Navigating Family Mental Health Challenges: A Personal Journey

Posted On May 21, 2025

I remember the day clearly. I’m standing in my driveway with my mom by my side. She had just arrived and was clearly in a panic. She said my dad hadn’t been taking his medicine and was acting “different.”

I ran to get my cell phone and called my dad at their house.

“Hello,” he answered.

“Daddy, Mother is here and says you have not been taking your medicine and aren’t acting right. I need to take you to the doctor so we can get this straightened out,” I plead.

“I’m not taking the medicine! I don’t like how it makes me feel. I am just fine,” he replied.

“Then I will have to call the sheriff’s office and have them come get you.”

Then he said the words I’ll never forget. “You do what you have to do.” And he hung up.

I immediately called the sheriff’s office, explained the situation and they said they would come get him.

Several Months Earlier

I was working at my job as high school secretary when I received an alarming phone call from my mother. It was the first Thursday of the month and she and my dad had been at the monthly community club dinner. She said she was in the kitchen when Chuck, another community member, came in and said, “There’s something wrong with Bruce. He’s tearing his roll into pieces and dropping them on the floor. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was feeding the cats.”

After consideration, Mother encouraged Daddy to go home, which he did. They had driven separately so she could stay for the women’s meeting.

She was scared to go home. This wasn’t the first time he had acted “off” to her. She had told my two sisters earlier that he wasn’t acting right. But, my mother was known to worry unnecessarily and they, and I, thought he seemed fine when we were with him.

This time, due to her fear, Mother went home with her cousin, Verna. She made the call to me at work. She said she was scared to go be with him alone and asked that I and my sister, Shirley, who was a teacher just down the hall from me, meet her at their house.

I told Shirley and we got permission to leave work immediately and head to my parents.

A Time to Pray

All the way to my parents, I prayed to God. I prayed that Mother was overreacting, even though I knew what Chuck had described wasn’t good news. I prayed that Daddy would be just fine when we arrived. And, I prayed that we would take the right steps to get him help if needed. Even though I was panicked, I had no idea how terrible the situation was to become.

Crazy Eyes

We arrived and walked into my parents bedroom as he was closing a closet door. Mother was beside him. Daddy looked at us and at that very moment, we understood our mother’s fear. Daddy’s eyes had a brilliant blue glazed and erratic look. I knew looking into those eyes that he had gone crazy.

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach and went cold.

I said, “Daddy, Mother says you aren’t acting right. We need to take you to the doctor.”

He began shouting, “Don’t believe anything they say! They’re all out to get us!!” He said other things I cannot remember. I know at some point he said our preacher, Fred Branco, was out to kill him.

Obviously, he was not in his right mind. He left the room and went into his office.

After leaving the room, Mother checked in the closet, turned to us and exclaimed, “I think he has a gun. The German pistol he keeps in here is gone. He was looking in here when I got here and was trying to quickly close the door when he saw me.”

What Do We Do Now?

Mother started sobbing and Shirley was trying to console her as she also cried. I said I would call someone for help.

The state mental hospital is nearby in our county. Not being familiar with protocol, I called there first. They informed me that there was nothing they could do.

Next I called the sheriff’s department. They said there was nothing they could do.

I then called my parent’s lawyer, Joe. He was a life-long friend of the family and a former state representative. I thought maybe he could advise me. He expressed great concern but didn’t know anything that he could do and didn’t know what I should do.

A Reality Show Experience

I didn’t want my dad to know I was making phone calls so I had taken their portable phone outside behind the garage to make the calls. The entire time I was frantically phoning places, I was wondering what was going on inside. Had anything changed? Was he still alone in his office? Or could he be with my sister and mother and becoming threatening? Where was his gun? Did he wonder where I was?

Not knowing what else to do, I called the sheriff’s office again. Instead of talking to the receptionist, I asked to speak personally to Sheriff Harry Lee. I said I knew him personally and needed to speak to him about a personal matter. (Truthfully, I had met the man once when we bought a pickup from him. I had no idea if he would remember me.) Luckily (or divinely) she put me through to him.

I explained who I was and he remembered me. I said I needed someone to come get my father. He was acting crazy and wouldn’t go to the doctor with us.

The sheriff responded that, unfortunately, there was nothing he could do….unless he had personally threatened us.

“He did!” I lied. “And we think he has a gun!!” I continued.

“I can send someone to pick him up then, if he has threatened you,” he said. I thanked him and we hung up.

The Wait

I went inside and found that my dad was still in his office and Mother and Shirley were sitting in the bedroom. I told them that the sheriff was sending someone out to take Daddy to the hospital. We sat and cried and discussed what needed to be done next as we waited for them to arrive.

I’ll Never Forget

When help arrived, it was in the form of FOUR sheriff’s deputies. I immediately thought, this is a bit much. My 80-year-old father doesn’t need this many men to take him in. They came in and asked where he was. I led them to the office. Daddy looked up and said, “Well what are you doing here?” with a crazed look. I stepped out of the office.

What we heard next was horrifying. There was lots of scuffling. A lamp fell to the floor. We could hear a chair being overturned. We could hear groaning and more scuffling.

Finally, they led my dad out of his office in handcuffs. He was cursing (the one and only time in his life, most likely). Mother and Shirley were crying and I was feeling the worst guilt possible.

Then as one of the deputies was passing by, he stopped, looked directly at me and said, “This is not the Bruce Edwards I know. We will take care of him.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard more comforting words. I believe God placed that deputy in that situation because he personally knew my father. He gave me words that gave me some peace of mind. I didn’t know the man, nor ever found out who he was, but I’m eternally grateful for him being there that day.

He Could Have Shot Them

As they were taking my dad to their car, one of the deputies stayed back to explain to us what had happened in the office.

He said my dad had pulled a gun on them. That was the cause of all the scuffling. He said it took all four of them to subdue him. When recovered, they discovered the gun was not loaded.

God had intervened. He knew it would take four men to get my dad under control. Somehow he had kept the deputies from shooting him when he pulled a gun on them. He had helped my mother arrive just in time to keep him from also getting the ammunition out of the closet. I believe this with all my heart.

Three Days

The deputy also explained that Daddy would first be taken to the sheriff’s office for processing. Then they would take him to the Mid-Missouri Mental Health Hospital. That medical facility would only be able to keep him for three days. Legally, he had the right to be dismissed after that if he wanted to leave.

I don’t really remember much of those three days. My other sister, Peggy, had come when called and I think she and Shirley took care of the necessary details then.

I do know that someone went to court and obtained legal guardianship of my dad.

The Next Month

We were able to have my dad committed to the hospital for one month of evaluation and treatment. Peggy did not work away from home so she was able to spend the nights with my mom and many days talking to the doctors.

We were told that Daddy had dementia and he needed to be put into a nursing home because he would only get worse. Peggy did not settle for this answer. She kept asking questions and insisting that they try various treatments.

Eventually the medical staff determined that Daddy had a chemical imbalance. They prescribed very strong psychotic drugs, and we saw great improvement after being on them.

As he improved, he would point out the eccentricities of the other patients when we would visit. He would chuckle and shake his had in wonderment. He introduced us to one young man who he had befriended. He was from Stephens, near our community, and they knew some of the same people. Daddy said he seemed perfectly normal and he couldn’t figure out why he was in there.

Mother was not completely convinced that Daddy was back to normal when he checked out of the hospital. He had told her he had to sleep in his clothes because someone was stealing them. She thought he was hallucinating.

On the day we checked him out, Mother said to Daddy, “It looks like that man has on your shirt,” to which my dad responded, “He does and we’re not going to say a thing about it.” His newfound friend was the one who had been stealing his clothes.

The Support of Friends

The Sunday after Daddy was arrested, I made the decision to be very forthright with the public. At church, I went to all four adult Sunday School classes and explained to them what had happened. I asked for their prayers. I told them that Daddy would be so very embarrassed and horrified when he realized what he had done.

Those friends rallied around my parents and I never heard any negative comments. They only expressed love, acceptance and compassion. That’s what happens when you are a part of God’s family of believers.

The Next Few Months

The medicine my dad was prescribed was very potent. Side effects included slowness of gait and an agitation of the hands causing him to constantly rub his fingers together. Only he can describe other ways it made him feel, which he found disconcerting. They worked though. His mental state appeared to be back to normal.

We often wondered if the chemical imbalance had been triggered by stress brought on by the death of his mother-in-law and a close aunt just before his first breakdown.

As many mental illness sufferers often do, once Daddy seemed to be functioning normally, he stopped taking his medicine because he did not like the side effects. Then another aunt passed away as did a best friend and a cousin died. Daddy was named the executor of his estate.

He then suffered the second mental breakdown which takes me to the beginning of this story.

I Will Do What I Have To Do

My dad told me to do what I had to do when I called him that day. I called the sheriff. I don’t know if he meant for me to do that. I like to think that he did to take some of the guilt away.

After he was taken in the second time, he only had to stay a few days, as I recall, to get back on his meds and become stabilized.

When we took him home I told him that I would call the sheriff every time he quit taking his medicine. He never failed to take it from then on. His mind was perfectly sharp until the day he died some 17 years later.

Lessons I Learned

• Mental illness can happen to anyone. My father was an honest, upstanding citizen of his community. He was a faithful servant of God. He was my hero.
• Mental illness is not something to be ashamed of.
• There are effective treatments for mental illness.
• Mental illness patients often quit taking their medications because of the side effects.
• God will intervene when you fervently pray.
• God sends the most unexpected help.
• Doing what you have to do can be extremely difficult and heartbreaking.
• Leaning on God’s strength will help you when you have to take action in difficult circumstances.

Final Thoughts

I first thought about writing this when I heard May was Mental Health month. I had read a Facebook post challenging people to tell their mental health story as an inspiration for others.

We had just celebrated Easter a couple of weeks earlier and I got to thinking about what my father had said to me – Do What You Have To Do. It was agonizing to hear those words. They were not what I wanted to hear. The experience nearly broke me, but I did what I had to do in order to save my dad and give my mom peace of mind.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed this prayer.

God’s answer to Jesus was, Do What You Have To Do.

Can you imagine the anguish of hearing that answer. Because of my experience, I can better understand it. But my anguish and suffering was nothing compared to what Jesus had to endure.

We may never fully understand why things happen. I wish my dad had never suffered from a mental illness. But, I thank God that he was stabilized with medication. I wish Christ didn’t have to suffer to save me. But, I thank God that he did. I also thank God that he sent an angel in the form of a sheriff’s deputy to strengthen me just as an angel was sent to Jesus.

I pray that my readers will be inspired by this story. I pray that anyone suffering from a mental illness seeks medical treatment and seeks help from God. I pray that you take your prescribed medication when needed. I pray that you are kind and forgiving to family and friends who try to help you, just as I believe my father forgave me for what I had to do.

There is no shame in having a mental illness! You may not like the medicine that makes you better. Sometimes You Do What You Have To Do and take the meds anyway.

“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” — Glenn Close

You can learn more about my father in my blog post, My First Hero

As always, I appreciate it when people share my blog posts with others and also make comments directly on this site.

Check the National Mental Health Association at https://www.nami.org/ for more information on mental health.