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An Introduction to God-View by Suzanne Vadnais Monson Sometimes learning is easy. Sometimes learning is tough. What's becoming increasingly clear to me is that learning IS. No matter what is going down around me, I always have the opportunity to be learning something. What this helps me to do is pay close attention to whatever shows up. Even when I am most tempted to run screaming from my latest life lesson, there is this little voice inside of me that remains clear. This is important, it tells me. Pay attention. We each find our own way of doing this. What my life is teaching me most clearly is that when I can look at life from God-View it all makes sense. The concept of God-View was introduced to me recently. I was talking with Nancy Conger, unraveling a family tragedy I was struggling to understand. Since I met her, Nancy's ability to link up with whatever I am experiencing and shine a bright light into the murky midst of it has amazed me. Speaking to me, her voice alive with compassion, she said that if you look at it from God-View, everything is perfect. This is what needed to happen. The problem for us humans is that getting into God-View is tough. We aren't inclined to see the Big Picture. I knew as soon as she said it that she was right. I was looking at this difficult experience in close focus. I was taking every painful aspect of what had happened personally. I felt like there was blood on my hands and I couldn't wipe it off. When someone you love commits suicide, there is no easy access to God-View. At least for me there isn't. I felt as though I'd failed in the worst way imaginable. It was my job to keep things like this from happening. I didn't save her. I felt like a fraud. It's very difficult to breathe in this place, much less get a glimpse of the Big Picture. A wonderful part On Good Friday, my dear friend Holly Jean Hoepfner Vadnais took a lethal overdose of her medication for treating Manic Depression. She had been a rich and wonderful part of my life for 15 years. I will never forget the summer I met her. My brother Mike arrived for a visit with this gorgeous woman who was full of mischief and passion. Within days, I knew she was a soul mate for this spirited man. We had deep talks, swam in the river, took long hikes, camped out in a violent thunderstorm and had to perform a middle-of-the-night canoe evacuation from an island on the St. Croix River. Holly wasn't the least bit bothered by any of this foreign lifestyle. In fact, as she left for home she told me she was throwing away all of her make-up because she liked my natural look. I saw my brother flinch. He laughed and said, just don't start wearing flour sack dresses! When Holly and Mike married, I became one person Holly could turn to when she was feeling lost or scared, confused. We talked for hours, deep soulful conversations about anything and everything. We talked about the tough things she was afraid to tell anyone. I was the first person she dared to tell about the incest she had suffered. She described her on-going difficulties with her family, how she felt used and thrown away by them. She told me that she and Mike had a magic that no one else shared. I knew this was all true. Holly was as much my soul mate as she was my brother's. Our connection deepened and grew. We enjoyed a real relationship where the truth could be spoken. When Holly became pregnant with her first child, she was delirious. She had wanted children desperately, waiting for the right time to start their family was one of the hardest things she ever did. When Eden Marie Vadnais was born, I was confused to find Holly deeply depressed. It was strange. I remember visiting shortly after Eden was born and thinking that the birth had taken a lot out of Holly. Her eyes were streaked with blood from vessels that had burst during labor. I felt the strain just looking into her once warm brown eyes. "I'm never doing that again," she told me angrily. I thought it was post-partum depression. A genetic switch What we came to discover was that something about the hormonal fluctuations during Holly's pregnancy had triggered a genetic switch that turned on a family pattern for Manic Depression, now called Bi-Polar Disorder. Even as Holly was focused on bringing new life onto the planet, she was beginning to lose her ground. It was still more years before we knew what had happened, after their second daughter Raven had come to join us. By the time we started putting it together, it was getting very scary. Holly was seeing different therapists and getting various medications. Nothing seemed to ease the mounting anxiety she was feeling with increasing frequency. One afternoon I answered the phone to hear a frantic Holly on the other end. "Suzie, you have to get tested for Bi-Polar Disorder! It's incredible, but I've discovered that both Eden and Raven have it and so does Mike. Suzie, it's genetic. You know your mom has it!" She said all of this in one long breathless sentence. I was stunned. Holly told me how the whole family was now on medication and how much better they were feeling, how the girls were behaving better than ever before. She felt there were finally some answers for what had been making her sad and anxious. I made some calls and located a reputable psychiatrist. I spent the better part of a day being questioned and tested, an experience I'd been through once before. I was 13 years old the first time I took the MMPI. I remembered the inkblots and the story lines for the TAT from my stay in the Fairview Hospital Adolescent Therapy Ward. Then I was sure I would be labeled some kind of crazy and be shipped off to an institution for the rest of my life. When this didn't happen, I asked my doctor to tell me what they had found out. "You're very creative, fiercely independent, and you will never be able to live with your mother," was my doctor's reply. I felt like I'd been kicked in the heart. How could this be true? Awaiting my fate Twenty-five years later, I sat in a fancy office on Summit Avenue awaiting my fate. Dr. Levine looked me in the eye and asked, "Why are you so convinced you're crazy?" I hesitated. Surely this was obvious. Hadn't he been listening to me? Hadn't he heard the bombshells of my darkest fears exploding all over his office like World War II? Well, I answered tentatively, I was pretty sure it was just a matter of time given my background. He took my hand and offered a warm smile, saying carefully, "I would like to write a book about you. How you have found ways to heal yourself from what can only be described as attempted murder is astounding. You aren't crazy, my dear. Far from it. You are a brilliant example of the resilient human spirit." When I told Holly about what had happened, she was very quiet. Finally, she shared her concern. "Suzie, I think you should get a second opinion," she said cautiously. "I don't think it's possible you escaped when your mother is so obviously messed up." I felt distance enter our conversation immediately when I told her I thought this doctor knew what he was doing. I remembered my brother had been to three doctors before Holly was convinced he had been correctly diagnosed. Mike had told me there was no alarming psychosis discovered in his interviews. He had started taking anti-depressants to calm Holly down. She didn't want to be alone. Anxiety and fear The last two years of Holly's life were fraught with an increasing sense of anxiety and fear. Even though the doctors could find nothing "wrong" with Eden and Raven, she insisted on medicating them. When they were visiting, I couldn't ignore how tormented the children were about having to take these brain-altering drugs. I began to push for a moratorium on the medication for the kids. Months passed before I was able to convince my brother this was worth fighting for. "Mike," I said urgently into the phone, "they are babies! We have no idea what these psychoactive chemicals are doing to their brains! This isn't like a Band-Aid. These are powerful drugs!" I was reluctant to dive into this very private matter, and I couldn't ignore the urgency I felt. I knew the entire family was at risk. I remembered too well how I felt when my mother tried to force doctors into medicating me so that I would be easier for her to manage. I revisited having a mother who was chemically imbalanced in charge of my life. I told Holly and Michael that there was no way for me to ignore these urgings. I felt that if I didn't speak up, these girls were going to be destroyed. I'd been close enough to recognize this terrain. When my brother called to tell me he was taking the girls off medication, I wanted to kiss the sky. Holly had come to the realization that it was safe to give this a try and that she wanted to try being less medicated, too. She thought she could monitor how bad her cycling through anxiety was and take medication as needed. Lie to yourself The problem is, Manic Depression fools people into thinking they are managing their anxiety. It is easier to lie to yourself than to believe you are not in control of your thought process. Since Holly's death I have talked with several people who suffer from this tragic form of mental illness. They all tell me the same thing: The day they accepted they had this disease, they wanted to die. When Holly died, she was convinced the disorder she had was untreatable. In perfect cursive on a sheet of 11 x 17 standard white bond, she left a chronicle of her failures: "I can't manage my daughters and they are healthier without me. I can't keep a job. I am in excruciating pain. Anxiety fills me. There is no cure for my disease. I release you all from my sick existence." On a tablet beside the bed was a list of treatment programs she had called with notes scribbled in the margins. Too expensive, won't accept our insurance, no openings, long waiting list. Her despair is palpable. The North Dakota Mental Health Association tells us Holly slipped through the cracks. They have created a program called Holly's House to catch others in the future. I can't help feeling it's too late. We lost a great one here. Several months after her death, I still wake up in the middle of the night crying out, I want her back! I am haunted by how easy it was to feel right when she was alive. I could have been gentler; I could have been more patient. Only when I am in the presence of Eden and Raven do I have a sense that I may have done something right in advocating for them. Though they are going to carry this death of their mother with them for the rest of their lives, they are clearer, brighter beings today. Having been off medication for months now, it is painfully clear these children were in psychological distress, because their mother was in psychological distress. It isn't easy to admit, but it is so powerfully obvious that it can't be ignored. Life wasn't ever going to be easy for these two children. They came in the door with loaded agendas waiting to greet them. Could not endure I was recently told by an intuitive reader that Holly's soul could not endure any more of the pain it had witnessed in this lifetime. With great emphasis on the word "soul," she told me that Holly made an agreement in this lifetime to take on the some tough issues. She has gone back to the creator to heal. She is helping from the other side now. "Holly is grateful for your honesty, Suzanne. She can see the situation from her soul now." I hope so. I don't know a lot about souls. Like God-View, feeling the song of my soul is a challenge. I get glimpses of it though. I know there have been moments of utter clarity when I knew I was being directed by a commitment I'd made at a very deep level. I know I've experienced connections to people and places that were all about being soul mates. And I know this: I wish the lessons I agreed to learn in this lifetime were easier to understand. I wish I had access to a computer that could give me instant God-View. Suzanne Vadnais Monson is the owner of Come Out and Play, a business dedicated to developing the creative conditions for living our best lives. Her deck of 64 simple ceremony and playful practice cards is available for $24 at a number of Twin Cities retailers or directly from the author. Call (715) 294-4522 or e-mail her at comeoutandplay@cornernet.com for information on her products, Holly's House or her transformational workshop series, Intuitive Adventures. Copyright © 2001 Suzanne Vadnais |
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