What if you find yourself suddenly single…..

    We were expecting our fourth baby when I lost my husband, Ray, to a brief battle with melanoma, a deadly black cancer that invaded his body with a brain tumor and metastasized. I watched in terror as this once six-foot, 175 pound athletic figure lost all of his hair after cobalt therapy and dwindled to a mere 120 pounds.  Still, during his illness we could often feel the warm embrace of the Savior’s love. Each day we listened to the recording of the New Testament and had a strong testimony of life after death. Not only that, we believed that families could be together for ever.

   Ray often said to me while he was ill, “For your sake I hope this works out, but I feel that Christ has come to call me home.”  Then one day I walked into our bedroom and saw he was talking to someone that I could not see. I asked who he was talking to and he turned to the messenger and said, “Can I tell my wife?’ then he turned back to me and said “ I can only tell you part of it. I have a mission on the other side before the second coming of the Savior.”  He died several months later.

IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

For several months after his death I was emotionally stable.  Maybe in shock, but definitely sustained by a higher power.  It was after the birth of our baby that the dark shroud of depression gripped me in a death lock.

It was on a Holliday weekend in July I went into labor. My relatives and friends were out of town….my mother, my mother-in-law, my sister, my best friends…all out of town.  I felt so alone.  I didn’t want to go to the hospital, but when my pains were five minutes apart I knew I had to go. It was evening when my neighbor nervously drove me to the hospital. In the labor room the doctor broke my water to speed up delivery.  After all, it was a holiday weekend for him too.  I went into shock and I began shaking all over.  My blood felt like ice water and nurses started piling warm blankets on top of me. My doctor gave me a shot of Demerol and within a few minutes I was berserk.  I ranted and raved most of the night, not remembering that I had delivered a baby girl.  I tried to get out of bed and leave the hospital and kept repeating Ray’s vital signs just before he died. I had cared for him at home and we were alone when he died. Who knew I was allergic to Demerol?

As I was coming out of this quagmire of darkness, I recall being at the end of a long, long tunnel and at the end was a warm spiritual person who emanated light and love. I thought it was the Savior.

By noon I had sobered up and was fairly lucid when my parents came to see me.  The hospital had told them I had likely suffered a mental break-down and I might never recover. I was exhausted and deeply depressed.  Nurses had ignored my request to see the baby so I walked to the nursery with my parents.  There was a note on the crib that said, “Do not take to mother.”

She was a beautiful baby with dark hair and dark eyes, but I was sad because she had no father.  

By evening, the doctor realized I was allergic to Demerol and in a few days I was released to go home, but at home the depression did not subside, it got worse.  I wanted to die. Friends encouraged me to count my blessings but that only made me feel worse.  I knew I had blessings and felt guilty I wasn’t finding joy in those blessings.

I now know that I had postpartum depression and also that depression can be caused by anger you turn in on yourself, feeling trapped and guilt.  I had all of those feelings.  I went to counseling and it took me about ten months to overcome the depression.  I learned that I could function on my own with the help of a higher power.  I read the scriptures every day and as I did I felt the spirit.

As I started to recover, I thought of all of the other widowed or single women in the world and wondered what I could do to help them.  How could I use my pain and loneliness to help them? I started a support group for widowed and divorced women…a go on from where you are and grow group.  Over the years more than 400 women have been involved in the group and gained strength from each other.

Since that time I returned to school and finished my B.A., obtained a master’s degree in counseling and later a Ph.D. in Holistic Nutrition. Over the years I have counseled thousands of people who were depressed and watched healing come into their lives.

Now, I am realizing there is a need to help others overcome depression, so the next blog I will write will be on activities and supplements to help get rid of depression. 

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Patty is the author of the book, “Defeating Depression & Beating the Blues, “ by Pat Webb