Lost, then Found

Lost, then Found

“Your trouble, Mrs Bates, is that you have a Dependent Personality,” declared the psychiatrist.  “And”, he added, “you probably read too many women’s magazines.”    I stared at him in angry disbelief.  “He just doesn’t get it” I thought.


After my father’s sudden death, followed by the frightening growing awareness of possible psychic connections between the two sides of ‘the veil’, my mental and spiritual turmoil had become unbearable.  I had lost my former sense of identity and felt like a strange restless zombie.  During the day I somehow managed to look after my family and attend to the housekeeping, but once the children were in bed the huge unanswered questions tormented me continuously: Where is Dad now?  What happens after death? Where is God in all this mess?  I have always been told not to ‘dabble’ in Spiritualism – so am I wicked to be having these thoughts?


I knew of nobody who could help me.  My kind minister sympathised but just suggested that I should see a doctor.  Any talk about death seemed to be taboo in polite company!  Bob tried his best to soothe and comfort me, but he too was at a loss for answers. 


One evening when he was out at a meeting, I found it totally impossible to sit still and watch the television.  I roamed restlessly into the kitchen – and spied a sharp knife.  I looked down at my wrists…  Temptation…   Of course, I did not want to abandon my beloved family – but, now at the end of my tether, I was simply desperate for this agony to STOP…


Horrified, I made my trembling way to the telephone and dialled my mother’s number.  As soon as she heard my distraught voice, she told me that she would come immediately, and that meanwhile I was to put on the kettle for a cup of tea, and look out some biscuits!


 How blessed I was to have such a practical down-to-earth mother.  To this day I still thank God for her pragmatic help that evening.  She herself had suffered a nervous breakdown after losing a baby boy two years before I was born – but had come through it, and remembered how important rest was, plus little manual tasks.  We agreed that I urgently needed medical help. 


The next day I managed to get an appointment with my doctor, who prescribed a course of tranquillisers and arranged for me to have some sessions with the afore-mentioned psychiatrist, Dr M.  However, it soon became clear that Dr M did not wish to engage in any talk about paranormal experiences or religious faith.

After telling him about the strange thud at the door after my father’s sudden death, I described two other inexplicable occurrences which Bob and I had experienced, separately, four years before, at the birth of our first baby.  Having had little or no dealing with new-born babies, I expected that ours would be a small, red, squawking creature!  Instead, when Sally was placed on my stomach only a few minutes after her birth, she was pale and composed,and stared straight into my eyes, as if to say, “Well, hello, here I am!”  Half an hour later, when Bob arrived at the hospital, she did exactly the same to him, as a nurse held her up for him to see for the first time. This had filled us full of wonder!                                               

(Here she is, still keeping an eye on her Daddy!)

“Oh, don’t be silly!” exclaimed Dr M.  “You wouldn’t feel like that if you were a mother of six, having her seventh baby in a one-room Glasgow tenement flat!”


What had that to do with anything?  Such a crassly insensitive response confirmed my suspicion that Dr M. and I were on completely different wave lengths.  By this time, I was feeling a little more like myself, thanks to the tranquillisers which had allowed me to sleep at nights. So, my anger at Dr M. had a positive effect! I now felt independent of him and ready to try to cope on my own, without any psychiatric ‘help’.


Then one morning, as I was hanging out the washing, I suddenly realised with joy that I could now believe the Gospel story of Jesus’ resurrection!  Not because a preacher in a pulpit had told me to, not because I wanted to be a dutiful church member, but because of my own experience.  At long last I had found someone – Jesus Christ – who understood about life after death!


 Full of relief and gladness, I resolved to re-read the Gospels (the ‘Good News’) in this new light.  I noted that in the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16, verses19-31), Jesus had included the possibility of someone returning from the dead.  He had not said that this was evil, but had simply emphasised that such a psychic event was not of any spiritual value.  All that really mattered was to: ’Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbour as yourself.


Jesus also said: ‘Blessed are those who know their need of God. The kingdom of Heaven is theirs.’  (Matthew 5, verse 3)

So, my desperate need of God – my ‘Dependent Personality’ – far from being a negative trait, was a positive asset!  And, I thought, if I occasionally happened to be aware of something that others might call ‘paranormal’, well, so be it!  The most important things were to trust in God and to pray – remembering especially ‘Thy will be done’ and ‘Deliver us from evil’.

Gradually, gradually, I emerged from ‘the valley of the shadow of death’.  It was then that I began to notice startling coincidences, which brought me comfort, joy – and laughter!

Deo gratias