A Conversation with a Concerned Mother

Love Them, Never Judge Them

A little about my father, the illness that took him, and the one thing I most want you to know: everyone is carrying something, and love comes before every judgment.

I had a wonderful evening with old friends. The mothers gathered in the living room, the kids ran off to play, and the men — funny enough — all drifted out to the garage to talk about their guns and plan a trip to the range. Typical. When my husband told me about it later, I felt myself tense up. Guns and I have a complicated history.

A couple of years ago, during the deer hunt, my husband left before dawn each morning and came home late each night, every time without a buck. Then one morning, a few hours after he’d gone, I opened our trailer door to find a HUGE buck standing right there, 20 feet away from me, in the middle of our little country town. I hushed the kids out to see, and that gorgeous animal waited just long enough for them to marvel at it. “Too bad Dad isn’t here,” my oldest laughed. We thought it was so funny — my husband out scouring the countryside, when what he was looking for was standing right on our own property.

“Too bad Dad isn’t here.” I say that a lot, actually — about a different Dad. And it’s tangled up with why I flinch when I see a gun.

A family carrying a heavy thing

That evening, one of the families there is quietly walking through something very hard. The father is struggling with the same illness my own father had — bipolar disorder. As I looked around their home at the photos on the walls, I saw children about the same age my siblings and I were when our parents divorced, and my heart just ached for them. There’s a gun in that garage, and I’ll be honest: chills run down my back. I pray with everything in me that it will only ever be used for target practice. I love that family. I ache for them. And I know, better than most, that what they’re carrying deserves tenderness, not judgment.

The Dad I knew

No one on earth could make me laugh like my father. He LIVED to embarrass me. Once, in a big city, I told him I felt self-conscious walking into a nice clothing store in my sleeveless track uniform. Big mistake. Dad immediately decided to make it a thousand times worse — he threw on a booming, ridiculous character voice and began announcing to the entire store that everyone simply MUST come admire my shirt. Mortified, I bolted inside and hid behind a clothes rack. And through the automatic doors he came, still in that outrageous voice, hollering, “Has anyone seen my daughter?”

I couldn’t help it — I started to laugh. My dad is CRAZY. And then came his laugh, the one I’d know anywhere: it always started as a little suppressed burst, like a geyser building pressure, until it finally erupted with the force of Old Faithful and his whole body shook. I’m sure the men unloading boxes in the very back of the store heard him. He laughed and laughed and laughed.

When it finally settled, I peeked over the clothes rack like a meerkat checking whether it was safe, then crept out, and he swept me into a big hug while I fought to keep a straight face. I was always the one rolling my eyes at his jokes, acting annoyed — half the time I felt like I was the grown-up and he was the kid. Looking back, I wish I’d just relaxed and been grateful for every one of those “crazy” moments. Now they’re the ones I treasure most.

That same day he told me to pick out “whatever I wanted.” I knew he meant it — he’d have bought me the whole store — so I chose just a couple of small things, and I remember watching his gray, nearly-bald, sun-tanned head bow over his wallet as he counted out the cash. My heart just swelled with love for that goofy gray-haired man. He was such a good dad. He would’ve gone without shoes on his own feet to give his kids something they needed.

Every card my father ever gave me said the same three words, and nothing more: “I love you — Dad.” He loved us with a depth and dedication I have rarely seen in anyone.

The illness he feared

The father I grew up with was not the man my mother had once divorced. I have only one memory of my parents together, and it isn’t a happy one: I was five, furious about something my father had done, and I’d wrapped my little arms around a beam in my room and was actually biting it, as if it were him. A quiet voice inside asked me if I really wanted my father to die. All the tension drained out of my small body, and I put my head down, ashamed. No, I answered in my heart. No, I don’t.

Years later, that memory helped me understand why my mother made the wrenching choice she did. She did it out of love and fear — fear for us, and for herself. I know her heart, and I know how much she loves my father to this day, well enough to know it was the hardest thing she ever did. She did it to keep us safe.

My dad spent years trying to understand his illness. He told me once that his depression was the great fear of his life — because he never knew when it would descend or how long it would stay. I always knew a hard stretch had come when he went quiet and I stopped hearing from him. One time he called just to say, “It’s really bad this time.” I skipped my college classes for the day, drove to his little rental house, cut some roses, tucked them into an old glass pop bottle with some leaves, and left them with a note that said only, “I love you — Steffi.” Just the way his cards always said it to me.

My father eventually took his own life, during a time when he went off his medication and had been given a different one. It’s been nearly nine years now. It’s all memories now — and oh, how I treasure them.

What I’ve had to make peace with

For years, as I learned more and more about food and health, a part of me desperately wanted to believe that if I just fed my family purely enough, I could build a wall around them that no illness could cross — even the one that took my dad. I’ve had to make peace with something harder and truer.

Bipolar disorder is a real, serious illness of the brain — one that is largely written into a person’s genes. Can it be helped by eliminating processed food, and can it be prevented or cured by eating well? Good nutrition can genuinely support a person’s mental health and overall wellbeing, and it belongs in the picture — but alongside real medical care, never in place of it. My own father is the clearest proof I have: he didn’t lose his life because of what he ate. He lost it after being shook back and forth and going off the medicine that was helping him hold on.

Please hear my heart on this. If you or someone you love carries an illness like my father’s, this blog has never been meant to talk anyone out of their doctor’s care. Eat well because it’s an act of love and it supports the whole body and mind — but for serious mental illness, please, please stay close to real medical help. It can save a life. I wish, with all my heart, that it had saved my dad’s.

And here is the humbler truth I keep coming back to: even if we feed our children the very purest food and water, it is no guarantee against illness — just as teaching them the gospel is no guarantee they’ll never struggle or wander. We can read scriptures together, pray together, serve together, and still, a child may one day make choices that break our hearts. Evil and hardship are real in this world, and they have many causes; we can’t lay all of it at the feet of food or water or chemicals. Cain harmed Abel long before anyone processed a thing.

We simply don’t know what our children will face — what influences will reach them that we never chose. (My own brother’s little country town was changed for years by one troubled visitor who came through when he was only twelve.) All we can do is our faithful best, and then pray for the humility to keep learning and the courage to keep loving.

Take care of yourself, too

Something I learned as a young missionary has stayed with me. Because my companion was headed to Panama, I got to sit in on the humanitarian classes, where we were taught that people need food, water, shelter, and clothing before they’re in a place to receive much of anything else. Bodies first, then hearts. I’ve lived that truth from the inside.

There were long seasons when I was too weak to care well for even myself and my own family, let alone serve in my church callings. One day my Relief Society president gently told me she was releasing me from visiting teaching. At the time it stung — I felt like I’d somehow failed. But I’ve come to believe something freeing: it is okay to care for yourself, your children, and your spouse first, and to reach outward to serve others once you have the strength. The greatest service most of us will ever give is inside our own homes. Be well. Make sure the people under your own roof are well, too. There’s no shame in that — there’s wisdom in it.

And if you’ve been laid low in any way — I spent years so weak that others had to help me walk and drive me where I needed to go — look to the Lord to lift you and to make your burden light. When I fretted about the future or about what people thought of me, I felt only anxiety. When I turned to Him in prayer, peace came. Complete peace.

Just be a friend

Back in college, during one of my sickest stretches, a roommate came into my room with a stack of children’s storybooks. It felt a little silly at first — but I set my pride aside and let this sweet friend read to me like a mother reads to a small child. While my friends went out together and I stayed behind, that simple kindness meant the whole world to me. I felt so loved. I felt so happy.

I’m so grateful for friends. So here is my whole heart, distilled: please be a friend. My motto, more and more, is becoming this — all we can really do is love people, and never judge them. Because service without love is just harassment. But love? Love changes everything.

“…mourn with those that mourn… and comfort those that stand in need of comfort…” - Mosiah 18:9

My thoughts and prayers are with you,

Steffanie

If you’re hurting — or worried about someone you love. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or a mental health crisis, you don’t have to carry it alone. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) any time, day or night, to reach a caring person. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. And if a loved one is living with a serious mental illness, please encourage them toward a doctor’s ongoing care — staying in treatment truly can save a life. Reaching out is not weakness. It is one of the bravest, most loving things a person can do. range to practice shooting etc. I cringed.