The hardest decisions… 

When I was just 18 I got married for the first time. It was a very violent and destructive relationship. He did not have any problems hitting me or calling me names. I was to have his dinner on the table when he walked in the door and it was to be hot and exactly what he wanted, keep in mind this was way before cell phones so I had no idea when he would be home or what exactly he would want, talk about setting up for failure.

Daily hitting and verbal abuse was my norm. When we were dating he never raised his hand or voice to me , but the day we got married he hit me for questioning him. We met in the neighborhood where I grew up, all of us hung out together, he was 4 years older than me and had already graduated from high school when we started to date. 

During one of my trips to the psych ward we were dating and he asked me to marry him, while I was there we made plans and after I earned privileges I was able to go down stairs in the hospital and get my blood test. I turned 18 while I was in the hospital and the day I was released we got married. 

I guess you are wondering where my parents were during this time? Yeah me too, they did not come see me but once for a family counseling session and were really not supportive or happy to even have me as their child. At the time My younger siblings were just toddlers and I guess the stress of dealing with me and two toddlers was just to much. 

Of course this marriage was doomed for the beginning, I really tried to understand what was happening and to communicate with him, but there was no way I could stay, the beginning of the end is when he began to force me to have sex with him even when I said no. (Rape) 

One day I just finally had enough and called my father, grandfather and uncles and had them move me out when he was at work. My step-fathers mother made a space for me in her home for a few months and I began to learn to live on my own. Needless to say I went just a little crazy, I was 22 and had never dated or be out to bars as an adult. My ex stalked me wherever I went, He approached me in a bar one night and I was really sacred. I asked the bouncer who was a friend to make sure he did not try anything. He asked me to dance with him and I did, I told him under no uncertain terms that I was not coming back. He asked me to come outside with him, I told my bouncer friend to watch us and I stayed where he could see me. My ex walked around the outside of the building and pulled a gun on me. He proceeded to tell me that if he could not have me then no one would, I looked him straight in the eye and told him go ahead because I was never living like that again and turned and walked away. Can you say the end!!

I fell in love with someone who I later found out was married and immediately broke it off. I began to just do whatever I wanted, after all the men around me could why couldn't I? 

This is when I became pregnant with my son. I had choices to make and to me there was only one right one, since I was raised in the south we abided by social rules, I got married to my second husband, someone I really did not know very well and proceeded to have another disastrous  marriage. Of course I was not going to repeat the physical violence from the first relationship, but the lying was just as bad. I had my beautiful baby boy and  18 months later my just a beautiful daughter. They are the very heartbeat within my chest. 

When they were 2 & 3 years old my 2nd husband abandoned us. He was a truck driver and was not home often anyway. His idea of support was very minimal, I had to go on public assistance and housing in order to make sure my children were taken care of.  My family was supportive to the children and even my husband, but he told them all kinds of things about me and they believed him. I was headed for disaster, I began sending the children to my parents house Wednesday-Sunday so they would be safe, because where we lived was really scary. I was attacked in my back yard while hanging out laundry by a gang of young guys who threw broken glass bottles at me and verbally abused me. I was raped twice while living there and was in fear for my life from threats on a daily basis. I Saw my children on Monday and Tuesday and  was thankful that they were safe. My parents had no idea what was happening to me and really never asked, it broke my heart, because they thought I was just a horrible person. They believed I was doing drugs etc., it was not until later that I felt I had to find protection from what was happening to me that I became affiliated with a local gang and sold weed on the corner. The physical attacks stopped and I had a measure of peace for a while. 

My parents called child services and they also had the police watching me. I did everything I could possibly do to make sure my children were safe, but felt I was fighting a losing battle. I could not get a job because then I would make to much money for assistance. The cost of daycare for two toddlers was as much as I could make, this left no money for housing and food. Their father never paid any support for them, yet my parents allowed him to live at their house when he was home off the road and see the children. It was so disheartening. I felt completely trapped by my circumstances. 

This is where I was physically when I attempted to kill myself for the fourth and final time. My mental  state was not much better, my guides and anyone else that had passed were crowding my head and trying to communicate with me, it was never ending.  I really thought my mind was breaking. One night about 1am in the morning I was sitting in my window in the complete dark and quiet thinking about what my life had become and trying to decide what to do, I was watching the trees and thinking about all they had seen in their lives, they were huge oak trees, I physically saw with my own eyes a tree pull up its roots and shift to another location. The dirt settles back down and you could not tell anything had occurred. It was one of the craziest things I had ever seen.

Over the next month I came to realization that things were not going to change and I was not in control of my life. I made a decision that I wanted my children to have more. I knew my parents would make that happen. I sent Michael and Brandy to my moms on a Thursday as usual. I had been saving numerous bottles of meds and had weed and cocaine all long with a fifth of Jack Daniels. I wrote letters to everyone and planned for a night out. 

My night started with weed and then some valium along with some shots of liquor. A woman that I knew in the neighborhood came to the house and we went out to hang out at the local bar. I had the pills in my pocket (about 100) I would drink a little and take some more pills. At some point I was in black out mode, because I don't remember anything else. 

I woke up about 3am in my own bed and I was stone cold sober. I was also very pissed, I was screaming at God and demanding that he allow me to die. I could not believe that I was still alive. 

As I sat there in bed crying and screaming a brilliant white light appeared in the corner of my room, I was stunned and became quiet and calm. There was a loud voice that sounded like thunder and rolled through my body, the voice said “you cannot leave this existence yet, you have too much to do and many are counting on you” at this point I felt completely defeated. It was now about 5am and I got out of the bed and called my mother. I told her I tried to kill myself and I needed to go to the hospital, she came and got me and took me to see my psychiatrist and they sent me straight to the hospital. 

I was given a drug test because I was telling them what all I had taken. The drug test and the alcohol test came back completely clear as if I had never taken drugs. I had no side effects and the doctors really did not believe I had taken anything. I stayed at this facility for over a month. During my stay my mother went to her lawyer and had a paper drawn up for temporary custody of my children, with stipulations that I could work to get them back by proving I was stable for six consecutive months. I signed them because there was no way I could not. This was the starting point of giving up custody of my children and they beginning of the hardest part of my life. I was raised a Christian and prayed for guidance in this. I really believed that I would one day have my babies back. 

My mothers first cousin who I called Aunt Linda called me at the hospital and asked me if I would like to come stay with her in Alabama, my family and I currently lived in Nashville, Tn., I said yes and this was the beginning of my healing journey. 

We all have to make choices in our lives that haunt us and causes pain to ourselves and those we love. We are not intentionally trying to do this, but are trying with all we have to fix a very bad situation. I left my children with my parents and begin to work on myself so that one day I could be the daughter and mother I wanted to be all along. I knew that I could not give what I did not have so I sacrificed my relationships to try and make it better in the long run. I will talk about this journey later, but the background that got me to this decision was important for you to understand. Even with this being said I understand not everyone does, my parents have never forgiven me for the burden I placed on them and we have never been able to have a relationship. I miss that I won’t lie and I am not really sure I understand. I did eventually get my children back and I personally could never no matter what give up on them. I have been tested with this and I can say that it is not possible for me to not love them and want them to know that with every fiber of their being. 

I feel compassion and love for my parents at the same time that I feel hurt and abandoned by them. It is an issue that I still deal with to this day. My hearts desire is to have a loving relationship with them and acceptance from them. I will eternally carry hope and love in my heart for them always.   

Beth Rennie

www.bethrennie.com

When did I start to feel the depression and despair?

I guess I was about 10 years old, but I did have feelings of loneliness much earlier. When I was about six, I had several traumatic events happen to me. 

First, I was the only witness when my daddy had a shooting accident.  He was carrying a gun and slipped on some ice. The gun went off and shot him through the neck. The entire family and the nanny were in the car waiting for him when this occurred. 

My mother, who was 5 feet and 100 pounds soaking wet, picked up my 6’2” dad and placed him in the car.   She then proceeded to drive him to the emergency room 30 minutes away. 

My younger brother and I were left outside the house with our nanny for an hour at least.  Mom had her keys, and daddy’s keys were somewhere in the front yard covered in blood.  I was scared and did not really understand what had happened. 

My daddy survived and died many years later from complications from the loss of blood that caused irreparable damage to his heart. 

While my daddy was in the hospital recovering, my grandparents (his mom and  dad) and my uncle came to take care of my brother and me.  It was two days before Christmas. 

My uncle had some major issues; he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He proceeded to molest me while they were there for the next month. (I am not going into this here, but wanted to mention it and will be talking about it more in another chapter.)

Before my birthday (May 10th) came around, I came down with meningitis and was hospitalized for a month.  My mother has told me there were several times that she did not think I would make it. She also has told me that I would talk to angels in the room. 

I wanted to give this background here, because I think it important to understand how my mind was already overwhelmed by adult issues even as a small child. 

I remember times before this happened when I had conversations with what I now know are ghosts. The first that I remember was in a very old house out in the country, and there was an old man who lived on the top floor. We were not allowed up there, and the door was kept locked. He could walk through the door and would often talk to me when my mom was not around. Of course he was a ghost.

After the year of change and turmoil I was different.  I became withdrawn and fearful.  I no longer wanted to connect with others and lived this life of sadness.  I remember at about 7 being so sad that I hid from my parents. I did not go far, but I hid almost in plain sight, on top of an old chest freezer under a bunch of blankets. I heard them calling and just kept quiet even when they came into the room and looked for me. I knew I was going to be in big trouble because of the fear I felt radiating off my mother, but I just could not deal with her at the moment. When I finally came out, I got a horrible spanking for hiding and was sent to bed. 

Four years later, I was literally sitting in the window in my room.  I had pushed out the screen and was sitting with one leg in the house and the other outside. It was not dangerous since it was a first floor window. As I sat there, I was contemplating why I was alive and why I felt so horrible. It was as if I was a waste of space and no one could possibly ever love me. I did not really know what to do about all these feelings swirling around in my head. I was way too young to understand what was happening. 

Of course my parents did not know what was happening to me, and when my mom found me sitting there I just got in trouble for the screen being removed. This resulted in a spanking, since it seemed like I was rebelling against her by not responding to her questions of why I knocked the screen out in the first place. To this day I can still remember the pain I felt at the total dismissal of the feelings I was having-- how she never even stopped to wonder why I was acting the way I was. With my mom it was always about her and how I was affecting her and what I was doing to her. She never stopped to consider that all the things she saw as rebellion were actually cries for help.

I generally coasted through the next five years barely making the grade, because I could not find a reason inside myself to really try. Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I was plenty smart enough, even the teachers and counselors I had agreed with that. The problem was I really did not care about myself and what was going to happen to me. I was so sad and withdrawn I could not put forth the effort it took to please those around me. I never made friends easily or kept them for very long. I had people who flowed into and out of my life because connecting with others was just too much. The amount of energy it took to maintain a relationship with another person was just too much. In the end I always felt betrayed or less than. The ridicule I felt from others for not conforming to the social norms was enough to keep me from really connecting to others. 

When I was fifteen, I started going through puberty and everything went crazy. My body became my enemy. It was attracting all the attention I tried so hard to avoid. I would dress in slouchy clothes, and my mother would have a hissy. She would buy me cute outfits and feminine clothes, and I would wear a t-shirt and jeans. She could not understand that I just wanted to fade into the background and not be seen; it was so much easier to live an invisible life . 

I began to reach out to other kids who were doing risky things-- drugs, sex, violence to themselves and others. This was just an outlet for me, and it also kept the more normal crowd away. I was really just hiding amongst them, not really wanting to participate. As I was drawn further into this crowd, I became even more depressed and despondent. I also started acting out as a defense mechanism when having to deal with my mother. At this point I would like to point out that I was still a child, one who needed love and compassion maybe even more than others. My mother, while a perfectly good person, was in no way equipped to handle me. She had never been taught the tools to deal with what was happening to me and could not see that the behavior I was exhibiting was not really about her. 

As an adult looking back, I can see me reaching out trying to get the help I needed.  As a child, I had no idea what was happening to me. 

This was when I started experiencing things outside of what even I considered normal, and I became very frightened.  As a child I had major empathic abilities which were never explained to me, and I had no way to deal with them. As a teenager I began to see really scary stuff and hear voices whispering to me. Of course it is easy to see that this would never fly in my family.  First off, they could not and would not believe that I was actually experiencing these things.  To them I was just acting out or doing drugs that were causing the issues. 

I remember one clear example of a terrifying moment.  I was on the couch and had been watching TV.  It was maybe 11 pm at night, and the national anthem had just played.  The TV had gone to snow.  I was not taking any drugs and had no alcohol on board; I was just lying there. I felt a sense of unease creep over me, like someone was watching me; then I became extremely frightened and felt frozen on the couch. I looked over at the door-- it had windows in it-- and I could clearly see the outline of a black shadow. 

As I was sitting there, the shadow punched through the glass and reached in to turn the door knob. I screamed and screamed. My father came running from the back room and when I looked back to the door there was no damage and the door was closed and locked. 

No one believed me. I was told it was a bad dream and it was not real. This was not the last time that the black shadows stalked me, but it was the last time that I told anyone what was happening. Not long after this, I tried to overdose on some of my mother’s meds. The police were called and there was a major scene; they had to handcuff me and force me into the police car to get me to the hospital. I screamed the entire way there. When we got there, they pumped my stomach and placed me in a strait jacket in a padded room for 24 hours. It was my first experience with the mental health community. I was on a floor with adults suffering from many different types of mental illnesses. I was scared and felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life. 

Everyone in authority wanted me to be sick; they wanted to pigeon hole me with a mental disease so they did not have to really work with me and help me to get better. This is how I began my life-long search for what was happening to me. While I was there, I was given a battery of tests-- IQ/emotional/ability to reason, etc. 

I was considered highly intelligent; it was when I talked about hearing the voices and seeing things that I ran into trouble. No one could believe that what I was telling them was the truth. 

My relationship with my parents was non-existent and continued to downgrade from there. We were never able to reconcile even though I have tried for the last 20 years to have a relationship.  They are just not willing. I love them anyway and will always love them.

I tried to commit suicide three more times before I had my first visitation from an angel. I was informed that under no circumstances would I be allowed to leave this earth before my time and I needed to go within for the support and love that I needed to move forward.  I was 25. It took another 15 years before I found the answers I was looking for. For the first time in 30 years I was free from all drugs and mind-numbing counselors who had no idea what to do with me other than numb me out. They had diagnosed me with bi-polar disorder and proceeded to aggressively treat me; When on medication, I was numb and had no visitations and heard no voices, but I also lived a life that was dull and grey and fearful. 

I had finally met my husband Rob and we were married for nine years when I sat him down and discussed the life I was living. I asked him for his support to decrease my meds and eventually come off them. He agreed. He had seen the effects the drugs were having on me. It was a living nightmare. 

I started to research (thank goodness for the internet) the things that happened to me when I was not medicated. I reached out to groups of people who talked about the same things.  I began to take classes and learned how to meditate and really learned how to hone the GIFTS I had been given, rather than live a fraction of the life I was given. I began to live fully. The empowerment I felt and the information I was taught gave me the ability to no longer be threatened by the dark shadows.  Once they were gone, the spirits started stepping forward and the voices in my head began to make sense. 

I am by no means living at my full potential. I am still working to overcome all the scripts that were placed in my head as a child and into adulthood, but I am on the path and feel it is my purpose in life to help others like me. The forgotten ones, the misfits, the rebellious. 

I hope you were able to receive some comfort from my short story. It is my wish that we are all treated with love and compassion. 

 I do not dismiss that there are so called mental illnesses out there, but I would suggest that in all cases there should be other avenues at least discussed.

Who are we to assume that we know the human mind and what it is capable of?  I have seen and done some amazing things in my life.  I have also lived through some horrible times, but through it all I keep the voice and the image of that angel always at the front telling me I must live.