Broken People: Broken but not Discarded

By Darlene Packard

HAVE YOU EVER QUESTIONED YOUR OWN VALUE?

Whatever you felt, countless others have felt it too. You are not alone. Darlene has traveled the dark road of depression and reached rock bottom more than once. She experienced panic attacks, hospitalizations, medications, counseling, and had a suicide plan. When all seemed hopeles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Jun 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887380889

Darlene Packard

Darlene has battled mental illness since her earliest memory. She has a heart for the hurting and offers hope for those challenged by life's many difficulties. In her spare time, she feels led to pray for those who touch her life. Darlene resides in central Maine with her husband, Dwight, who is a disabled veteran.

Book preview

Preface

A bruised reed He will not break,

and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out,

till He leads justice to victory.

In His Name the nations will put their hope.

Matthew 12:20, 21

This book is dedicated to my mom and dad, who gave me all that I required: their love and the knowledge of my Savior’s love.

Also, to my psychiatrist and friend, Dr. Harrow, who read each chapter in our therapy sessions, and who is a great encourager in all of my efforts. (Dr. Harrow read many of these chapters, but due to illness, she was not able to read all of them.)

I dedicate this book to my dear friend Naomi. She used her skills to work with my basic handwritten draft and make it into something considerably more polished.

I’ve also frequently quoted God’s Word in this book because it is my chosen source of truth. All quotations are from the New International Version (NIV) of the Holy Bible.

An arid season in my writing that lasted several years kept me from finishing this book at an earlier date. Then, three special people helped and encouraged me to, at last, complete my story.

I sincerely thank Pam Nadeau, who also worked to get my hand-written drafts into print.

Lastly, Andrew and Amanda Bermudez were important catalysts in getting this book published.

I could not have accomplished this feat without all your help.

God bless you!

Introduction

Humpty-Dumpty

Sat on a wall.

Humpty-Dumpty

Had a great fall.

All the king’s horses

And all the king’s men

Couldn’t put

Humpty-Dumpty

Back together again.

Mother Goose nursery rhyme

Can you relate to this child’s poem? I can. I’m a broken person. I can’t seem to get fixed. Maybe you’re juggling all the eggs in your hands just fine—none are broken. I’m glad for you. This world needs every unbroken person it has!

Perhaps there are broken people in your life? If there are, you know how their condition affects you, too. What are the sudden or accumulated difficulties and problems which affect a person’s ability to cope with our normal world? Each person has their own answer to this question. Everyone’s breaking point is different from another’s.

I’m writing this book for all the people in these two groups: the broken people and all those who are affected by the broken people who touch their lives. This could be very many people, I’m thinking!

Our life is our story, and this story is mine. Every person’s story is unique, and each life reaches beyond its understood value. Our lives are often built upon the contribution of other people’s experiences. I have come through varied experiences attempting to learn how to live with chronic mental illness. These words found written on the wall of a prison cell in Europe beautifully sum up the source of hope and strength that I now enjoy:

"I believe in the sun when it is not shining.

I believe in love when I don’t feel it.

I believe in God even when He is silent."

What is written in this book is true, to the best of my ability, to accurately remember and record.

Chapter 1

Breakdown

Of all the things

I have lost,

I miss my mind

the most.

Mark Twain

I saw on television how one of the big rivers in Iowa flooded over the protecting levees there. A large area was devastated: people’s homes, their crops, and their livestock were destroyed. If you’ve ever wondered what a nervous breakdown is like, this is an accurate analogy for me.

In 1977, I was a young student at Nyack College, a small, quaint Christian university near the banks of the Hudson River in New York state. That is when the levees in my mind could no longer hold back the dark flood waters. Previous to this, I was aware of the flow of negative thoughts and emotions that plagued my life—but the surging mass had always stayed within boundaries I could live with. I don’t remember much about the time of my first breakdown. In fact, I had to ask my parents about details I still can’t recall. They came to New York and brought me back to Maine.

I didn’t learn that I had cancer or had my heart broken, and my life shattered by a divorce, or experienced the death of a loved one. These are among the many things that can cause a person to have a nervous breakdown—a result of some bad thing occurring and crushing the life out of you. This wasn’t so for me. No external problem found me for its target.

Then why did this happen? you may ask.

My answer is simple: I don’t know.

A broken person can be defined in several ways. It’s easy to see when a person’s body has been broken. A wheelchair or a missing limb is obvious. Admiration is well deserved for people who have learned to adapt to the change in their body’s capability and lead full lives! However, there are other ways a person can be broken, and it isn’t so immediately apparent: broken trust, broken hope or faith, and even broken dreams can do it. While reading the Bible, I came across a verse which succinctly states the plight of a person with such inner wounds in Proverbs 18:14:

A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness,

but a crushed spirit who can bear?

What I do recall is that my mind and emotions became more and more dominated by pain, and what caused even more confusion for me was that I had no idea of its cause! I’ve read that a delicate part of the inner ear gives a person their sense of balance, to know which end is up! The mental stability that is so vital to mental health I could no longer depend upon. It was gone. Perhaps the experience of being in an earthquake was similar to mine: your whole world shifting, unsteady, nothing staying in its place! I could not master my thoughts and emotions. It felt like a bad dream—only I couldn’t wake up!

I lost interest in everything. My ability to concentrate and absorb from my study and class lectures evaporated into the air. It became increasingly difficult for me to be among other people. A thick fog seemed to envelop my thought processes and actions as if I was in a slow-motion segment of a motion picture. I also felt a queer sensation as if I was disembodied. Only a ghost or spirit remained that was unable to be a part of the rest of the world.

All the light in my life went out. A thick bank of dark clouds covered the sun, and darkness, depression, and pain blocked out all else. I had no energy and wanted to sleep late into the morning. It was then that I started not to go to classes. It became pointless—I couldn’t function as a student—I knew I needed help.

I went to our school’s student counselor, Mrs. Elizabeth Jackson. She was a gentle, warm, quiet woman, and I instinctively trusted and respected her. During the first meeting with her, I was comforted by her person and her counsel. She became my lifeline during the ongoing appointments with this woman who became my friend. I believed her sincerity in her concern and efforts to help me. She was a retired missionary. The Bible was one of the tried and true tools she used in counsel. There was one verse in particular that she often read to me in Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brethren,

whatever things are true,

whatever things are honest,

whatever things are just,

whatever things are pure,

whatever things are lovely,

whatever things are of good report;

if there be any virtue,

and if there be any praise,

think on these things.

This verse remains my favorite life’s guidance, and I have made a decorative sign of it that I have on my bedroom wall.

Mrs. Jackson knew the battlefield was in my mind. This was the legacy she left to me to help fight the recurring darkness and despair. Finally, she and I agreed that this artillery alone was not enough to win the battle.

The university had a professional psychiatrist on its teaching staff, and he was consulted. Immediately he determined that I needed psychiatric treatment with prescribed medication. He advised that I leave Nyack College and go home for this medical care. My parents were contacted, and they came for me and brought me back home with them.

Chapter 2

We Are Connected—You and I

No man is an island

entire of itself;

every man is a piece

of the continent,

a part of the main…

(from John Donne’s Devotions XVII)

John Donne, a famous 16th-century poet, knew this fact of life and expressed it eloquently: our life affects others, and other people have an effect on our life also. We are connected—you and I—whether we are aware of it or not.

Within this planet’s vast ocean of humanity, we are but one small drop. What does one solitary life matter? But, you see, we are not solitary. We are a part of the whole. This is clearly seen from the well-known example of ripples spreading out from a rock thrown into a calm pond.

Regrettably, at the time of my breakdown, I was so caught up in my own terrible experience that it did not enter my mind to think of others. Others were indeed feeling an effect of what was happening in my life, and this was especially so for my family.

During the writing of this chapter, I asked my family members for their viewpoint on my mental illness and also how it affected their own lives. I am the oldest child in my family, and it is thought that birth order has some relationship to family dynamics. It is often expected that the elder children should take a responsibility for the younger ones. I truly adored my younger sister and brother, Bonnie and Terry. However, I was not the big sister I would like to have been for them, or perhaps, that they might have needed me to be. We also had a young cousin, Holly, who came to be a part of our family. She desperately needed people in her life that she could count on for love and support.

Often I have wished that I could turn back time to play a better part in my family role as sister and daughter. But there is usually no do-over in our lives. Maybe there are also people in your world who have wishes that they could have had a do-over for you. Like everyone else, I can only try to forgive myself, ask forgiveness of others (as well as forgive others when needed), and look to do better in the present.

As I was growing up, my brother and sister were familiar with my blue days when I would be withdrawn, quiet, and sad. My sister told me that our mother would encourage them to let me be alone during those times. My only relief seemed to be when I could escape into the world of a good book. The power of losing oneself in a skillfully told story can sometimes be a healthy way to cope with a painful reality. Anyone who can read can easily enter into the vicariously lived experiences of other personalities and environments.

Reading enabled me to travel with my family in a covered wagon during the frontier age in American history as Laura, a bold and lively little girl in the famous Little House on the Prairie novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Then, leaving our known world behind, as well as the human species, I became a small, loveable, and unlikely hero, Bilbo Baggins, in The Hobbit. This was the first book in the famous fantasy series The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Another favorite author of mine is the contemporary adventurer Peter Jenkins. During the early 1970s, being a disillusioned young man in a troubled time for the U.S. of A., I traveled on foot with my beloved Malamute dog, Cooper, along a southern route of the Eastern states. I wanted to discover with Jenkins if good existed in the people and places of my homeland in the book, A Walk Across America.

The problem with this escape into the world of books, however, was that my brother and sisters were still expected to do what needed to be done for work at home. I’m sure that they must have felt this to be unfair, although I don’t remember them ever telling me so.

One interaction with my younger sister, Bonnie, has become a permanent memory. One time while we were together in our shared upstairs bedroom, she initiated sister-to-sister talk. As we sat on our beds, she brought up a matter that had bothered her for some time. With kindness and gentleness, she explained that she did not mind that I enjoyed playing along with her and her friends when she invited them over… but shouldn’t I be trying to make some friends of my own? With a hopeless sense of shame, I broke eye contact with my dear sister and bowed my head, and grieved that I was lacking in something vital to the real world. My best relationships were with the characters in my books!

In 1977, when my education came to an abrupt halt, Bonnie could not understand why I allowed attacks of the blues or homesickness to interfere with the opportunity to benefit from a college degree. She couldn’t know then that the scope and degree of my blues were not like what she had been a witness to during the years gone past. The medical professionals who diagnosed my problem told my parents and me that I had a mental illness called major depression. I was suffering from a near-constant assault of mental pain: unrelenting, uncontrollable, and as severe as the storm-driven ocean waves crashing upon the exposed rocks of the shore. My defeat by this puzzling illness was complete and total. No longer could I function normally. My mind had become my enemy.

My parents were overwhelmed with their own pain and anxiety because of the devastation of their adult child’s mental health. Like many parents, they would have willingly exchanged places with their child rather than to see their offspring suffer!

When I spoke to my parents recently concerning their memories of that difficult time back in 1977, their responses were similar. Their thoughts were plagued both day and night, agonizing over what could have been the cause of their daughter’s mental breakdown. Little mercy was given as guilt impaled their hearts with introspective questions: What did I do that might have caused this? and