Eldonna Edwards is the author of best-selling memoir LOST IN TRANSPLANTATION, which follows her mission to give away a kidney to a stranger. She now brings us a story of a mother struggling with depression. Her book will release in April of 2018. It is set in a small Midwest town in the late 1960s.
Eleven-year-old Grace Carter has a talent for hiding things. She’s had plenty of practice, burying thoughts and feelings that might anger her strict Evangelical pastor father, and concealing the deep intuition she carries inside. The Knowing, as Grace calls it, offers glimpses of people’s pasts and futures. It enables her to see into the depth of her mother’s sadness, and even allows Grace to talk to Isaac, her twin brother who died at birth. To her wise, loving Aunt Pearl, the Knowing is a family gift; to her daddy, it’s close to witchcraft.
Grace can’t see into someone’s thoughts without their permission. But it doesn’t take her special talent to know that her small community is harboring its share of secrets. A young girl has gone missing. Within Grace’s own family too, the cracks are widening, as her sisters Hope, Joy, and Chastity enjoy the normal life that eludes Grace. It’s Grace’s kinship with other outsiders that keeps her afloat–Lyle, a gentle, homeless man, and Lola, a free-spirited new girl at school. But when her mother lapses into deep depression after bringing home a new baby, Grace will face a life-changing choice–ignore her gift and become the obedient daughter her father demands, or find the courage to make herself heard, even if it means standing apart .
Read this lovely blog post about coping with depression and coming up with the story from the author herself.
When Things Fall Apart
by Eldonna Edwards
Reblogged with permission from: eldonnaedwards.blogspot.com/2017/11/when-things-fall-apart.html
We’ve all done it; pasted on a happy face to cover our fear, our sadness, our fragility. Nobody wants to be a Debbie Downer and drag others down with them, right? So we stuff our vulnerable selves deep into our core and pull out a mask bearing an appropriately put-together shell. One that appears happy and confident. But on the inside, things are still falling apart.“I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps inside me.” –Sylvia Plath
Growing up in the Midwest I learned from an early age that you need to “buck up” or ” “grin and bear it” when times get tough. We were taught to smile through our pain or discomfort because appearances mattered more than feelings. I was a sensitive child and cried easily so I heard it a lot. Of course, I carried this idea of stuffing your feelings well into my adulthood, until that point when I realized that a river of repressed emotions will eventually breach the damn. This flood of truth might manifest as anger or addiction or even suicide if not treated.
Such is the case for Isabelle Carter, wife of the Rev. Henry Carter, who suffers from a combination of postpartum depression and unfulfilled desires. She wanted to be a famous gospel singer. What she got instead was life as a rural minister’s wife and mother to five daughters, one of whom reminds her of long-forgotten self.
Daddy brought Mama back home two days ago. She doesn’t seem very rested if you ask me. She still naps a lot and when she is up and around she bumps into the walls. Joy won’t let Mama hold the baby unless she’s sitting down. Mama reminds me of a Dilly Bar from the Dairy Queen, like there’s only a thin shell covering what’s melting inside.
In this scene from THIS I KNOW, Mama has just come from a place where she was sent to “rest” but returns home looking anything but recovered. I wanted to underscore the disconnect that people (mostly women) from that era suffered. Faces disguised with pleasant, Stepford-like eeriness. These women were often over-prescribed “nerve pills” to calm them or “diet pills” to give them energy. Many self-medicated with alcohol and other forms of escapism. Or as in Mrs. Carter’s case, told to pray away the malaise when what she most needed was simply to be allowed to feel what she was feeling. In retrospect, it’s no wonder we’re currently struggling with an opioid addiction epidemic crisis. People want to feel good and will do anything to make the pain go away.
I enjoy what most friends and acquaintances would describe as a happy disposition. But where there is light, there is shadow. For several years I endured depression that might have been postpartum or might have been circumstantial due to life events. Or maybe it was just good old-fashioned clinical depression. What I remember most was feeling terribly ashamed, that old tape of “get over yourself” looping endlessly in my head. Eventually I sought help, got counseling, and was able to talk openly about my feelings as I surfed the waves of melancholy and despair.
During that time I learned that what depressed people most need is acceptance and support. Things young Grace strives to give her mama as the reverend’s wife struggles to find her way back to happiness and contentment. In THIS I KNOW, Grace’s way of helping happens to involve using her uncanny abilities to break through the membrane of consciousness to reach her sullen mother. Because sometimes a little magic is the best medicine.
Elena Mikalsen, Ph.D. Author/Psychologist 