The Daughter of an American Suicide.
My father was found dead at 43 years old on October 25, 1993 in our family home at 4021 96th Ave. Florissant, MO. I was 11, my sister 17. He was a brilliant preacher, and believer in Jesus.
On that cold rainy Monday in October, I waited at Barrington Elementary School for about an hour before someone picked me up. I was in tights and a skirt and in my hands I tightly held an art project that I wanted my Dad to see. Finally after about an hour waiting, a woman named Shirley, my Dad’s secretary picked me up. This was odd, and I was immediately aware that something was up. I don’t remember much of that day, but I remember sitting in the passenger seat of that car, looking at the wood fence that lined Barrington Downs subdivision, and thinking — “nothing is ever going to be the same.”. I didn’t know yet what had happened, but many confirming facts were about to come to me that showed me how drastically my life was going to change.
Back at my home Dad had been lying dead on our couch for about 3 hours, dead of an opioid overdose. My sweet soulful sister found him after she came home from school. She came home, found him dead on the couch, and called the police. She then called my Mom at her teaching job at Ferguson Florissant Walnut Grove Elementary. My Mom raced home, and now decades later I can only imagine her internal dialogue as she drove to her young daughter, at home with her dead husband.
When I pulled up to the cul-de-sac that our house sat upon, I saw way too many cars. This simple truth was my first confirming fact that life was now fundamentally different. I saw many cars from the church.
One important fact to mention — my Dad was a brilliant young minister in the midwest. He was moving up in the ranks of the UCC. He was a bit of a local celebrity when we were younger and he was healthy in mind and body. He had the honor of overseeing believers in North St. Louis County, MO, the Prophetstown, IL area, the Litchfield, MN area. He was so humbled to be a faith leader to these areas of the world. My father was a lot of things. but above all he was a Believer.
Back to me pulling up to his dead body at my childhood home. I walked in and remember at the time, even in my anxiety, I wanted to show people my artwork. I wanted them to see the amazing lady I drew and her makeup and cool vibes. No one really looked at the artwork. I came in and peoples eyes were red, and the adults were clumped in small groups with low chatter. This was my second confirming fact that nothing would be the same. Then, once I got into the kitchen, everyone looked at me at the same time. Sorrow and confusion was in the air and the sad confused eyes that stared at me. I dropped the artwork I had been carefully shepherding.
They took me up to my room. Sat me down on my bed. And said “Honey Daddy died, he got confused and took some pills and then took too many and now he’s gone.”.
Sound in ears: BLARING HORN.
Feeling in chest: HEAVY BRICKS AND CONFUSION
Thought in head: “FEED THE FISH YOU AREN’T DEAD YET!!”
At that moment in 1993 I disassociated with my father as I put the fish food in the bowl of my red beta fish. I scattered the fish food flakes over the water and he snapped his little head up with great enthusiasm. I remembered thoughts racing in my head as I watched the fish eat. All I could land at was that even in my sad confusion, I was aware that life was precious, amazing, and something I wanted to be ABOUT.
I was 11 years old and on the brink of everything. I was loving my newfound sport of swimming. I was smart and doing well in school. So, like the bad ass I now know I am, I decided then and there to not let that moment define me. I knew this situation was bad. I knew it was scary. I could tell people weren’t happy with what was happening. That was probably the first “vibe” I ever really understood, and I immediately knew that vibe was not for me.
While I did my best to ignore the fact that my Dad had died of a prescription drug overdose, I had to navigate my community who was less resilient. Many people from the church still held us close and loved us no matter. Many did not. Many reacted in their fear. That fear turned to judgement, to mean assumptions, to cutting us off completely. It was painful.
My Mom dealt with it as graciously as any human could. I will never stop being in awe for how she carried on with grace. Sometimes I think that is the best you can do in life, carry on in grace and take care of your kids if you have them. She did however start to ask me to hide the truth of my Dad’s death after the first few months. She said on many occasions “Just tell people your father died of a heart attack. Then make sure you show them that beautiful smile before you end the conversation — make them see we are okay.” She knew the ugly truth and that was that in the 1990’s people didn’t know about, speak about, or accept mental illness as a legitimate field of medicine, no less understand its affects on every day people.
My father was a brilliant and creative man. He played the guitar, played hockey, and could PREACH. Two old friends recently reached out on Facebook and messaged me “Every person in every pew hung on his every word.” and “When I touched your Dad’s hand I felt that I was touching the hand of God.”. What a gift.
My father was also a mild schizophrenic who was actively being treated by mental health professionals for over a decade. As we age — mental disorders like schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, etc progress. They can sometimes progress for the better, but untreated, or mistreated, these mental imbalances can grow larger, and more problematic. He and his mother (my grandmother) were often struggling with mental illness. We lost her to suicide as well in the 1960’s. The mental health system in America was awful at the time. Ask anyone who went to Vietnam what sort of mental health care our government provided them and you will quickly learn that our way to SSRI’s and Benzo’s was paved by brutal methods that were painful, and often more debilitating or addictive than substances like alcohol or marijuana. My family bore a large badge of “test subjects for mental health”, with my grandmother doing stints in scary mental hospitals and subjected to electroshock therapy. My Dad was rightly scared of being treated for mental health.
In his teens he turned to alcohol and drugs. It worked for a while. Until he found God one night while he was in a bad place. I love this story because I truly believe God does meet us in our lowest moments. The moments when we wonder why we were born. The moments we feel ashamed and unloveable. I think this is when God sneaks in and says “Hey, you wonderful human — you were made in my image to make this world better. I know you are lost right now, but follow this light, follow this little belief that there is more than that which we see, our souls are meant for love and glory.”
My Dad met God — he had a vision. He always spoke of how God connects to us through visions and prayer and silence. He loved his connection with God and stopped drinking early in his life. He knew it kept him from hearing God’s word. He stopped recreational drugs as well. He became a minister and met my mother. For about 10 years they were happy, fulfilled, and highly productive as spiritual leaders. I recently packed up my deceased Mom’s home and in her relics were old ledgers of my Dad. He baptized, married, and eulogized hundreds of people. He was a leader of society, and he did a fabulous job for a bit.
In the early 1990’s however his depression and mental health became an issue. They put him on new meds that dulled him. He kept saying to me “I can’t hear God anymore”. That made him more depressed. He was also growing in concern and fear of the society we lived in. People were rejecting church and faith and Christianity — beginning to obsess over status and money. He often told me he was worried people were straying from God. This pushed his depression even further.
Labor Day weekend 1993 my Dad pulled his back out at Wedgwood pool. The doctor gave him the pain killer and opioid Darvocet — lots of it. My Dad changed immediately. In modern times a person being treated for his mental disorders would never be prescribed/overprescribed this amount of opioid, but who knows — maybe he would have gotten it anywhere. My Mom tried to keep him steady and working those weeks in September and October, but she could only do so much. They didn’t know the drugs were so addictive. They didn’t know about the impending opioid epidemic in the United States that would take and destroy so many lives.
He died on a Monday. I finally found his death certificate in my Mom’s things and it finally said in black and white “acute overdose of Darvocet”. This helped me a huge amount. I thought for the better part of two decades that he killed himself because of me. Being the egoic child I was I assumed I was unlovable, ugly, bad, unimportant and so utterly awful he had to kill himself. I then surrounded myself for years with alcoholics and people that didn’t know his spiritual power. In this time I turned away from God. I told him to fuck off right with my Dad and his suicide death. I grieved and reacted and lived in a way that showed my sad, hurt, inner little girl.
As I’ve aged I now have the understanding that my Dad’s death was not because of me, or something I had done. But rather he was simply at the intersection of three American crisis’: the Mental Health Epidemic, The Opioid Epidemic, and Toxic Secularism. He was left flailing at the edge of mental illness, addiction, and dying American faith. For decades I thought this story was an anomaly of our family, but I realize its just an American tale shaped by the forces that are shaping all of us in some way. Our lack of knowledge and rejection of faith gave way to the greed and capitalistic 1980’s 1990’s and early 2000’s. However I feel that shifting now and maybe that is why I have been able to write his story down.
My biggest lessons and, I believe, what my Dad would want us all to know is that mental illness is real, and treatable. Mental illness is NOT a personality flaw. Mental illness is not for others to judge.
Addiction is real — and some of the brightest stars fall victim to it. It is treatable. It is NOT a personality flaw. Addiction is not for others to judge. Someone once told me “Addicts are usually trying to get that feeling — and that is the feeling of when you meet God. Most addicts are searching for God at the bottom of something.”
And that brings us to the last lesson, which is — God is Real. But more than that — believing in a higher power and the better nature of humanity is how I think we can survive this trying time. Believe Believe Believe. American society shunned believers and the very act of “believing” in God over the last three decades with irony, cynicism, science, and laziness. I think deep down we are all very disconnected and lost right now in this Covid Era world. I encourage anyone reading to move forward in FAITH and LOVE. And maybe the radical act of believing in something may save us all in the end.
And to my Dad. James C. Swenson. I loved you. I also wore anger and hated and was hurt by your actions for many years. But I now understand and know you did your absolute best. Thank you for showing me how to write, love writing, and how to love God. Catch you when I’m finished in this energy plane and maybe we can build what we didn’t have the chance to here on Earth.
With Love,
ESG
