Window on my past

To this day I don't know what circumstances prompted my supervisor to send me home that day. He not only sent me home, but also had me driven home in a company car, while another employee brought my car along. I was working alone on a Sunday as, more or less, a standby electrician and it would not have been unusual if my supervisor's and my paths had not even crossed in this large power plant, let alone him coming to the realization that I was not mentally stable. Then when I arrived home to my wife and children (who I had moved out of a secure environment when I made a job change for what reason, only the Lord knows) to an old farm house miles from any familiar faces or other anchors to tie a rope of security to.

I had started on this new job over a year before and had convinced my family of four daughters and wife to move to the country. My original plan was to transfer to a power plant back in the city and remain living in our modest but new house that we had only purchased three years before, but I fell in love with the open spaces that I traveled to work through every day. Then, after only about six months on this new job, we went out on strike. I began traveling out of state to work every week while trying to arrange the purchase of a small farm in a community that I couldn't even remember hearing of before. Then, after the strike ended, with kids previously enrolled in a new school that didn't seem to offer all that they had left behind, we found ourselves living in an old rented farm house that was only waiting for the bulldozer to end it's days forever. I had been back to work a little over a month after the strike, when after working overtime for two hours on the third day of December in nineteen seventy four, which happened to be my one year anniversary at this job, I headed for home and a monumental change in my life!

It was a cold day in December and after dark, since I had punched out at six o'clock. I had the windows up, heater and radio on, and traveled the dark road home that was becoming familiar, but not yet habitual. My next recollection was pain in my ear as a doctor was trying to sew it back together, and my wife telling me that I had been hit by a train. I have only a few fuzzy glimpses of memory for that next week, at which time I was transferred to a hospital back in the city where my family doctor could treat me. One more week in the hospital and I was released to go home, back to the old rented farm house, a place for me to contemplate my situation. My attitude at this time was still fairly positive because, other than a lacerated ear and bruises and because of my seat belt, I had no broken bones or other injuries to hold me down, or so I thought. I did have a concussion that was, according to my doctor in some measurement that he referred to, more severe than he had previously seen. At every visit, which seemed to be frequent, I would quiz my doctor as to when I could go back to work.

Finally, and I'm sure against his better judgement he let me go back to work, knowing that I had a fairly large family to care for and no sick leave or sickness and accident insurance to fall back on, I am sure this pressured the doctor to send me back early. I was elated and full of confidence, until I tried to do my duties. I found that climbing a ladder was not like it had been before my injuries. My job was to evaluate electrical problems and repair, what use to be enjoyable challenges were now humbling defeats. I lost all confidence in my ability to fix anything. Fellow working mates were still too new to me to confide in for the most part, I lost my appetite, and had no thoughts for the future. I tried to convey to my wife my feelings of despair, but didn't have even the ability to communicate my feelings because I didn't understand what was happening to me. I learned later that the cards were stacked against me because without knowing it I had set myself up for a bout with depression. Job change, community change, head injury, time to brood over life at a standstill without productivity, magnified failure at my job, all of this came to a head, and I was near panic inside about what I had done to my family.

I got out of the company car, bid a thank-you and farewell to the two fellow workers who had seen that I got safely home, and went in to a surprised wife and four daughters ranging in age from seven to fourteen. As soon as I fell into the arms of my poor wife I surprised my self by beginning to sob. My wife not knowing what was going on took me to a bed and had me to lay down and try to calm down. She said that she didn't know what to do, and at that same moment without any time to waste my eleven-year-old daughter screamed with pain from another bedroom where she had been playing. She showed us a very large splinter that she had run up under her finger nail from the floor of the old farm house, it was obvious that she needed to go to the emergency room and I could not stay alone in my emotional state so we all went. I am sorry that my little girl had to endure such pain, but I think that this whole day was unfolding as to the working plan of my Lord. When we arrived at the hospital it so happened that the very doctor who had treated me after my accident with the train had already been called in on another emergency on this very day. Being familiar with my head injury he felt confident in treating me. He gave me a shot of some sedative to calm me down and referred me back to my family doctor in the city where we went the next day. This is where I was told that I had a mental disease ( DEPRESSION). My wife was very strong and tolerant to stand by me through all of this and it couldn't have been easy for my daughters either!

My Climb Out

As I look back at my climb out of depression, or the Lord bringing me out of depression, I can see that it was and is a very positive part of my life. I learned things about myself and human nature that could not be learned any other way. It has been a series of experiences that I can only believe were part of Gods plan for my life. The bottom of my pit was over thirty years ago and I have pondered where my life would have gone without this struggle. I can truly say I think that I am better off having traveled through this valley with the Lord, than had I not endured it.