I’d like to start by telling you about myself mainly because I am more than my testimony. My life is in numbers, so that’s what I’ll give you.
- I am a 38-year-old Christian woman, born and raised in Monroe.
- Youngest of 3 daughters to 2 loving parents who have been married for 47 years.
- Wife of 19 years to my high school honey, Cody.
- Mom of 2 sons, Walker and Luke, though I’m not ready to share my story with them just yet
- And lastly, and least of all, I am a suicide survivor of 8 years.
Mega church Pastor Rick Warren said after the death by suicide of his 27-year-old son: “Behind every publicly successful ministry, there is private pain. Pain is Gods megaphone. There is no testimony without a test. There is no message without a mess. There is no impact without criticism. Your greatest ministry will come out of your deepest hurt and we mistakenly think the world is impressed by how we
handle prosperity, but the fact is the world if impressed by how we handle adversity.”
I remember the first time it hurt to breathe. I was 16 and my childhood best friend had just died. At the age of 8 we were inseparable. She was still and quiet and I was wild and loud. Katie was always game for whatever plan I would conger up. The pictures I still have of us as children that summer show us as snaggled teeth kids whose biggest worry was whose house we would sleep at that night. As far as childhood friends go, we were meant for each other. Then we grew up and drifted apart from our elementary bond and grew into young ladies who still had a fire in our eyes from being young and ready to take on the world one day. Only her flame would burn out far sooner than we could have imagined.
I had seen her in the halls recently at school. I think I said hi. I HOPE I said hi. She was taller than me as most people are, and her hair was still dark and naturally curly. I remember thinking she is still beautiful and just an older version of the girl I used to know. That was the last time I saw her. In March 2003 she drove too fast on the road near our house and lost her life. Because she lived just down our street, that night my dad drove me to her mom’s house so I could offer my condolences. Once I got home, I went to my room and couldn’t stop the tears... couldn’t stop the overwhelming feeling that this is what heartbreak felt like. At 16 I didn’t know that anxiety and depression would follow. I just knew I was hurting and sad. Even as beautiful as she was on earth, I'm sure she is the most beautiful angel.
Fast forward a couple of years. I graduated high school in 2004 and got married in 2005. We were 18 and 20 and being young and in love was like being on the greatest adventure. Life threw several curveballs our first few years of marriage, and those curveballs also sent my mind into a spin that came
on quietly but was noticeable by those who loved me.
It was a Monday afternoon when he and my mother had a heart to heart with me. An intervention of sorts or as us southern women call it, a “Come to Jesus”. I could get help or not, but they couldn't see me live so unhappily anymore and neither were willing to co-sign on my misery and self-pity. To me it felt like betrayal because who were they to tell me how to feel and live? I was a grown woman (at 20-yea right) who didn’t want to be backed into a corner. Reluctantly I went with the help. I went to my Dr., and he asked a series of questions about my mental state. And I know I had an attitude when he asked if I had ever thought of hurting myself. I replied no with an overly dramatic eye roll. Little did I know that years later I would answer that question very differently. I left that day and started on the first medication of my life. I was humiliated that I couldn't control my own thoughts and emotions and more than that, I was ashamed other people had seen the ugly in me. I had friends who knew I had anxiety, and some left it at that, and some would question how I could be sad. My favorite was "what makes you so unhappy? Or ;you seem happy all the time and you' re so funny. How can you be depressed? There was no answer. There was embarrassment that I couldn't verbalize what was going on in my head and then I was more embarrassed that something WAS going on in my head. I felt like an outsider in my small group of friends. None of them had this problem, so why me? What had I done to become crazy? Was it genetic? Was it my punishment for something I didn’t realize I had done? Was it a test God gave me, and I failed? It would take a lot of time, hurt, loss and soul searching to find the answers. I had my first son at 26. He was born late on a Sunday night, and I was in love immediately with the boy I'd just met. 10 fingers and 10 toes and slept like all the Mills guys do, with their hands behind their head. He was flawless.
He was a week old when I saw him crying and felt nothing. Absolute numbness. I was sitting on our couch and saw him across the room in his swing and he was crying because he was a baby and the new world made him want to be held. I couldn’t make my body respond to his newborn cries. I sat there with a sense of emptiness because I was a new mom and what happens to so many new moms was happening to me. Like a light switch the baby blues came on. I knew immediately what it was and had been told early in my pregnancy that with my anxiety and depression I was a likely candidate for post- partum. I picked him up, went to my sleeping husband and through tears told him something was wrong. Again, I called on my mom, because you're never too old for that and as she had been for 26 years, she was my rock and solace. She was my voice of reason. As she had so many times, she dried my tears and promised we would come through it. I’d made myself feel awful and she made it seem like it was ok. That I was ok. I was so mad that I couldn't outrun the disease after just giving birth to a perfect little red head. But it wasn't me. It was bigger than me. Bigger than my willpower and bigger than my prescription could contain and had to be addressed. The next morning, I called and cried on the phone with the front desk of my Drs office (surely they thought I was nuts), but she spoke to me like I was telling her I had the sniffles. There was no judgment. No crazy stares when I went to the office to talk it out. It was a few quick questions about how I felt and then it was time to get me better.
In the coming weeks the connection we’d lost returned and I began to feel like a real mom. I wanted to hold him and kiss him, and my husband’s second shift job gave us the quality time Walker and I needed to be healthy mom and healthy son. In my mind it gave me a chance to show him how sorry I was for being lost for a little while. To this day I feel like my son saved me. His simple existence gave me an understanding that life was beautiful and that living it was even more so. I let go of some of the hurt of Katie and my sisters’ accidents and realized that that little boy, with chunky thighs and blue eyes was sent from God to heal me. Don't get me wrong, there were days that were hard. When money was tight, work was harder than usual or Cody and I weren't on the same wavelength, I was anxious and could feel down. And about twice a year I would still have panic attacks. It's not only rocking back and forth or being in a corner in the fetal position like what some think. That's not how I hit my lows. I obsessed about people's opinions of me. Mostly my husbands and closest friends and family and on the worst of days I would cry until my lungs burned or go days on end where I couldn’t get enough sleep. I can always tell when I’ve hit my crescendo because I rub my thumb over my fingertips. It isn’t a conscious thing, but it’s what my body does to calm itself and bring me back to level ground.
The day after I turned 29 I woke up feeling different. Cody had worked all night, so I snuck out with Walker, went to CVS, got breakfast for us, and came home. I woke him up about 20 minutes later with news that we were going to make this wild life even more wild. I was pregnant with our second baby. As before, our families were ecstatic for us and couldn't wait to find out if Walker would have a little brother or sister. Cloud nine was a nice place to have landed.
For a few weeks or so I felt great. Good hair days, nails were getting stronger, and I felt pregnant beautiful. But then another feeling set in. One I’d never experienced before or since. I was quiet and withdrawn and snippy with Cody and Walker. I’d always found that music was calming and could lift my spirits, but I couldn’t listen to it at all. I’ve always sang with Walker or in the car. Just anything with music touched my soul and I couldn’t bear to hear any of it. Even the elevator music or commercial jingles hurt to hear and made me anxious. I chalked it up to changing careers, having a rambunctious two-year-old and the need to sleep during my first trimester. That all seemed like it could be the truth because I was going thru all those things. But it was more. It was quiet in my usually overactive mind. It was patience for my child that was gone and even less patience for my husband who I could tell was struggling because of my struggle. I convinced myself it was nothing. I was pregnant and hormonal and earned the right to be moody and exhausted. My body and mind began to change over the coming weeks and guilt like I had never felt settled into my mind and heart. What kind of mom makes her husband feel like he does nothing right? Why don't I have any nice words to use towards anyone? Why can't my son play like a child without me getting overwhelmed and irritated?
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks one night. After dinner with my family, we went back to my sister’s house for a few minutes. The kids were playing and laughing, and I was bursting with unknown feelings inside. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to get away from everyone who was happy. We came home and my tears came like a levy had broken. Hard tears of sadness and anger and it was the first time I said y'all would be better off without me. At the time I thought Jamie, you're being a bit dramatic, but it was more than that. It felt like a realization or revelation. Why would anyone want to be around my miserable self? I didn’t want to be around me. The only way to describe it is self-loathing. A call to my mom had her and my sister at the house in minutes to calm me down. Cody knew some things you needed your mama for, and my middle sister was staying with them for the weekend. I wanted to feel happy and enjoy the last time my body would grow another human but couldn't, and the doubt set in that my family deserved someone better than me. They let me cry and be angry and we decided to call the Dr first thing Monday.
At the appointment we talked for an hour about how I felt and about raising the dosage I was taking In the end we decided that could be risky for the baby who had just started kicking, so he suggested I talk to a psychologist. Something I wanted nothing to do with. Cody held my hand the entire time and I looked over at him and thought, he's going to leave and I probably would too if I was on the other side of it. Who wants to have the sick wife who can't get it together? Who's wife is creating a baby inside her and is unhappy? He deserved so much more than me. All the bad thoughts the devil could place in a hormonal woman's head when she's trying to find a sliver of serenity was there. Even prayer didn’t seem to quiet my fears of inadequacy. I felt hopeless and like I had nowhere to turn. Now I'm not against the helpful quacks, my sister is a School Counselor and can silence a raging storm in someone by rationalizing and talking thru what's happening in their worlds. The voice she uses to relax you I don't possess but I need it often. But I was different. I didn't want to talk to someone who didn't know me or my family. I didn't want to open old wounds and ones I just learned of. Another total stranger asking questions that weren't his business. What if he thought I wasn’t fit to be a mom to my babies? Would he have them taken away because I was a mess?
I left that appointment angry and determined not to add another poor soul into my problems, but the post it they gave me with names of Drs was green and I couldn't throw it away. It nagged at me every time I opened my planner. I was a busy woman; a wife, a mom and a compliance specialist for my job. I had no time to stop and talk to someone. My irritation over the green note got the better of me and I dialed the first number. Hindsight is that God was telling me to do something... anything. The woman answered and I inquired about meeting with the name I was given. No new patients were being accepted right now. Cool. It wasn't meant to be. Then she said but we have another Dr. who also specializes in family therapy or women with pre partum depression. Well... crap. She asked when I could come in and I told her I worked at SouthPark so it may not work. Turns out their office was also in SouthPark. Ok God, I'll give you that one. She then tells me they can see me that day at 430. I asked where in SouthPark they were. She said 5970 and on the 4th floor. My office is 5970 on the 8th floor. laughed and knew it was no coincidence. It was God. He’s got a better sense of humor than I ever have.
I went to the appointment and learned what I didn't want to hear. I held on to guilt for everything. My house wasn't clean because I was tired after playing with Walker and didn't run the dishwasher that night. I was moody because I was carrying a human in me, and it needed more . And I was human because I cried. But he also said all those things are ok. His rational was Walker has a mom who plays with him while growing a baby. How lucky is he? And "the laundry and dishes will be there after you get a little energy after making your son feel like playing with mommy is the greatest gift ever Hmmmm. He said I was normal. Something my depression has never made me feel.
Afterwards I felt like I was on the road to recovery for a couple of weeks. The house was semi clean, and I was trying to be wife and mom as usual but there were times I felt like I was dropping the ball at every turn. I began to feel hopeless and alone. And then I felt guilty that Cody and Walker lived with that every day. Should they have to? Would they be better off if they didn't have to? They could live in peace and happiness without the chaos of me. Cody could easily find a woman with no crazy mind and be much happier. The thoughts were all consuming. The negative thoughts had been planted and began rooting in all aspects of my life. And driving home one night I looked to my right to a set of trees I’d driven by a million times and thought what if I just let go of the wheel? It would be easy to just make me go away. Would it be easier for my family to be free of the crazy? What if I.... I, I, I. Do it, don’t do it... do it, don’t do it! Quietly I sat back, content with taking my final breath and let go of the wheel. Then I heard “STOP! Keep going!”. I know I never hit my brakes, but the car stopped. The clarity of what almost happened started to set in. And then I thought what if you weren't there Jamie? Who would tell your husband that his wife and unborn son were gone? Walker would never be a big brother. Who would tell your mom and dad that their baby girl took her own life? How would they explain it to my sisters? Who could explain that I couldn't find the hope or strength to keep driving towards a life that could be healthy? Would Walker and Cody think they weren't enough to live for? Would they blame themselves? Would they forgive me for not being strong enough? As I stopped the car, fire filled my lungs as I struggled to breathe, but I was alive. Hallelujah!! And I felt it. The rush of my blood still running thru my veins and the always there flutters that were my growing baby boy. A boy with a name and parents and a brother, and a wild life ahead of him because God said "STOP"!
The car drove itself home. Silently and slowly myself and the baby warm in my belly got home. I came home, hugged Cody and Walker and cried. I was on the other side of where I was going. I was on the other side of being ready to die. I was on the other side of suicide. I saw the beauty of family for what it was, and I knew beyond doubt that it wasn't me driving home. It was Christ. He wasn't done with me and Luke yet.
“ I’m fighting a battle, you’ve already won. No matter what comes my way, I will overcome. Don’t know what you’re doing, but I know what you’ve done.”
Music was still hard to hear. The music at church and the song “Eye of the Storm” were the only things that I could hear and not clam up or shut down.
In mid-June I had a scheduled c section and woke up early that Friday morning to primp and meet our new son. Ten minutes into getting ready my water broke. But more than water there was blood. So much blood and I knew something felt wrong. We went ahead to the hospital as planned but I kept bleeding. The pain was intense and like nothing I’d ever experienced. I was prepped for delivery and looking up at the delivery room lights I thought, I’m going to get another awesome picture like I did with my first son. The Drs did all the necessary checks to make sure I was ready to go and started the process of getting Luke out. I heard one Dr say to the other that he was sunny side up. Ok- my baby is an egg. Just get him out so I can see him. Then the chaos began. My oldest sister and husband were able to be in the room and I kept asking them why he wasn’t crying. I kept asking and no one would answer me. There’s no prayer like a scared mother’s prayer. I later found out when my water broke, my placenta detached, and Luke’s lungs began to fill up. He was immediately intubated and once his lungs were cleared, he was taken to the NICU. That was the worst. I couldn’t meet him. I couldn’t do the skin-to-skin bonding that I was looking forward to. And Walker wouldn’t be the first to meet him in our room.
I met him in pictures until my spinal tap wore off. It was nearly 9 hours before I was allowed 20 minutes to be with him. He was small and had a tube still in his nose. So many firsts I missed. I didn’t get to hold him first or feed him or kiss him before anyone else. It was beautiful that he wasn’t alone, and Cody had spent every moment with him, but I wished it were me. Two days of round the clock care and he was strong enough to be in the room with us. We found out at 6 am on Father’s Day that he was coming out of the NICU and Walker could finally meet him. It was perfect. They were perfect. It’s a memory I will always cherish.
It wasn't until months later after Luke was born that I told Cody about the night I nearly took mine and our son’s lives. I was ashamed and worried that he would think I was going to hurt our baby and still would. And people thinking you are a fruitcake gets old. Luckily, he and God never gave up on me. God's divine love and Cody’s quiet strength gave me hope. They were and will always be the light that shines in all my darkness. Daily prayer, my medication and support that is unwavering on my bad days is what gets me through. There is a different life you can lead. One where the emotional seesaw finds balance and you soak in all the beauty you couldn't see before. I am hopeful, I am thankful, and I am a testimony for the ones who think they are alone and need to leave this world the same way.
Depression and suicidal thoughts are hard. They can be crippling and overwhelming. The choice to let your thoughts become your actions is up to you. I’ve learned depression is a flaw in chemistry not character. An even harder lesson is not to believe everything you think and to talk through it with God. He’s an incredible listener “And I’ll testify of the battles you’ve won; how you were my portion, when there wasn’t enough. And I’ll sing the songs of the seas that we’ve crossed. The waters you’ve parted; the waves that I’ve walked.”
There are days when I feel guilty when I look at Luke because of who I was while he was growing inside me. More days than I’d like to admit. The remembrance of the place I was in is still so hard. After one of my guiltiest days, I was talking to my sister who said “it’s a conscious thing to walk away from those thoughts when they try to come out of hiding. You just need to find something else to concentrate on. If they come when you’re folding towels, line those corners up and make them perfect. Concentrate on what you can control.” And that’s what I do. If I start to feel that sense of regret and guilt, I either find paper to fold or go through the motions of folding in my head. It forces me to check in with myself and God and get back to the life I’ve worked so hard to live.
“In Christ alone, my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song. This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm.”
One thing that’s come to the forefront of my mind recently is what I would have missed. Here are just a few:
9 first days of school
2 nieces and 4 nephews being born
Being hit by a drunk driver 3 miles from home
Helping my Mom through Stage 2 Breast Cancer and celebrating 4 years of being cancer free
Witnessing both of my sons accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior
My dad being Saved at 68 years old and being baptized with my boys
Giving my Testimony to strangers in hopes to help someone else’s wife and daughter
“All my words fall short, I’ve got nothing new. How could I express all my gratitude? So I throw up my hands, and praise you
again and again; cause all that I have is a Halleluiah, Halleluiah. And I know its not much, but I’ve nothing else fit for a King; except for a Halleluiah, Halleluiah!”
Cody and I loving refer to the hardest time in my life as when I was sick. It probably sounds more negative than we mean. It reminds me that I wasn’t well but that it also had a beginning and end. Luckily God saw fit for my life to not yet have that same short span. I see him in everything I do. In every challenge, in every tear, in every struggle. But he’s more present in the laughs of my children, in the love in my husband’s eyes, and in the closeness of my family through harder times than some will face. I’m lucky to know that he loves me in the hills and valleys of life, and he sees me and who I truly am even more than I see him. He is the harmony in the music of my life.
To write this has been nearly as hard as living it the first time. I wonder why God chose me to live this journey and then share it with the world. And then recently I was reading and the book said “Never once did Jesus scan the room for the best example of holy living and send that person out to tell others about Him. He always sent stumblers and sinners”. I may always be that stumbler and sinner, but my faith in God, belief in modern medicine and the most incredible support system lets me know I don’t have far to fall
-Jamie
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