems, and it's therapy for me. So I think that was one important thing that came from this. One other example I wanted to bring up, perhaps because it's the most interesting. I remember one time she mentioned that she was diagnosed with DID Dissociative identity. And I remember one time in particular, she picked me up from a bus stop. And as we were walking away from the bus towards the car, I looked over all of a sudden, and it was clear to me that something had changed. And my mom went from being what I knew to be my mom to a scared little girl. And scared little girl was I had to drive home because the little girl couldn't drive. And so I drove home. I mean, this was clearly after I. I think this was after my mission, even. I don't remember that for sure. Obviously, I could drive. But she stayed in this Persona for an hour or so. I remember coming home from her, picking me up from the bus stop, and she went in and sat on the couch. And about an hour later, just as suddenly as it seemed to have come, it was like it was. It was over. And I remember she asked me about what was happening, and I described to her that it appeared that one of the other personalities, as it were, came and the scared little girl came. And that was a little bit scary for me.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:16] Is that the only time that you had seen something like that?

Guest 2 [00:49:19] No, no, no, that's just the one that I remember vividly seeing both ends of the transformation. I could see. I knew there were other times and I had experienced other times, but I usually only got to see one end of the transformation. But that one, I saw them both and I saw the quick transformation, which was.

Explaining Dissociative Identity Disorder

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:46] Can you explain a little bit about what dissociative identity disorder is to maybe those who wouldn't know, or would you prefer me to do that or tell me what you know?

Guest 2 [00:49:56] Well, I sort of. I have it in my mind lumped up a little bit with, I think, for her anyway. For my mom, it was lumped in with what at the time was the multiple personality issue. And when you dissociate, you sort of go to whatever place you go and out comes the other something else. You dissociate from reality. In a sense, that's the poor man's engineering explanation. So give it a whirl.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:29] Yeah, no, I think that's about right. I think. I mean, they really aren't really using multiple personality disorder as a name anymore. Well, there's some controversy about that, I

Guest 2 [00:50:42] guess, is what I'll say.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:45] But I think that the way you've couched it is very good that there is a dissociation, and that can happen in many different ways. There's plenty of people who have been diagnosed with dissociation who wouldn't qualify for multiple personality. And you can see this many times with, for instance, either sexual abuse victims or people who are being raped. It's almost like they can describe themselves watching themselves lift from their body, and they can almost watch the experience from above or from somewhere else so they don't have to be in. So again, it's a coping mechanism.

Guest 2 [00:51:21] And interestingly, my mom and I actually have talked about that controversy because one thing that I failed to mention was when I was going through my process of having a faith crisis, I did a lot of research into psychology. I read several books and listened to several online psychology classes from various universities and things and tried to learn about it. And I remember learning about the controversy that did had and multiple personality had. And I remember discussing that with my mom. And we've often wondered if it was the diagnosis that caused the symptoms or the symptoms that caused the diagnosis. It's not very clear because despite the fact that I know of and can identify various instances where it happened, neither of us are particularly convinced. But I will say that there was a time when the multiple personality thing was on the table as a diagnosis. We could label them. They had Colors associated with them. They had ages. And I got to a point where I could identify who came which one. Was this the person who was the public Persona? That identity had its own name. Was this the scared little girl? Was this the which one? And I had learned to identify those. Now, as time has progressed, whether she's got. Gotten better with these things or because the diagnosis isn't there, she just doesn't have them anymore. I don't know, but she doesn't seem to. I don't notice these things anymore. And I just see my mom now.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:27] Wanami, is there something that you could maybe just give us your input for about a few minutes as far as this particular diagnosis is concerned?

Guest [00:53:37] Yeah, there is. I thought it. I fought that diagnosis like hell with everything in me. Did not want it, was not going to have it. You could. And yet I knew clearly that. And I think there needs to be a separation made, a distinction made here between dissociative being dissociative and dissociative identity disorder. Because I knew clearly that I dissociated. I could be driving home and not even know where I was. I had gone somewhere. And so we worked out a plan, my psychiatrist and I, that I would drive the same route home every time so that I could remember how to get there. Because I do know there was so much pain. And even before then, I had a tendency when things got rough when I was young, I would just mentally check out. I would mentally go to some other place. So did not. Did. I don't care. But I do know that I was dissociative.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:53] Right. And then it's to these personalities that, you know, your son says he can remember knowing certain ones that would kind of take over. Is that something that you remember much about or.

Guest [00:55:06] Yeah. Yeah. I worked with an art therapist up at Wynn who I learned so much from. And he was a great, great source information. And he knew. Knew me so well. He would bring projects to do art therapy, and then he would just bring a bunch of stuff for me. And he'd say, I know Sally knows what she needs to work on. And then we would talk about it afterwards. And so I. Yeah, I have. I have them. It's like you said, they weren't. I saw colors. What I saw were colors. And I knew what color was with me, and I knew what that color did. Now, I know there's a lot of. There was mpd, multiple personnel, and it flies the same with DID whether we accept it or whether we don't. But I think it was a Way, whatever with knowing I dissociated. If green came to help, if I saw green, then I knew somewhere that I was getting a certain kind of help that I needed. And so whether that was just part of the dissociative piece that I was using. But, yeah, there would be times when I would sit there and I'd actually. It would feel. I could feel a shift in me. I could feel. And I wouldn't always know who was there or what color or whatever, but I knew that the conscious me speaking to you, peace was gone for whatever period of time, but there was still another conscious piece of me that was handling what had to be handled at the time. So I don't know how the whole thing works. And it's not critical to me anymore. And I still do dissociate, but not as easily and as readily as I used to, as things change. And there's not as much of a need to have people there protecting me, because I'm bigger now, and I can do that for myself. I don't know how. I don't know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:57:51] Yeah, well, I think that you're right in the sense of, you know, I'm glad you separated dissociation from the. Did the actual disorder, because all of us dissociate. I mean, this is what we call daydreaming. Right? Or, you know, all of us can kind of be driving down the road and all of a sudden, oh, we missed the exit that we were supposed to take, or, you know, because we kind of get our mind wandering into other areas. But, yeah, I think that the dissociative identity disorder is seen more as the extreme case of dissociation. And it has been tied really, truly to people who tend to have a history of, you know, kind of the emotional and the sexual and physical abuse that we had talked about earlier. And not just a history of it, but a repetitive history of it, which, again, speaks to the chronic environment that you were living in, both with the sexual abuse happening for a long period of time and also the physical abuse with your dad for pretty much all throughout your childhood and adolescence.

Guest [00:58:54] Right.

Guest 2 [00:58:55] I will say that I haven't noticed. Even though, you know, like she said, dissociation is still there like it is for all of us. I haven't noticed near the stark changes that were apparent at one time anymore. Like I said at the end of what I was saying before is that I just see my mom now. And we all have various shades of our sort of personality that take on different situations. We act different in the public setting. Than we do in the intimate setting in some nuanced ways. And I see that now with my mom just like anyone else. But I don't see the wild, stark differences that I once saw.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:59:53] Right. Well, and it sounds like you saw those kind of at the height of her emotional crisis. And she's come a long way since then. So, yes, it would make sense that you're not seeing that as much because, like. Like your mom just said, she doesn't need it. She's figured out other coping skills. Again, those are just coping skills. There are ways that we escape the current pain. There are ways that help us survive the moment.

Guest 2 [01:00:18] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:00:20] Okay. So. Yeah, so, Jay, sorry. I just wanted to kind of help people understand what we were talking about. But if you can go on from there, then you had just given us the example about your mother and having to drive her home because she had switched into this different state.

A Son's Struggles During His Mission Years

Guest 2 [01:00:41] The only other thing that I wanted to say was the attitude that I had in my adolescence came with me on my mission. I remember not being able to wait, Just couldn't wait to get on my mission, not just because I had always wanted to go, but also because I couldn't wait to get away from home. The situation at home. Didn't want to deal with what I saw as the victimhood and the attention seeking. I just didn't want to deal with it anymore. So the mission was absolutely an escape for me. And I remember for the first several months on my mission, letters from my mom were painful for me to read. I didn't want to read them. And my mom is the only one who wrote me every week. And there were many weeks early in my mission where I just didn't want to read them at all. It was just painful. I just wanted to be away from it and done with it. And I think on some level, a lot of that was healing for me in that I needed space. I needed to be removed from the situation so that I could think about other things and not have the issues pushed down my throat constantly. I needed to be able to take on those issues on my own terms, in my own time. And the mission sort of afforded me that opportunity and as I've mentioned, really became the seeds for what eventually I considered to be a change of heart for me and the beginning of turning the relationship around. The only other thing I wanted to emphasize is perhaps how bad the relationship was. The relationship between mom and me prior to my mission was just not good at all. Despite that, I was good kid, obedient, didn't Cause my parents grief in that way. But, you know, a lot of anger, a lot of resentment, a lot of hurt feelings. Thought I'd never be able to forgive her. Thought I'd never be able to move on. Was very much playing the role of victim myself in the that way. And so I only wanted to bring that up so that I can. So that it perhaps makes it more understandable why it took so long to turn the relationship around. I mean, it's been eight or nine years working on relationship and trying to, to heal before. We're at a place where, you know, we can do this podcast where we can understand each other well enough to do this kind of thing. It's been a lot of years of turning that around because the relationship was damaged.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:03:53] So, Wanami, did you have this sense of feeling that your son was slipping away from you during that time? Were you with it enough to know that or be worried about that or how did you deal with this anger and resentment? Did you know how he was feeling about you?

Guest [01:04:12] Yeah, absolutely, I did. After he graduated his senior year, and he knew he would be going on his mission in December, he had wanted to drive up to Montana where my mom and dad lived, his grandma and grandpa. He felt like my dad would not be. His grandfather would not be alive when

Guest 2 [01:04:36] he came back, which ended up being very prophetic.

Guest [01:04:40] Yes. And he had it worked out where he and his brother and my husband would go and I was not allowed to go. And I wasn't buying into that one.

Guest 2 [01:04:58] Yeah, I remember this pretty vividly.

Guest [01:05:00] Yeah, I'm like, wait a minute, our car, our gas, you don't get to call the shots. And, you know, and yet I, and I'm like, okay, you know, kind of don't want to be around you a lot either, because you've made my life pretty miserable this last year. And so I'll just sleep in the, in the back of the truck and leave you alone. And finally I. Something clicked in and I just went just, you know what, Sal? It might be. Whoops. You know what, self? It might be really good for you to have some alone too time because it has been a long, tough year. It's been several long, tough years. But his senior year was particularly hard. And so they drove off and I stayed home. And I believe it was the right decision to make. And so, yes, I did know how, how, how very angry he was at me.

Guest 2 [01:06:04] Yeah, I had, I had shot, shut her out of virtually everything over which I had any control. Trips, excursions. My spare time was spent with My dad. I didn't want to have anything to do with her. It was that level of resentment I would have. Yeah. It just was. And also, I wanted to just mention that. And I didn't know. I was always sheltered from the way that my mom's dad was. I didn't know that person. The grandpa that I knew was a regular grandpa.

Guest [01:06:46] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:06:47] He didn't. He didn't have to parent you, right?

Guest 2 [01:06:50] No. He went out and shot hoops with me, basketball hoops. I mean, we played games, we teased. It was a very normal. I always thought he was a super guy. It always was a mystery to me why there was this tension with my mom. I learned later why that tension existed.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:07:14] It was a safe relationship for you.

Guest 2 [01:07:16] Yes.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:07:19] Let me just ask you both really quick before you continue, were there any efforts made by either mom or dad to sit the kids down and try to explain some of what was going on? Or do you remember that, Jay?

Guest [01:07:34] Or please, can I address that one?

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:07:37] Yes. Yes.

Guest 2 [01:07:38] You go first, mom, and then I'll tell you what I remember.

Guest [01:07:42] Okay. Because I wrote this down because it was. I'm glad you asked it. I wrote it down. It was a point I wanted to bring up when he was saying that he didn't remember. Dialogue about this. When it was starting to get more and more intense with me and it looked like the depression was going to, not just by click of finger or a word of prayer go away, we sat both of the kids down and told them, I have a severe depression and there is a biological component to it. And what we want you to know is that that could be passed along to you. So if you are ever feeling depressed, and if you don't know what depressed is, this is what it is. These are the words. This is what you might feel like. And if it's just one day, maybe, okay, something went wrong at school, school, whatever. But if it's starting to last and encroach in your life, come and talk to us, because there are doctors that we will get you to. We will get you to two people that can help you at your age level and your understanding so that you will have a better chance of dealing with it over your lifetime than I had. And we had that dialogue with him, and I know that my husband will support me with that because we felt very strongly.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:09:14] You have a witness.

Guest [01:09:16] Well, we felt very strongly that this was. I feel like we have always been very open with our kids and discussing things, even that were painful. And I'll let you disagree in a minute, Jay. Just a second. And with this one being as important as it was and being a generational thing, I did not feel like we could just blow over it and not address the issue.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:09:47] Okay, Jay?

Guest 2 [01:09:52] I don't remember it. I do not doubt that it was done.

Guest [01:09:57] I just called selective memory.

Guest 2 [01:09:59] Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's fine. I'm sure it happened. I believe it. I just don't remember.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:10:07] I'm assuming this happened during his teenage years at some point.

Guest [01:10:12] Undoubtedly.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:10:14] And was this a one time talk kind of a thing or were there continual. In your mind, Wannami, Were there continual times that you guys kind of sat down as a family to address this or no?

Guest [01:10:25] Yeah, we addressed it several times. We, we. The, the first time I remember doing it with him, he was in elementary school. And. And then later, like I mentioned, we did take, we did go to a family therapy, the four of us. And then they wanted to meet with, just with the boys and we took them to there. So it was ongoing. It wasn't every day in your face, da, da, da. But as it became apparent this was lasting a while, we would bring it up and have dialogue again. But, you know, when you're young and you don't know what's going on, they perhaps didn't even relate to, you know, these are all new words being thrown at them. And now he would research if I said something like that to him. In fact, I did the other day when I mentioned that I had had ect. And he goes, what? They still do that? I'm gonna have to Google that and find out because.

Guest 2 [01:11:32] And I did.

Guest [01:11:34] And is it?

Guest 2 [01:11:35] Yes. Although there's lots of controversy about it.

Guest [01:11:38] Oh, yes. Well, I'm at the head of the controversy, let me tell you.

Guest 2 [01:11:42] My first thought was like, I was thinking prisoners in Guantanamo or something. I'm like, surely they don't do this to people anymore. Come on. But I guess they do.

Electroconvulsive Therapy and Its Role in Treatment

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:11:53] Can we discuss what this is? I don't think a lot of people will know.

Guest 2 [01:11:58] Electroconvulsive therapy.

Guest [01:12:00] Yes.

Guest 2 [01:12:02] They attach electrodes to you in various spots and they shock you with electricity until you go unconscious and go into convulsions or seizures and convulsions for approximately 15 seconds at a time. And then they, I guess, take you off the electrodes and they do this over the course of, I guess, 12, potentially 12 different treatments. My understanding is it's not well understood how it works, except that it's thought to perhaps rearrange or create new synapses, new pathways for the mind. But there's problems with it in that there's lots of memory problems, particularly short term memory. And I know that mom suffered with the short term memory problems, which is why you eventually refused to. To do it anymore.

Guest [01:13:04] Yes, yes.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:13:06] Okay. I think you did a good job describing it. Go ahead.

Guest [01:13:11] I will just say with some people it is very effective. Again, it's like when we were talking about treatments and medication. For some people it is very effective and they just come back every once in a while and have another tune up is what I've heard them call it, and then they're okay again for a while. And so for those that it works for, Hallelujah. You know, it's, it's one more thing. But there are there those that it does not work for or that cannot tolerate or will not tolerate the side effects.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:13:44] Right? Yeah. And I do want to kind of state that it is something that's usually done when other treatments haven't worked, you know. Right. So. So this is kind of like treatment resistant depression or we've got schizophrenia or severe mania. We've got more severe issues that have. Medications have been tried, therapies have been tried. Lots of different things have been tried. And yet the livelihood of these people are still at risk. They're still at risk for suicide or they're still. And so they'll try these types of treatments that like you said, for some people work very well and for others not so much.

Guest 2 [01:14:22] Right,

Guest 2 [01:14:24] okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:14:25] So, yes, moving on from that.

Guest 2 [01:14:32] I don't know what I was saying, if it was anything important, I don't know where we are.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:14:37] Well, I think that, yeah, I think that we were just talking about, you know, how the parents tried at least to, you know, give some type of education or some type of knowledge to the children of the what was going on. And it is always interesting to me, especially since I'm a family therapist and I work with lots of families or couples that, you know, people within the same family will have very different recollections of the same thing that happened, you know, the same event. And so it is somewhat selective what we choose to remember and what sticks out in our mind later. And

Guest 2 [01:15:11] absolutely.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:15:12] So, yeah, so there's definitely, you know, I don't doubt that Wanami and her husband talked to you boys and I don't doubt that for you that maybe did not mean much at all. So that's both of your experience in this.

Guest [01:15:33] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rock Rattlers. Check them out@savor-rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Guest 2 [01:15:48] Come, come ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy when you're though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to the same and joy your hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well. Why should we mourn? I think our lot is high Tis not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight? Gird up your lo fresh courage take Our God will never us forsake soon we'll have let's tell a tale oh, all is well all is well oh, all is well all is well. And should we die before our journey's through happy day all is well we then are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the saints the rest obtain I will make this car is swell oh, all is well all is well all is well all is well all

Guest [01:19:44] is well

Guest 2 [01:19:48] oh, all is well. All is well all in the way.

Part Four: A Near-Suicide Crisis and Its Aftermath

Part 4 of 5 · Ep. 278

Guest [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3. Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:09] the Open Stories Foundation.

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Jay [00:00:29] oh, I remember one other thing that I had wanted to mention. So you brought up, I think you brought up not feeling or feeling perhaps like mom wasn't around as much as I had wanted. So I wanted to touch on that a little bit as a more recent development in the emotional process and the relationship status. And as I've been, I've been going through some other issues and I've been doing a lot of emotional searching and have been reading a lot about attachment theory and how adults relate to that. And one of the things that was profound for me was that I accepted that it very well may be that I have some abandonment issues from mom not being around as much. And I think it may have contributed towards me being a pursuer in various relationships that I have now. And when I learned that this might, this is something poignant for me, it was interesting, the emotional response I had because, you know, it was like I just broke down, just completely had a total meltdown, an emotional meltdown, crying and sobbing and calling my mom and oh my gosh, I think this is. I think this is real for me. And it never occurred to me to even think about this, but I think it plays an important role in my life. And my mom and I talked about it quite a bit after that. And so I do think that it's kind of an ongoing process of discovering how it's affected me and the ways it still continues to affect me and how I've dealt with some of it and yet haven't addressed other parts of it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:46] Yeah, no, I think that's very insightful. There's two pieces of trauma, I think, Jay, that you were continually dealing with. I mean, from a very early age, I think you were dealing with the mortality of your mother and the possibility that she may be lost to you. So that's on a bigger scale. That was something that was probably always playing in the back of your mind at some level and many times in the forefront of your mind. And then the second piece I think of trauma is the actual physical, day to day stuff like finding your mother when you're 12 or 13 years old passed out in the car. And I think in the mind of a 12 or 13 year old who again, is not going to understand the dynamics of depression. You might see that as a choice. Why would my mom choose to leave me Many, you know, many similarities to people maybe who are adopted or who, you know, can't really understand why I wasn't important enough for you to not want to kill yourself. So taking it very personal, especially when we're at a developmental stage where we're still pretty egocentric.

Jay [00:03:52] Absolutely took it personally.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:03:54] Right. And then the trauma of going through that type of experience and the fear that's attached to it. So that's a lot of adrenaline going through your body. That what we know now more about traumatic events is that all that adrenaline, although meant to immediately protect you, does have long term effects, especially if you're having trauma over and over again and again. That's probably why at some level your body became apathetic in your mind because it was trying to maybe protect you from all that adrenaline. So, you know, you do have some trouble.

Jay [00:04:26] Interestingly. Sorry. And interestingly, this is only one perspective on the issue. My brother isn't here to give his recollection and the way it's affected him because that's a whole other can of worms.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:41] Right, Right.

Jay [00:04:42] So this is one perspective on it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:44] And dad isn't here either, which I would love to get my hands on. Both of them too.

Guest [00:04:51] I told you, Jay.

Jay [00:04:54] I knew this would be interesting for Natasha.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:59] Yeah, well, that's why I feel like I could talk to you guys for a long time. But anyway, so. Yeah, but I think that the attachment piece is important and I think that, you know, there's a difference between grieving somebody who's died and having to deal with the finality of something like that. And then there's a very different type of grieving when you're dealing with something more chronic. So when people are living with terminal illnesses or chronic illnesses, things like ms, multiple sclerosis, for instance, you know, it's a long term diagnosis. You never quite know when your body is going to succumb to it. There's a lot of unknowns there. That's a trauma that really can't. Or a grief that really can't ever have any closure until the death happens.

Jay [00:05:48] It's like perpetual trauma.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:49] Exactly. Perpetual grief. And so all those stages that we talked about earlier are cyclical for many times, for years. And that definitely affects our relationships and our worldview and all kinds of things. So. No. So I'm glad you brought up that piece.

Guest [00:06:07] The interesting thing, I just want to say, the day that Jay called me and I, you know, I'm not stupid. I immediately, we've talked a lot. I knew as soon as he said hello that there was something wrong and to talk to me about this emotional. Not attaching. And he was real hesitant. He says, well, I read this thing and it really, it really struck with me and I feel like I need to talk to you about it, but I, I'm really worried because I know it's going to hurt you and I don't want to hurt you anymore. And I said, honey, you can't possibly more hurt me more than I hurt every day about all that's gone on and the pain that I know was brought about by this illness. So let's just get it out in the open and have it be one more thing that we had had some exchange with. And so he told me about it. And I remember hurting, but I remember being amazingly clear and saying to him, I'm so glad you found this piece. I've been waiting for you to find it because I knew it was there. Do you remember me saying that, Jay?

Jay [00:07:35] Yes. And also I wanted to add that not only was it not wanting to hurt you, but it was, I didn't want to give the impression that I somehow still held it against you or otherwise still cared about it. That is to say, I've moved on from these things in the sense that they're not actively inhibiting my relationship with you anymore. And so to bring it up was, it was merely as like a point of interest talking point and a self discovery and much less a this is a step towards resolution because for me, I've already resolved, so to speak, so go ahead and continue.

Guest [00:08:27] So I, I knew that that emotional unavailability was a big issue and for my other son also, and for my husband, but I didn't know how to bring it up and I didn't want to resurrect old things unless they needed to be. So him having the courage to call me up and say this resonated with me. It caused a lot of pain and I need to express it to you was really important to me, I think, as well as to him. And I told him later, there's another piece of this that we need to address, but it will be too painful for you right now, but when you're ready, tell me. And he said, okay. And I wouldn't bring it up now, except that, Natasha, you, you kind of did bring it up with what you said, and he seemed to handle it. So I, I will say it now. And that's the. The. When you talk about emotional detachment, he has to look at that suicide piece of mine and say that ultimately I was willing to. Not willing. I was sick. I was not thinking clearly. I truly believed they would be better off without me around. They would be happier. But regardless of that, I was willing to let go totally emotionally and commit suicide and look at the pain that would have brought. And I felt like he needed to take that emotional detachment to that other level and acknowledge that my doing that created its own level of pain that was probably more intense or as intense as the emotional detachment. Did that come across clear or like I knew what I was saying at all?

Jay [00:10:51] I got your drift.

Guest [00:10:52] Okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:53] Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And I think what you're talking about is one of the great tragedies of suicide is those that are left behind many times see it as a very selfish act. You know, like the pain, the individual pain was more important than my relationship with you. And I think the piece that is oftentimes missing from that understanding is that many times a person who's committing suicide is doing it as an act of protection. What they perceive as an act of protection. Like, you're going to be better off without me. And so, in a sense, that was your mother instinct coming across through that disease. I'm going to protect my children by taking myself out of the equation. Even though that's not in reality what.

Guest [00:11:37] What you would have done, it creates more. And then there's also the piece of. When you've lived with that kind of intense pain for that long, I truly did not know if I could live with it any longer. I. Getting up every day was painful. And yet. And I have said this to Jay before, I had one psychiatrist that told me, out of all of my truly legitimately ill patients, and you're one right at the top. You are the highest functioning patient I have. Most of them don't get out of bed. And so, you know, you take your kids to football, you help coach the team you're on, and you do. And see, I didn't know that he resented that. I thought. I thought, I'm getting up and doing what I can to show them that I still care about them and want to be there for them. I didn't understand that I was doing something that was counterproductive to that.

Jay [00:12:41] Yeah. Don't try to understand the twisted mind of a teenager.

Guest [00:12:45] It's can't be done. Or the illness of a depressed person.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:12:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't think that Jay's perception of that was so much that he didn't want you to be doing those things. I think it was how he was couching the worldview to begin with. So he was basically saying all of this is attention seeking behavior. So then when he saw you at the PTA or when he saw you there, he just projected that worldview onto those events as well. So I don't think that that was a mistake that you did those things.

Jay [00:13:17] And going along with that, I'll say for the record that I did view the suicide attempts in my adolescence as selfish. I did not see those as I see them now in the more compassionate, understanding, empathetic light. I saw those as purely selfish motivations. And perhaps my worldview isn't that far different from a lot of people who deal with that. Maybe not just in the church, but in the. In the state, in the country. I don't know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:56] I would say that much of what we've been talking about as far as the mental illness itself and suicide and coping mechanisms and all that has nothing to do with Mormonism. This has to do with human nature. And I think people of all faiths, of all cultures, share in many of these types of symptoms and coping skills.

Jay [00:14:18] Yeah, I think so for sure.

Mormonism, Motherhood, and Mental Health Culture

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:21] Okay, so let's get to the maybe, because I would like to get into some of the Mormonisms about all of this. And so I think the next step of getting to that spot is talking a little bit about the reconnection between the two of you and how that happened. You kind of alluded, Jay, to this kind of faith crisis that you've had and kind of reconstructing your worldview with. In your own religion to also kind of go in hand with reconstructing your worldview about your relationship with your mother.

Jay [00:14:58] Yeah, I guess in my mind I'd always viewed those as separate events. The reconstruction of the relationship with mom started on the mission and progress to today. The faith crisis and deconstruction of that world happened. And I'm not sure exactly what the effect is on one or the other. I had as I was going through becoming more compassionate, empathetic for Mom. It's clear I was still very much fully believing in very literal way what I had before. I think I had just gotten to a point where I could reinterpret my theology, perhaps in a more compassionate light. I've always been, even when I was a teenager, I was a huge fan of the New Testament and I read that many times. I read the Book of Mormon many times, but I read The New Testament many times. And I loved what I thought Jesus was preaching and what I believed Jesus was preaching came to the forefront for me after my mission. And I think that is the way that I interpreted the need to change the relationship with my mom and try to see her with more understanding, more empathy. And so it's certainly not religious dependent, because I could certainly have had the worldview that I had before. And with the realization or the application of sound religious teachings of love and compassion, the things that most religions teach, one can reconstruct that worldview, try to repair that relationship, reinterpret the way that one views the other person's behavior, the behavior of my mom. And I think that was the real key, starting to see things from her perspective. And I noticed as I got home from my mission and things started to change, I noticed myself more and more explaining to my dad and my brother why mom was thinking this, why mom was doing this. They would come to me, oh, oh, mom did this, and she did this and this. And it was easy for me. At some point, it became easier and easier for me to say, well, she does this because this, or have you ever thought about this? Or she feels like this. And at some point, I was able to explain to them what was what she was, or at least explain to them what I thought her perspective on the issue was. And that stemmed most immediately directly from an application of what I thought was charity and love and compassion. So as I went through the faith crisis, those values never left. I've never doubted those values. When I deconstructed the worldview and built a new one. The first thing on the list of things include in the new worldview was love and compassion. I've always been. Those have been high on my priority list, always. And so that never changed. What did change was, I think, the way I saw the illness. You know, one thing that's interesting to think about in theology, and if you're a Mormon, is at what point does mental illness begin? And at what point does the soul end, the spirit end? Was this something that was just an affliction for this life, or was this the way that my mom's soul or spirit was? Because I certainly can't explain the relationship between spirit and body. And so for me, as I deconstructed the worldview and started to wonder whether or not souls even existed, whether or not people had a spirit at all, it wasn't hard for me to look at the situation with my mom and go, oh, this is a result of chemical imbalances. In the brain or this is a result of genetics and personality. This has little to do with any spirit or soul, if such a thing even exists. So perhaps a reinterpretation of the illness and things like that came as a result of the faith crisis. But I would say overall that

Guest 2 [00:21:06] love

Jay [00:21:06] and compassion were what motivated the change in the relationship, and that never changed for me, whether it stemmed from Jesus teachings or whatever else.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:24] Yeah, I think that's really good. And I think what we're also needing to probably just briefly talk about is that developmentally, this is a correct step for you to take, you know, from going from a teenager to a young adult, that compassion and empathy is kind of one of those developmental steps that tends to be made. And so that does start kind of reconstructing some of your views. And that could have been done whether you changed your mind about your religion or not. You're right about that.

Jay [00:22:01] The interesting thing about that. I think you're right. The interesting thing about that, for me, anyway, is that because I was so devoted to the gospel in my teen years, I had no shortage of compassion. I was part of a small clan of individuals, three of us precisely, who used to do things, nice things, for other people anonymously. We used to scheme together to leave things on people's porch and drive away after leaving a present on the porch when we knew they were having a hard time. We did little acts of service like this anonymously, and we had a little club name for it that became known throughout the school. Nobody knew who the team was. So my point is that I had no shortage of compassion. I just had no compassion for my mom.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:54] Right.

Jay [00:22:55] And that's what needed to change.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:59] Well, and so making this a segue, then, into more of how the church as an organization, as a culture, and also as a theology played a role in all of this, because all of this happened within the context of Mormonism. I wonder how much of that compassion issue that maybe was affected by Mormonism was just this idea that we're so focused on the works of people and again, the attempts to do what's right, and that somehow that did provide a conundrum for you and your adolescent brain that, well, you know, my mother maybe wouldn't be dealing with these things if she could just get it together and do the things that she should be doing.

Jay [00:23:46] Yes.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:23:47] Does that at all play into that?

Jay [00:23:49] Yes. When I think about it theologically, the only reason that I come up with for why Mormonism has had this sentiment, and I think that it's reasonable that that this sentiment exists. Even if it exists in other religions, it exists in ours, as evidenced by our experience. The only reason I can come up with is the works versus grace, our take on that. And I think historically, I think Mormonism has sided on, particularly in the 1900s, has sided on the works philosophy. We're a stoic, rugged, American, homegrown religion, and we are, you know, we work hard, and we talk a lot about sin and obedience. We talk a lot about doing the right things and getting blessings because you act appropriately. And that leads someone, as we've talked about before, that if something bad happens to them, then, oh, I must not have been obedient or I must not have had enough faith. That's always the downside of that type of rhetoric. And I think that we do have that, although I think it's getting better. But I think particularly 10, 20 years ago, that type of sentiment was still very prevalent. And I think that's the main contributing factor, theologically, anyway.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:25:28] What about you? Theologically, within Mormonism, what pros or cons were there theologically for you dealing with all of this?

Guest [00:25:52] I. I don't know. That's really hard for me to put together. I. It started out okay. I mean, where things started was there was. I think there was empathy and sympathy because we had lived in our neighborhood for a long time. I had served many of my friends, being the parents, children in the organizations I was president in. So I think there tended to be a lot of patience and acceptance and. And understanding for where I was. And I'm having a little bit of a time relating to theology and exactly what we're meaning by theology.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:55] Yeah, because right now you're going more into the cultural piece as far as, like, you know, the people around you and how they dealt with it. And I definitely want to get into that, but I guess what I'm talking more about is this. You know, are bad things, for instance, punishments, you know, do we bring those kinds of things upon ourselves? And then also, as a Mormon mother, you know what, when your primary role in our church is to be the caretaker of your children, you know, it's a very emphasized theological point. That's your whole kind of purpose for being here, in a way, or at least that's what people can perceive because the message is so strong. How did those things affect you spiritually?

Guest [00:27:46] Again, like I told Jay way too many times, is our perception is our reality. And so I understand why I'm saying, while I'm saying this, that my perception is probably most definitely not his. When I look at myself and the caretaker role, I believe. I don't just believe. I know I was giving all that I had to take care of him, at least in the physical sense. I knew that I wasn't doing all that I wanted and had hoped and dreamed as a mother. There were other things on the horizon that I had planned to do. Not just have my family deal with this block of glob forever, but I still took care of things in their life, lives. I shopped, I cooked, I washed, I cleaned, I did all of those things. I contributed as much as I was able to. And I'm pretty high functioning. And so I don't.

Jay [00:29:20] Very high functioning.

Guest [00:29:24] I don't think if I'm being totally honest, if I drop into that guilt piece, then I'll go, yes, I really muffed it. I really blew it. If I'm being totally honest with myself, I'm thinking that, yes, they suffered in some ways. I know that. But in a lot of the. The roles we play as a mother, I don't think I let them down. They had clean clothes, they. They didn't have holes in their shoes. They weren't, you know, they. They weren't dirty. They weren't, you know, so I don't know how to tie that all into the theology piece. I can tie that into me as a mother and giving all that I could in spite of the illnesses that I had and knowing that that was probably still at a pretty high level. So, yes, I feel bad, and yet I feel okay in some ways about it. The theology piece that I kind of identify with what Jay is saying, and I think it's the differences, the dichotomy, whatever we have within our church of what we preach and teach on one side and what we talk about in Sunday School or Relief Society on the other side, and they are not really together. If we look at what the Savior taught, and it was the pure. And what we ascribe to is attaining the pure love of Christ. If we were really trying to reach for that and have it be effective, an effective component, a living, effective component in our lives, then we would see a lot of things, things changing in our neighborhoods daily and with our children and with our neighbors. But that's kind of not real world, and I get that. So it's like that constant reconciling, I think, that we go through when we read our scriptures and things resonate with us and they feel like the right piece to do. And then you take the step out the door and it's a rainy Snowy, yucky day and you go wherever you go. And pretty soon that really warm, fuzzy feeling the connection with the Savior and showing love to one another and helping them dig out of the snow. It's easy to get lost in just trying to make your way out to the car and on your way through the day to work or whatever. But I truly think that that's something that has always been around and perhaps will always be around because we are humans and it truly is impossible to plug all of the holes that we want to plug, plug with the right pieces. All of the squares. Holes don't even fit into all those. This. All the square pegs don't even fit into the square hole. Square holes, they have different shapes and things like that. And so it's, it's, it's an evolution, I believe it's a. I'm not expressing this very well and I'm sorry.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:09] No, I think that you are.

Guest [00:33:11] The theology piece to me gets hung up with what, what we want to do intrinsically, that good peace inside of us that truly wants to be good and, and help for the sake of helping, because it makes us feel better. It makes us feel better and hopefully the other person too. So it's a win. Win. But then you, you get, we get stuck. Not you, we. I get stuck in what. What can I really do? Do I have the energy? What can I give? And because that's always on an edit pool in my brain, you know, on the circuit, then I may be. I. And I can only speak for my thing. I don't live up to that piece that I really want to. But you just keep working at it. It's like so much of what. And so many conversations Jay and I have had, it's. You just keep working at it until you get a bigger, broader piece of the picture and then you're able to do more. But you don't dump, you know, the baby out with the bath water. You just keep plugging away with those parts that work and are good and you feel right.

Theology, Suicide, and the Role of Bishops

Jay [00:34:29] About the only other thing I was going to mention about theology is I think there's something to be said for suicide and theology, if nothing more than to say that we follow ten Commandments. And so murder is on that list. And at least, particularly in my adolescence, I remember having this conversation with people and you know, murder is wrong even if you do it to yourself. And so that, That, I think, plays a role as well, theologically. When you start to talk about issues of suicide and whether someone is suicidal and, and oftentimes I think it ends up leading towards this idea that this person is bad because they're trying to commit suicide and that's murder and that's wrong, that they're sinning. Yeah. Instead of, you know, that's like totally the opposite of what should be happening, you should be, like, tearing your hair out as to why this person even feels this way in the beginning. But that's not often or not always, at least what ends up happening.

Guest [00:35:46] And then the next step that I take when people have asked me about that is I want to say, well, okay, let's just put this out on a platform. If we're really believing the things that we're taught, then what we believe is God is the only one that truly knows me, what I've been through in my life, where I am now, what. What my abilities are, how much I can cope with and deal with and still go on, and what I can't. So truly it is left up to him to decide and make judgment and nobody else.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:36:32] Yes.

Jay [00:36:33] Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:36:34] Well, kind of to what you were saying, Jay, as far as the seeing that is sin, I think what more hurtful kind of thought process for the family who's left behind to feel that way about their loved one who just went through this traumatic event? So I think, yeah, that can be very harmful. And I guess what I'm hearing from one of me is this idea that our theology has these pieces of compassion and love, which I think are terms that you've used, Jay, quite a few times, that are very helpful, that do kind of heal or comfort our wounds or our souls or however you want to state that. And at the same time, you can look at those same things or other things within the theology that can harm or that maybe can be seen in a light that's much more unhealthy, I guess, or that can cause inappropriate guilt or shame or things like that.

Guest [00:37:37] Because I think, just to add a little, I think because some of us are more rigid in our thinking. Some of us are more black and white. Some of us do see the shades of gray. Some of us maybe don't even care if there are shades of anything. And so. So that's the humanness that I'm talking about. Because we all view things differently than those judgments tend to be made or not made or left up to someone else to make because of what our understanding or our hope is for the final judgment, if there is one, or. And I'll end it with that, or because I don't know what to Say

Jay [00:38:28] next, I think sometimes the love and compassion ends up butting up against those or us passing judgment. And so we love and compassion up to a point where we deem someone either undeserving or somehow to be held up as possibly not one we could help, or perhaps we've helped them enough, or whatever it is. Love and compassion ends up butting up against our judgment of someone and breaking down those judgments, I think has been a message that has been sent from Salt Lake City now for several years. And I'm grateful. I think that's good. And I'm glad we're sort of turning. I mean, it's not been only a few conferences ago that we heard a talk talking about suicide and that it was not to be judged and that this was something that was to be taken care of by God alone. And I like those steps because it breaks down the judgments that our love and compassion ended up running into.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:39:42] Right, right. So moving along then to Mormon culture, so now more the people that you interact with at your ward level, your stake level, even things like General Conference, so more at the top leadership level, where have you felt either supported or stigmatized against? Can you give any types of examples of either case? And this is a question for both of you.

Jay [00:40:11] Well, we've had good bishops. I think my mom would agree that generally we've had good bishops. Maybe not.

Guest [00:40:21] Well, no, that was the first thing on my list here was good bishops.

Jay [00:40:25] Yeah, I think we've had good bishops.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:40:27] So how would you define that? What makes a good bishop in this circumstance?

Guest [00:40:32] What I will say behind good bishops was just a little bit of that definition. And that was good bishops who knew me and had served with me, and they knew me the way I was before I became ill. So they knew me as that person and loved me and respected me and could look at this as an illness because they knew that's not how I was before. And they believed in me and they were willing to support me in whatever it took to help me become better. They didn't inquire, delve into what's wrong, what's going on. They didn't ask person questions because I tend to be a very private person, at least before enough therapy where they taught me I could have a voice. And I don't want a lot of people to know what's going on in my life. And had they done that and pressured me, I probably would not have responded as well. But always. And even when they changed bishops, always. But see, again, we grew up in this neighborhood, not we we lived in here. Our kids grew up and were friends. We were friends with them.

Jay [00:42:05] And so dad was in. Dad has been in, what, three, four bishoprics now as well.

Guest [00:42:11] Yeah.

Jay [00:42:11] So.

Guest [00:42:12] Right. And I served in that and relief societies and Da, da, da. And so.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:42:22] So a big piece was the community knowing who you were.

Guest [00:42:25] Right. They knew who I was before, and they believed me. I think most of them felt sad that there was something that was going on that they didn't understand. They hoped that I would be able to heal and get better sooner. I think one thing that happened that kind of started making it harder for me was there were some people, I think that without knowing it, had created a timeline for this to last this long. And when it kept going on and kept going on and being longer, perhaps than they thought it should, had a tendency to step back from me, withdraw from me. I won't say they were making judgments. I know I heard a few things that people had said. I didn't consider them judgments. I considered them people. And that didn't understand the dynamics of the disease. But I did feel like there was some expectation that it should be this long and if it went longer, and then why was I doing this to my family? And how couldn't I see what I was causing them? And those things were detrimental to me as a person because I was asking the same questions of myself. I didn't want it to go on. I didn't want to feel that way. I didn't want to do this to my kids. So, you know, well, I don't have answers, and I'm living it. So, you know, that started to become hard for me to go and possibly face each Sunday. And yet I hung in there and kept going and held positions and was a good doobie for a long, long time until I finally, finally hit a point where it was becoming detrimental to my spirit. It was eating away at my spirit, trying to make sense. I couldn't make sense for them when I couldn't. If I could have made sense for it, I would have done it for me and my family way before I would have done it for them. I couldn't push the button. It's just like when I got cancer and I was only 35. And I know I heard the women say this, she's the only. And there was fear. They were afraid. And I couldn't say, guess what? I can't promise you that I will be the only one in eight on our block that's going to get this. You may be. You may be, too. And I, so I couldn't, I couldn't fix any of those beliefs or things for them. And so it became harder for me to go feeling like I was letting a lot of people down and just playing, just sometimes playing. The dynamics of getting out of bed and going to church were overwhelming, let alone having to sit. And I will say, and this should be connected to the theology piece. It was extremely hard to sit in Relief Society and hear week after week after week about the more that we should be doing, the more that we should be doing. When I'm like, you know what? I'm treading water as fast as I can and I don't want, I don't need to feel guilty anymore. I can't. If I throw on too many more pounds of guilt, then I'm just going to be buried from the weight of the guilt. And so culture wise, those were the things. There was a very, very close friend, close friend who we spent many hours walking and talking. We had scripture study group early in the morning with. And she, this was the straw that finally let me know that I needed to step back. Because if this person that knew me that well couldn't, couldn't understand, then what chance did I have was how I felt. And, and I, I alluded to her comment before and that was, well, you know what you do? You just have to pray and ask Heavenly Father to take it from you and he will. And that was just like the most ludicrous thing, thing I could, I couldn't even wrap my brain around that because it was like, well, first of all, how do you know I haven't done that? And how do you know if I've gotten an answer or not? You didn't ask me that part. You just spewed out your advice at me, which was hurtful. And so I stepped back from her and that was painful because she was, she was a good listener, she was a good sounding board. She basically had a good piece of anchor that I could go to when I needed. But I realized through that that my anchor had to count more than hers.

Jay [00:48:13] And see, this is a woman who I think by all means is a fairly compassionate individual, a very loving individual, and yet she's a mature woman, but still has this view that one can just choose or otherwise pray away a clinical disease. And I don't think that maybe she's in a minority, but I don't think she's the only person.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:48:48] Whereas we probably wouldn't say something like that to somebody who has diabetes or breast cancer.

Guest [00:48:54] Nobody said that to Me with breast cancer, you know, and I will say this, I'm sad that it has happened to her family since then. She has had several children, one in particular who happened to be my younger son's age, who has gone through severe, severe depression, much like mine, and then had another child or two also. So she has now experienced it in a whole different way within her own family and has been able to express that she was very naive in her viewpoints. And I get that. It's like I said, we can't know what we haven't, what we don't know and what we don't have any experience with.

Church Culture and Mental Health Messaging

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:51] Right. Well, and I think going back to your point about what are the messages that we're hearing either in our Relief Society lessons or over the pulpit, I think ever since, really kind of thinking about this more in depth myself, which it's probably been several years now, and I listen to the messages that come over the pulpit, and I can probably put at 1%, the messages that don't have within that talk something about what we're supposed to be doing. There's not really that many talks just given on the love of Christ or the mercy part or the grace. There may be talks that incorporate those aspects, but then there's also the but, you know, but this is what we should do or this is what there's always a do part. So I think to Jay's comment, we are doers, we are workers, and again, that's one of our strengths, but it can also become one of our weaknesses, especially with things like this.

Jay [00:50:52] I think that that segues into what I was going to mention about, about church culture. And maybe this is some of my own bias coming out, but I feel this way nonetheless. I think that we, as to your point, we talk a lot about being obedient to various commandments, and we associate blessings of some kind with those. What I think we don't discuss as much as we ought to is what I think is really the heart of the gospel. So, for example, and maybe it's just my typical situation, but I go to church today. We had this big stake conference, and out of four talks, the first one's about all the different kinds of sins and temptations of the world. The next talk is about reading your scriptures. The next talk is about missionary work. And then I had to leave because my kids were throwing a tantrum. But out of the four talks, the last, which I didn't even hear, three of them certainly mentioned Christ, certainly mentioned perhaps love, but they weren't the Focus and I guess I do feel like we, we tend to shortchange, talk about what I think are the more important topics. And I think we talk and we replace those with a lot of talk about obedience. So we give a lot of lip service to the idea of being obedient, to the idea of compassion and loving. That is to say you should be loving and obedient. We don't focus on loving and being compassionate because this is what Christ told us we ought to do. We're a little too focused, I think on missionary work, teaching obedience and the like. So I guess I think that plays a little bit into. I think if we had more focus on those more Christ centric topics,

Guest [00:53:07] I

Jay [00:53:07] think it would change the level of service that we give, the level of compassion and love that we have towards those who aren't like us and don't see things the way we do.

Guest [00:53:22] One more piece I'd just like to say is I think it's so, so, so important, important for us to get back to. We sit by these people every week. We've grown up with them, raised our kids with them. That doesn't mean we know them. That doesn't mean we know their hearts, their souls. That doesn't mean we know what's going on in their lives. And if we, if we can just remember, somehow keep import, keep first and foremost in our minds that most people. This is my firm belief. Nobody gets up every day and says, I'm going to do everything I can do to screw this day up the very worst that I can. That's my goal for the day. Most of us get up and whether we say it out loud, we just figure we're going to get up and make our way through the day the very best that we can. And so it's like because we can't know the other trials that people are doing, are going through or experiencing or their children or whatever, we just need to cut so much slack, just cut so much slack and let them be and do. They're big people, they can make their decisions, let them be, trust them to be making what they think is their best decision. Support them in it whatever way you can and leave them alone to do what they need to do.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:55:18] Yeah, and going back to kind of this obedience piece and we do emphasize that a lot. And again, not that I'm saying we shouldn't ever emphasize that, but when we emphasize it so dramatically so it I think gives a sense of false security. In other words, if you do A, B and C, then for sure D E and F will happen. And I think that this is where, for many people, this worldview starts breaking apart. We got married in the temple, but now we're divorced because there was domestic violence or I went on a mission, but I'm still dealing with chronic depression or I have believed everything I've believed, and I'm still gay. The obedience doesn't always guarantee by any means, anything as far as the results that people, you know, have to face in life.

Jay [00:56:15] Exactly. Very well said.

Guest [00:56:19] And there's so many. Just like how many people, boys, kids that I've talked to that have not gone on missions. And you can see the apology on their face before they even say it. They feel like they have to apologize because they didn't go on a mission. And I just say, you know what? Missions aren't for everybody. Or maybe your mission is a different kind of mission, but we pigeonhole that. And, gee, if you're 19, you've been thinking about it and, you know, automatically want to push them into these places, and it's, you know, it's just let people. Let. Let people be people. Yeah. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the saber Rattlers. Check them out@sabre-rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:57:15] was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Guest 2 [00:57:20] Come, come, ye saints no torture nor labor fear but with joy Wend your way Though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better find far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jo Hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well now why should we mourn? I think our lot is hard T not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now sh the fight Gird up your lo Fresh courage take our God will ever us for sake soon we'll have tale of tale all is well all is well oh, all is well all is well. Sa. And should we die before our journey is through Happy day All is well we that are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the sa the rest obtain I will make this glory swell oh, all is well all is well all is well all is all is well all is well oh, all is well. All is well all is well Sa.

Part Five: Advice for Couples Navigating Mental Illness

Part 5 of 5 · Ep. 279

Jay [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

Guest [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:09] the Open Stories Foundation.

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Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:30] well, so we're kind of already touching on this. You know, I guess I want to formally ask for pieces of advice that you would give to, you know, ward members, that you would give to family members, you know, dealing with similar things, spouses, children, and then to even the people who maybe are struggling with some of these issues themselves.

Jay [00:00:59] Who should go first?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:02] Doesn't matter to me.

Jay [00:01:03] Okay, I'll go first. Let's see, what have I got written in the advice column here,

Guest [00:01:13] by the way? I don't do advice. Yeah, no, truly, it's rarely solicited and seldom listened to, so I don't do.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:23] Yes, no, I get that.

Jay [00:01:25] Well, lucky for the listeners, I don't have that policy. Just teasing. Let's see. So let's see. What have I found useful? I think as a good place to start, I think it's important to understand the theory behind why people have mental illness. Understanding at least a little bit about how it's thought that medications work. Understanding the, you know, serotonin and norepinephrine and other chemical that's thought to be largely responsible for mental health issues is a good place to at least learn about my number one recommendation to anyone. Okay, I have two main pieces of advice. The first one is to take a CBT course, Cognitive behavioral therapy. And I think, personally, I just think everyone should take a CBT course. It should be a required course for every human being. Just take it. If you're listening to this, just take it. You won't be sorry.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:46] Where did you take something like that? Where did you find a resource for something like that?

Jay [00:02:51] I actually. The insurance that I had at my job at the national laboratory that I had before I went back to school, they had a mental health program that offered very cheap. I think it was five bucks a session CBT course.

Guest [00:03:08] Okay.

Jay [00:03:09] And it was absolutely brilliant.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:03:12] And this was in a group format.

Jay [00:03:14] This particular one was in a group format. We had packets and walked through things and shared things with each other. And it was very good, very well done. You can learn most of the information online, but I would suggest taking a course even in a group setting. It's very useful for understanding people skills, for understanding how relationships are, how to behave in a relationship, to understand why you believe what you believe about yourself and how to combat that when it's negative. It teaches you how to set proper boundaries in your relationships. I mean, it's brilliant. Just take it. I can't emphasize that enough. It's good stuff.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:05] Yes. And I back that up. I love cognitive behavioral therapy.

Jay [00:04:09] Yes. And if you deal with somebody who has mental illnesses, then it at least provides a tool for you to understand what they probably have been exposed to, because they've probably taken that course or are being advised to take that course if they're in any kind of counseling. And it gives you tools for understanding how you can better your relationship with them. The other big thing that I think is the most important is simply empathy. I think you have to spend some time thinking about the worldview of the person who is struggling. You have to try to understand why they act the way they do, why they see what they do, what they must be feeling inside and how that might make you feel. It's the whole walk another mile in someone else's moccasins type analogy here. One of the keys for me that have helped me do that is observing my mom's behavior, observing why she does what she does, when it's a good time, when it's a bad time. And I've often joked with my mom that I know how to push her buttons better than anyone else. And, you know, I kind of say that jokingly, but it's the truth. I know how to interact with her because I've spent a fair amount of time observing her and understanding and making mistakes and realizing what worked and what didn't work and what I should say and how far I can go in what I say and things like that. And, you know, fortunately for us, we're at a point now where, you know, we're doing this podcast speaking very candidly and openly about sensitive subjects. And I think that there's understanding and a sufficiently healthy relationship to allow that. But it's taken a lot of years, and that's the only other thing I would say is that it's not reasonable to expect to fix or to have a good relationship with anyone. But particularly if that relationship is burdened by mental illness, it's not reasonable to expect results quickly. It just takes a lot of time to develop patience and understanding and empathy and trust with people. And, you know, like I've said before, it's taken us 10 years to repair what was a fairly damaged relationship. So patience, empathy, and cbt, or my.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:07] That's Great. I'm really glad you mentioned that piece about the time because I think that, you know, many people will listen to this podcast and be probably impressed by the ability of the two of you to speak so openly and lovingly to one another. And they may almost, you know, those negative kind of self destructive voices will say, well, why can't I have that? You know, or why, why haven't we been able to get to that point? And I'm glad that you pointed out that it's a process and people can get to this point, but it does take time and effort.

Jay [00:07:43] Yeah.

Guest [00:07:43] And desire.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:45] Desire, self awareness.

Guest [00:07:48] You have to want the relationship to be better.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:50] Yeah, yeah. Well, couching it in the terms maybe not as so much advice, but I like what Jay said, you know, things that I have found useful. What would you say to that? Wanna me?

Guest [00:08:05] Okay, well, the first thing I want to say is I just let him think that he knows all of my buttons to push because. Because, because he likes to think, oh boy, oh, by yourself. I pulled some out anyway.

Jay [00:08:23] See, that was the masterful pushing of buttons right there.

Jay [00:08:26] Right?

Jay [00:08:27] You see how well I did that? She doesn't even know that that's what I was doing. I knew she would say that.

Guest [00:08:33] Oh, you are so bogus. Okay, I would say get help as soon as you recognize that there's a problem. And that's a tricky thing to say because denial likes to play a big part of it. We don't like to admit we are maybe as not okay as we thought we were, but as soon as you recognize that there could, could be just even get it checked out. Don't, don't put it off because you're worried about what a neighbor or a friend or anybody might say. Because if you are in that boat, generally the sooner you can reach out and get professional help, perhaps the sooner it can resolve itself rather than later and more damage to many relationships. And it is hard, it is really hard to face yourself in the mirror and be honest and say, I've got a problem. And this isn't something that I can just say to my buddy and get over, I need professional help. The next thing, openness and honesty is absolutely, totally has to be elements, especially where it's concerned, I believe, not only with your therapist, but with your children, your children and your family members. Even if it hurts, because if you are not, eventually it will be found out. And then you have one more thing added to the pile of deal with and that's an issue of distrust. And you don't need more to deal with. So part of that openness and honesty is recognizing, recognizing the role communication plays in that. But you need to be careful, especially I believe, with our families, because it needs to be age appropriate. You can't have a five or six year old and dump on him the whole world and have him understand or get it. So. So it's hard, especially when, like, I'm at a place where I'm not thinking real clearly and I just want them to know I care and want to help them. But I have always believed that if you keep talking, you stand a chance. You can't. If you haven't talked to your children the first 13 years of their lives, you can't just expect to step in at 13 and have a good communicating thing going on. And so it's establishing those, those skills and that honesty and having. And valuing the relationship and the person and who and what they mean in your life to say the things that need to be said not hurtfully or if sometimes it moves into a hurt area area, which it can be as soon as you recognize that, be open to apologizing, owning your part of it, not blaming, accepting responsibility for the things that you said that were hurtful and then trying to move on. The last thing, I think not last.

Jay [00:12:25] Could I just say something real quick in addition to what you said there?

Guest [00:12:29] No. Now, the last thing. Go ahead.

Jay [00:12:35] I was gonna say that, you know, just because someone in that position. I know one of the things that you have struggled with, mom, is to. Is allowing yourself to believe that you don't get to control how we respond to the situation and you can only own your part and I have to own my part. And I certainly brought something to the table in high school. I brought resentment to the table and I have to own that part. And so I would say, as part of what you're telling people is that if you are the one who has the mental illness, you need to recognize that it's not all your fault that people interact with you and they get to choose how they interact with you and that you're not entirely responsible for everything that's going on. So don't feel like it's you that's destroyed the family or anything like that. We all have to choose how we deal with the situations we're presented with.

Guest [00:13:43] Yes, but mother guilt runs the world.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:45] So, you know, see, Jay is talking like assistant therapist. So that I'll have to cite. Yeah, I'll have to cite with Jay on that one. Yeah, but I'm a mom. Too. So I got the guilt piece.

Guest [00:13:59] Yeah, well, and I know exactly what he's saying and referring to because this is something as I've become a little bit healthier, I have tried to stress and recognize and that's being responsible for, and this is what I've said. Dead 100 my kids. I'm responsible for me. If I, if I did this, if I said this, then I'm the one that has to try to repair it. And I, I, I truly believe that. But it's hard to separate when I feel like I was responsible for so much of, of that part. It's hard to, you know, delineate and say, okay, whatever. But the next part I want people to know is if you seek help, if you seek therapy, and if you don't connect with the right person, whether it's psychiatrist, social worker, psychologist, whoever, if you don't connect after a few days visits and it's not feeling right again, don't take that one on and make it your failure. Some things just don't work. But don't give up and quit looking. Ask around, talk to people that you know who have had therapy, that have had good therapy relationships, and keep trying to find because there, there is one that you will be able to work with and move at different paces than with others. And it's important to find them and establish a trust with them so that you can do that at whatever pace is comfortable for you. And sometimes it will be faster and sometimes it will be slower as other things happen in our lives. But don't give up just because you maybe haven't found the right one. Don't give up.

Therapy, Medication, and What Actually Helps

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:16:02] Well, I will totally back that up. I think one of the most frustrating things for us as therapists that's coming out in pretty much all the recent research is that when it comes to therapy results, it doesn't matter how long we've been necessarily in the field, it doesn't matter what type of therapy we do, it doesn't matter so much. The interventions that, that we're doing, these all play a role. But what matters the most is the bonding and joining between therapist and client. And that's very frustrating for us because so much of that is not in our control. So we want these other things to be more of what? Yeah, the bonding, the relationship there has to feel comfortable. And I try to tell all of my clients that, because without it, you're just never going to get as far as you could. And it can actually be harmful in some regards.

Guest [00:17:03] Yeah. And it's equally Frustrating. I can't say equally because I've never. I'm not a social worker, but it's as frustrating for those of us because it's like, oh, crap, now I've got to go through the thing of trying to find another. And then how many visits do I make? And then this. That's infringing on my insurance. If I only get, you know, 12 visits a year or six visits a year, and I know I need a lot more help, you know, so there's a lot of reluctance to make that shift. But, boy, if you make it and hit and gear into that right person, you can move mountains in very few, very, very few sessions. And then you might get hung up, and then you can move on again. So, you know, there's that side. From my perspective, that's a frustrating piece, too. But just like all doctors all, none of this is an exact science. And so you just keep looking for the best fit.

Jay [00:18:03] I feel like I have to say one other thing.

Guest [00:18:05] Of course, you would have to.

Jay [00:18:07] Sorry. I just have to say that if you have suicidal thoughts or you're approaching that level of thought, please get help. Kala, there's lots of suicide prevention lifelines and things, but don't. Don't just sit and think that nobody cares or that there's no help available or that you're the only one in the world who thinks like this, because there are plenty of others and there are plenty of resources available to you.

Guest [00:18:40] And, in fact, hotlines are a good place to start getting some recommendations about potential therapists. If you call one of them and tell them you're in trouble and they talk to you a little bit, find out what the issues are, they can help guide you to someone that might fit that position for you. Be a good fit.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:19:05] Yeah, of course. I completely second that for sure. I'm trying to find the number as we speak. I think we'll link to it as far as the suicide hotline, that's a national hotline, and anybody can dial into it. You can also just call 911. I mean, that's just the easiest thing you can do if you're at that point.

Guest [00:19:26] Or most big hospitals I know, like the University of Utah, and they have their mental health hotline set up, or we have Valley Mental Health. You know, there's quite a few within most communities that, you know, you can call, right?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:19:45] Yeah, I think there's one general national one, and then they probably guide you to more local ones as well, so. Absolutely. There's lots of resources, for sure. You Spoke a little bit about, obviously, finding a good therapist. Can you speak a little bit more about. Because you seem to have had a lot of experience within the mental health field. Can you speak a little bit more about what has been helpful for you, what types of therapies, medications? What's your general view? It sounds like you have overall a general view for mental health. I also am assuming that not everything has been positive for you.

Guest [00:20:28] You assumed correctly. Medication has been a bust for me. We have tried every classification that there is, even the old school ones. We've tried all of the new ones. Each new one that comes out, we've tried de augment ones like Abilify. I can't think of too many that I haven't tried and we have not had success for a long time. I was on Welbutrin. Did we think it helped? No, not really. But it seemed to cause the fewest side effects of any of them. So. Okay, we'll stay on that one.

Jay [00:21:17] As a side note and just to intervene, some people in close proximity, physically and emotionally to my mom think that medications do work. So just thought I'd throw that out there that it's not, at least not as cut and dry to some other people that they don't work for you.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:43] Oh, you mean that there are people within your family that when your mother is on an antidepressant of some sort, do notice differences in her. Is what you're saying you're not just talking about in general?

Jay [00:21:54] That's correct.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:54] I see.

Guest [00:21:55] Oh, my gosh. I did not know that. See, I said to you I would learn. Okay, well, tell me which med those were and I'll hop on.

Jay [00:22:08] I don't know the details.

Guest [00:22:10] Okay, well, I'll.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:12] We'll set up a family therapy session after this.

Guest [00:22:16] Yeah. And I'm not saying that there. There haven't been some where maybe I felt. Yeah, I think a little bit better, but there with every medication you take, there are side effects. You're not going to have one that doesn't have side effects. And sometimes you have to weigh the side effects. If I'm getting a little bit of benefit and the side effect is huge, I'm not going to take it. I'm just not. If the benefit was huge and the side effect was medium, I would do it. If the benefit was huge and the side effect was huge, maybe I would do it. And most every drug that I. Medication that I have been on, I have had side effects with. And so one frustrating thing for me and that I finally started saying Was okay, I'm tired of taking these. If they don't seem to be a lot of help and they're burning out my kidneys and liver by taking them. Hey, if I'm not getting it, if I'm taking this and I feel this crappy, I can feel this crappy not taking it and not have that going on in my body. Because I used to be really concerned about health and my body. And when they even first proposed medications, I'm like, no, I don't do that. I might take aspirins, but you know, for headaches. And so I was really resistant. But when I. It was apparent that I was very sick and needed to try something, that was when I did. But. And we've also been addressing quite a few issues. I. Severe insomnia, like two, three hours a night sleep, if I was lucky. And it would be as much as early waking and not being able to get to bed, or I might go to bed and wake up all night long. So it takes many forms and it seems. And so we played with sleeping meds and I really hate sleeping meds. That's just my own thing I'll put out there when you're desperate and when I am desperate and have been days without sleep, then I will take one because I know that's scary, But you can get too many things going on at once, and it's hard to tell what's helpful sometimes and what isn't helpful. The other thing, and I just want to bring this back to diagnosis a little bit. It became extremely frustrating to me to keep getting. To keep hearing a different diagnosis. Well, we think this. Well, we think this. Well, we think this. And I'm going to. You've got a manual. It spells stuff out. How. How can it be that hard to come up with what's going on with me? And why do we keep pulling different rabbits out of the hat? And. And so again, what I came to understand first of all was the diagnosis isn't critical. Many times it doesn't change if I'm sicker or less sick if I know the diagnosis. And so knowing it, knowing it can have very little impact. And so I tended. I started to not put as much weight in the diagnosis as much as what's going on with me. And I think it's important not to get hung up in a diagnosis and perhaps reading tons about it because you can start to create symptoms from what you read that maybe weren't there before and that sounds really sick. But you have to understand, if you're that sick, you are sick. And so those things can happen without you intending. Without me intending for that to happen. And so I would say, you know, it's good to know what they think is going on, but if they throw you something else, it's good not to, you know, go off the deep end. Because. And I didn't go off the deep end. I was just like, you know, why can't we get this clear? But then I go back to, none of this is a perfect science. Medicine is not a perfect science. And if you read these diagnoses, which I read a lot of them, and with every medication I took, I got the product insert and studied that and knew the possible side effects because I wanted to know the potential harm that I could be doing. And that's the way I operate. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I checked out and I read as much until I had reached a saturation point with me and didn't need to know anymore, and then I was through and put it away. But so when you read these diagnoses in full, if you can get your hands on a DSM manual, you can see that there's crossover in many of them. And that's why it's not really easy to put your thumb right away on something or see potentially different areas that could be combining and making it not easy to get to the root of what's going on. But even if you get to the root of what's going on and give it a name doesn't mean you fix the problem. So those are just some, Some of my frustrations with mental health. And yet I'm at a place where I understand it better now. I get it better now.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:28:36] I. Yeah, I think you bring up a lot of good points. I mean, diagnosis, I think, definitely has its place as far as helping people put a name to something that maybe they thought, you know, gosh, maybe I'm just crazy or mean or I'm, you know. And so it does kind of, I think, help people and even loved ones to kind of, oh, there's a label. There's something that I can understand now. So there's. There's help in that. At the same time, there is a negative side to that. You know, sometimes when we label people, we only expect certain things of people or we limit people somehow. So, yeah, there's a lot of discussion about this. I think even within the mental health community is, you know, and then I think you bring another good point as far as a lot of these diagnoses have similar symptoms or have Aspects of different symptoms, symptoms within them. And also if you read through a lot of the symptoms, we all have some of those symptoms. So where does it become a disorder versus just a normal part of life like depression and anxiety? We all have depression and we all have anxiety, but where does it become so dysfunctional to the point that it's really causing problems in your day to day life? So I try to tell people who are depressed or anxious, the goal here is not to do away with this feeling completely. You know, it's not realistic that the goal is to make your life just more functional. So yeah, I agree with much of what you're saying and I do think that those are questions that need to be asked within the mental health community on a regular basis and continued research and continued just, you know, questioning our own ideas and beliefs about what we think we know

Guest [00:30:23] well. And it is. You want your therapist and your mental health people to kind of have a handle on what it is you might be coping with so that they can develop an approach with you of how to work within the confines of what that diagnosis is. So I'm not saying it doesn't have its place. I, I guess what I'm saying is it's, it's really easy when you're not thinking really on top of things, you know, to become your diagnosis. And we're not our diagnosis to not

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:31:00] let it define you. Exactly. Yes, yes, it's. It's something like I have a broken leg, but I'm not a broken leg.

Guest [00:31:08] Right, exactly, exactly.

Jay [00:31:12] I was glad that you brought up that it's not always easy to tell where things begin and end because I think as an observer, as someone who interacts with someone who has mental illness, it's really hard to tell where a person just what they do and what is normal behavior versus. I mean a lot of the things that I think I perhaps once ascribed to illness as I've matured have found. Oh actually it turns out that people actually just see things different than I do actually. And you know, there's some of that going on and it's hard to always determine where the illness begins and ends and the person just. Normal behavior begins and ends. And so I guess it's useful to at least understand and watch for the signs that might give some indication.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:12] Right? Yeah. And even in the, you know, if people want to look at places like the DSM 4 and of course a lot of this is Google able these days. Is that a word?

Jay [00:32:24] That was a great use of the verb to go.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:27] Yeah. Was that A good one. Thank you. But it's a lot of these things. It's not just the symptoms, but they'll have attached to them a time frame. So have you been dealing with these symptoms for so many weeks, you know, or so many. Yeah. So I think that's very helpful.

Guest [00:32:44] How long has it lasted? Everybody has it this day, but if it's gone on for a period of two weeks or more with this degree, then it's. Yeah. So they do define a lot of things, things like that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:55] Right. And I think that's very useful for people to know.

Guest [00:32:58] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:00] Okay. Anything else as far as in the. In the helpful category to think about, or are we pretty much done with that segment?

Jay [00:33:08] I think that's all from me.

Guest [00:33:10] That's all for me.

Closing Reflections on Faith and Healing

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:12] Okay, well, so I think I'd like to finish then, with each of you maybe giving some closing thoughts as to going back to our Mormonism, where you currently are, maybe in your relationship with the Mormon faith, and then separate from that, where you are with your current relationship with what you would consider your God, your divinity, your universe, however you want to couch that.

Jay [00:33:47] Okay, let's see. So still, you know, I'm definitely Mormon. I plan to be Mormon. For me, it's both a culture and a people and a community and a tribe and. And a belief system and an organization. And there are elements of those. Of all of those that I believe in and adhere to. I think for me, after faith crisis and other things that I've been through, I have a tendency to view things in a narrative, naturalistic light. That is to say, whereas once I think I was prone to immediately jump to perhaps supernatural explanations for various phenomena, I'm now more inclined to see a naturalistic view of the world. Things happen, you know, the world is messy. It's unfair. It's not subject. From what I can tell, it's not subject to a few rules or any particular theology. It seems to me that. There aren't clear boundaries and there aren't clear ideologies that seem to explain things always perfectly. And so I have a hard time frame me adhering to one particular one. I think Buddhism has a lot to offer me. I know that lots of Mormons who go through a faith crisis like Buddhism, I'm no exception to that. I've read and learned a lot about Islam and some other Christian faiths, and I think overall, there are good people everywhere in the world, and. I don't find one particular ideology or theology that seems to satisfy for me. So I adhere to a loose, rather Loose belief system. I don't usually. This is kind of interesting for me because I usually don't define what I believe in. I'm usually carving out what I don't believe in or what I'm uncertain about. So, you know, there are certainly parts for me of Mormonism that I just don't think are doctrinal or theology at all. And I think today's modern, many of today's modern Mormons would agree with me. A lot of those things are historical legacy items. And there are other things that I do believe in. I have a lot of uncertainty with regard to a lot of the truth claims that we have in the church. And I personally tend to focus on the things that I think are the most important. And I think I've mentioned those throughout this podcast. For me, love and charity and compassion are the things that are most important. And things like appearance and money and one's sexual preferences are, for me, just not, not, not that critical. And I. I guess that part of that goes along with the sort of messy worldview. So I still very much consider myself a spiritual individual. I particularly gain a lot of insight by viewing various religions and theologies in a metaphorical light. I really love the way things are framed by Joseph Campbell and his mythologies, his views of mythology. And so I really appreciate those kinds of things. I'm not one who wants to see God stamped out of our lives, because I think that God plays an important role, even if, you know, whether he exists or not is perhaps less important to me than the good that I think comes from believing in general. And I think that there's power to be had in. In belief in general and holding things sacred. And I think that has value. So I'm one who tries to take those things for what they are and run with them and sort of leave out some of the things that I think are more frivolous and that I don't necessarily think Christ would have endorsed. So I try to read scriptures and read spiritual books. I try to take time for meditation, and I still pray and go to church regularly, have a temple recommend and try to go to the temple when I can. And I have calling, have a calling, and I try to serve. And for me, service is a key ingredient to the fabric of my life. I get tremendous pleasure, satisfaction out of serving, and I try to maintain that. So kind of want to tie it into my mom here and, and say that I'm pretty happy that our relationship has been able to weather the storms that have been, that we've faced including the faith crisis. You know, it would have been easy for my mom to toss out what I had to say or to ignore me or to consider me an apostate or all kinds of other things. But she's hung in there with me and I love her all the more for it. So that's all I got.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:40:51] Thank you. That was very nice,

Guest [00:40:54] Mom. I'm going to go first with my relationship with God because my, my relationship with God based on what Jay likes to call the emotional experiences or the warm fuzzies that we feel and ascribe to whatever the spiritual experience or Holy Ghost or whatever, I have had quite a few of those. For me, God, it is not a question of whether he exists or not. He. He does. I don't, I don't know that I care what the form is. Or is it. I shouldn't say care. I don't know that it's important to me exactly how this being we call God works. I used to go crazy thinking, okay, so there's 6 billion people on the planet and I'm supposed to believe that he hears all of our prayers. He hears my little prayer, my little bed and me, you know, for whatever it is I'm hoping for and how, how can that possibly be? And then I realized it really didn't matter because I had had enough prayers answered, that I didn't care how he did it. I just knew that he, he was able to do it. So I would say that at this point in my life, my relationship with God is stronger than probably my relationship with the church. And I revere that relationship. It means a great deal to me. And it has seen me through some incredibly tough times in my life. I am still Mormon. I do feel like I have an affiliation with the church that probably will not end. But as the years have gone on, I think I've relaxed some in my viewpoints and my expectations of what the church should do for me or could do or can do for me. And I tend to look at it as a pretty good place to be where there's a lot of good people that are trying hard and that's not such a bad thing to do on a Sunday morning and is be with good people that are trying hard. But I'm not as rigid in attendance. Like I have to go to the whole three hour block or it doesn't count or any of those things. If I go to sacrament meeting because that's generally where I'm fed the most, then to me, that's my activity and that's my decision, and I get to make that call. And again, if God is judging that, then I will have to answer for how I chose that to be in my life. But I don't think we're meant to be puppets. I think we're put here to think for ourselves, to ponder, to pray, to research, to discuss, and to find the things that the things or the doctrine or the group of people or whatever that help us get through each day the best way that we can, can. So far, I haven't found anything that works any better than Mormonism. And so I. I give kudos to many programs that they have. I think they've done much good in our world. I have nothing detrimental to say about them. It's more the things that we. We all deal with on a weekly basis as we go to church. And that's like the people that teach and want to go a little bit tangenty on. On us. And I. I worry about that because I know it can harm people that don't have strong backgrounds. So I tend to. To set it up how it works best for me, and I feel okay with that. And if I go to three hours, then that's okay, too. It's where I'm at that day. I think that I have become much less structured in how I look at the whole. The whole of our church and the process of being Mormon and what it is. And I think that for me, that is a good thing. I can only speak for me, that is a good thing.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:47:06] Well, thank you. I guess I just want to close with just thanking the two of you so profoundly for having spent this much time with me tonight. I think you have shared so many bits of wisdom you've shared. I know what's very difficult, history. And just to see the two of you be able to do that in such a. In such a profoundly loving way is just. It's very powerful and I hope that that resonated with many of our listeners. So thank you very much.

Jay [00:47:40] Thank you. I hope someone gets something out of it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:47:43] Yeah, I hope so too.

Guest [00:47:45] Thank you.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:47:46] Okay, we'll hopefully meet some other way some other time. Thanks. Okay, thank you. Good night.

Jay [00:47:54] Good night.

Guest [00:47:55] Good night.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:47:55] Bye. Bye.

Jay [00:47:56] Bye.

Guest [00:47:56] Bye. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories.

Jay [00:48:05] Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers.

Guest [00:48:08] Check them out@saber rattlers.com the Mormon Stories

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:48:12] logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Jay [00:48:17] Come, come, ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with Jo wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive our useless cat from us to drive to the San Jo your hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well. Why should we mourn? I think I God is high

Guest [00:49:22] Tis

Jay [00:49:22] not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight Good up your belongs Fresh courage take Our God will never us for sake soon we'll have let's tell it tales oh, all is well all is well oh, well all is well. Sam. And should we die before our journey's

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:51:16] through

Jay [00:51:18] Happy day All is well we the that are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the saints there ever rest obtain Or I will make this ch. Oh, all is well all is well all is well all is well all is well oh, is well, Is well all is. You.

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