The Tower
By Hal Haralson
[Hal Haralson practices law in Austin, Texas.]
The Tower at the University of Texas was made infamous by Charles Whitman`s sniping.
This Tower is orange when UT wins and the lights say: "Number One" when the Longhorns are on top.
The Tower attracts suicides like the San Francisco Bridge.
I looked at the afternoon Austin American-Statesman headline: UT Employee Plunges to Death from the Tower. Then I saw the name and felt failure and anger. "Douglas Miller, age 25 . . . plunged 29 stories today."
I had met Douglas Miller (not his real name) two years earlier.
Shoalcreek Hospital has a pleasant psychiatric ward. It was my last day there and I was feeling good–so good that I called my office and had my correspondence and portable dictating machine sent out. My doctor had put me on Lithium, the treatment of choice for manic depressive disorder. I was very optimistic.
I was enjoying working when the curtain in the room was pulled back by a bushy-haired young man with bandages on his forearms.
"Hi, I`m Douglas," he said, with a kind of eagerness that annoyed me and seemed most inappropriate under the circumstances.
"What`s your name?"
"My name is Hal Haralson," I said and tried to focus my attention on my work.
Doug didn`t take the hint. "What are you doing?" he persisted.I told him, "Dictating letters."
"What kind of work to you do?"
"I`m a lawyer."
"Oh."
He was silent for a few minutes. It was as though my last answer caught him off guard and he didn`t have another question.
Relieved, I returned to my work. I didn`t want to get involved with someone on my last day in the hospital.
"What are you doing in here?"
"My doctor has put me on Lithium and there are possible side-effects that require hospitalization."
"I never heard of Lithium; what does it do?"
I replied, "It has been found to help control certain types of depression."
"I`m depressed," Douglas blurted out. "That`s what happened last night. I got so sick of myself and the whole world, I just couldn`t take it. I cut my wrists. I nearly bled to death before they found me."
Then he looked directly into my eyes. I knew what was coming: "You ever try to commit suicide?" "Yes, Douglas, nearly 10 years ago. I had been very depressed. Life wasn`t worth continuing. My wife and our child had left to go home to her mother and father. The only thing worse than being depressed is being depressed when there`s no one around to be impressed with how depressed you are."
"I got up in the morning and turned on all the gas jets in the house. I went back to bed but nothing happened–no unconsciousness, no sleep–so I got up and took a match and lighted it. I was in the bedroom and the explosion of the gas blew me out the door."
"At that moment the phone rang. It was my psychiatrist wanting to know why I hadn`t gone to work. I told him the house was on fire; and then I cut and ran out the front door. I was committed that day to the San Antonio State Hospital where I remained for three months and 13 shock treatments."
"What happened? How did you get out?" Douglas was all ears.
"I told God that if I had to continue living life the way I had been, He could have it. If He would accept me the way I was, then He could have me. He did! It was the most beautiful thing that has happened to me."
"I don`t understand. What did you do before entering the hospital?"
"I was a minister."
"But you said you`re a lawyer."
"I am. After getting out of the hospital, I left the ministry and became a businessman and later went to law school when I was 33."
"But if you were a minister how could you have gotten so depressed? Couldn`t you just pray?"
"Douglas, what I had heard about God–and what I told others–was depressing: judgment, fear, guilt, striving for perfection. Live to please others and God. I just got tired of it. I was like a little boy straining to be tall enough to be a man and never quite making it."
Doug was puzzled. "What happened in the hospital to change that?"
I tried to make him understand. "I told God I had had it with being someone other than me to please Him and others. My prayer was essentially, "If you want me like I am, OK; otherwise, shove it!"
Doug laughed out loud. He liked that.
"My folks go to church," he said. "I used to go to Sunday School. I`m really depressed and confused. Do you suppose God would take me? Could He love me even if I tried to commit suicide?"
"He did me, and he wants to do the same for you. But you must ask Him. He won`t force Himself on you."
There were many questions. Especially about fear and uncertainty, symptoms of depression.
Finally, Doug prayed after I had prayed.
"Dear God. I`m scared. I don`t know if You hear me but if You do, please come into my life. I need You and I`m afraid."
I met Doug`s parents in the hospital room and he told them that he had invited Christ into his life. We talked and prayed and then I was gone. I gave Doug`s name to some Young Life staffers and they reported back that he was studying the Bible with them.
Over a year later, there came a letter from Doug`s parents. He had been to a Guru in California and was not doing well. There was an Austin address and a request that I go by and visit Doug.
I went by but Doug wasn`t there. It was one of those commune apartments west of the university campus, the drug scene area. It didn`t look good.
I was going to go back.
Then the paper! Headlines!
UT EMPLOYEE PLUNGES TO DEATH FROM TOWER . . . TWENTY-NINE STORIES. Doug Miller`s mind was finally at rest.
How could this have happened after Doug`s prayer turning his life over to God?
I don`t have an answer to that question. I heard Doug`s prayer and believe God heard it, too.
Mental illness is a disease. Doug was sick. Sometimes depression ends in death.
Is the person who takes his own life because of depression any less acceptable in the out-stretched arms of God than someone who dies of cancer?
I think not. I hope you agree.
