I am an only child – an accident. My parents were married, but my mom never hid the fact that she’d never wanted kids. She said she was glad she had me; I was the best thing that ever happened to her, but that she never wanted kids.

I guess when you’re young, you say things you shouldn’t.

My mom got married at 17, had me at 19. She says it wasn’t young at the time, but yeah, it was.

She got married to get out of her mom and step-dad’s house. Married a guy hoping another guy she had “loved” before would come rescue her.

He didn’t.

She didn’t plan on staying married. But then I came along; she tried to make it work.

It didn’t.

I was blessed. Two weeks later, she met, and we moved in with, the man who would become my step-dad – the only dad I’ve really known.

Life was good. I was loved. There were fights, but they stuck it out.

When I hit 5th grade, my mom started talking up boarding school. Started looking at different schools for me. Figuring out how to afford it. I didn’t understand, but I was young and it sounded like an adventure.

Talk of it fizzled out. Life continued.

One of my chores around the house was the dusting, which included moving all books and magazines to clean under them. One day, I found a spiral bound notebook with a green cover.

I flipped it open. It was my mom’s handwriting, full of information about boarding schools:
“I want to find a Christian boarding school for Charity so when I kill myself she will be with people who can take care of her.”

My world changed that day. And I couldn’t tell a soul.

I’d been snooping. I’d read my mom’s journal. But now I knew there were dark things in my mom’s life.

Honestly, I’d known that as long as I could remember. I don’t even know how young I was when she told me about trying to kill herself as a teenager.

But that was then…this was now. I had to take care of my mom, but keep our family secret. What would people in our Church think, at my small Christian school, how could I tell anyone without confessing that I had read my mom’s journal?

The years went on. I thought about it sometimes, but shoved it down. I graduated from school, went off to a small Christian college. Found out other families were messed up too. Maybe mine was pretty good.

I got a summer job at the same place my mom worked between during summer break. I hated it, but it was a job.
My mom wasn’t in good shape. She was sleeping and crying – a lot. She wasn’t eating much. I got her up for work in the morning, ate lunch with her to make sure she ate. She went to bed as soon as we got home.

I took care of the house, then would head off to bed until I heard my dad come in late at night. I would get back up and talk to him. I figured somebody in the family should be talking to each other, they obviously weren’t, so I decided I better.

A bright spot of that summer was dreaming about going to graduate school.

The end of the summer came; I went back to college. I went early to get settled in and start working. My dad drove down to help build my loft and get my stuff set up.

He had said he wasn’t coming; he didn’t see a point in going to college, I was old enough to do it myself (um, old enough, but definitely not big enough to build that loft).

The only thing I remember my folks talking about that summer was fighting about whether or not he would help me move back to college.

To be honest, I felt guilty, but free to be going back to school.

Then, I couldn’t get reach my mom. No matter what time I called, she never answered.

I tried other family members – no one answered, until my cousin did on Monday night. When she said, “Hi Charity,” I heard my uncle yell in the background, “whatever she needs, tell her we will help.”

That seemed weird, I didn’t need anything, I just wanted to ask my mom a question about my car insurance.

“Your mom is in the hospital. She’s in a coma. They pumped her stomach. I found her in the chair. She had taken 150 pills after I told her I was leaving her Sunday night.”

I said I’d drive home.

“No, just stay at college, there is nothing you can do.”

By the time I got off the phone there was nothing I could do. I just sat there.

Thankfully, my roommate talked me through getting dressed, each step. I missed my first class. All I could see was my mom sitting in that chair, taking those pills.

I couldn’t tell a soul. What would everyone think?

I went to class, I went to work. My roommate kept my secret.

Three days later I told a friend. In class. In a written note.

The demon of depression was alive and well in my family and now people knew my life wasn’t perfect.

She came out of the coma. She was in the hospital a few days. My dad tried to stick it out for a few months. I told him I would come home at the end of the semester to take care of her.

He didn’t make it through the end of the semester. She moved out.

When I asked him why he gave up, when I begged him to stay until I finished that semester, he said, “but you’d been talking about graduate school. I was afraid you wouldn’t come home and I couldn’t bear the thought of staying in the marriage that long.”

I worried about my mom. I cried, I didn’t sleep because every time I closed my eyes I saw her taking those pills.
Slowly, she got her feet under her. They divorced. She started dating and met her now husband. It seemed like third time was the charm.

I got married and had three kids. Developed severe postpartum depression and anxiety.

I was terrified of becoming like my mom, but at least she had beat the depression.

Fast forward 15 years.

I am battling my own depression, but unlike my parents, I am getting help. I am fighting. If my mom could beat it without help, I should be able to with help, right?

Just after Christmas, my phone rang. It was my mom. Her husband wanted her to tell me she’d been really depressed again. Crying all the time. Doctors wanted to put her in an intensive outpatient program, but insurance wouldn’t cover it.

My world crashed. Thoughts of reading those words in her journal came back.

Images of her taking those pills invaded my mind. She hadn’t tried to commit suicide – yet – but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When will the phone ring again?

How do I protect my girls when that day comes?

I’ve lived in fear of my mom deciding I wasn’t worth living for as long as I can remember. I have lived knowing that I have to protect her.

I don’t want my girls to worry about me like that. I don’t want them to feel like they have to take care of me. I fight every day to change myself for them.

Tell me, Band, how do I rewrite my girls’ future when my past is coming back to haunt me?