Question: What are personal experiences you have had with suffering (either

endured yourself or witnessed others go through)?

I.

Um. Im trying to decide what to tell. Um. *pause* Uh. It was my senior year
of high school. Um. *clears throat* I was at the time dating a girl that I had
been dating for about two years. Uh. And uh. We were in this play- uh,
Midsummer Nights Dream. Actually with Kurt Tomlin who does
Shakespeare Behind Bars. Um. Who is a terrible director. But, umjust so
you all know. *laughs* But, uh and, uh- we were driving um to go get
lunch during Saturday rehearsal and I pulled into thisI was pulled into
this- into the intersection, turned left and the light was sort of yellow, so I
was like, gotta go. So I started going and I didnt notice that the car ahead
of me was gunning it to make it through the yellow light. And so they
smashed into the back of my car and totaled my car. Um.
But it was my fault because I should havethey had the right of way. Um.
*pause* And I didnt have *pause* anything on my car besides really basic
insurance, so my car was just totaled. I had worked for a long time to earn
money to buy. And I had like this weird connection to. For some reason,
THAT triggered depression. For the first time, probably since 7th grade. But
I didnt really know it at the time. It was probably the first time that IThe
next couple weeks after that car accident was the first time that I started to
admit to myself I something like really wrong with this. I dont know
whats going on in my life right now, but its uhmore than just sadness.
Um. So I spent about two weeks after that car accident *pause* um.
Hearing all sorts of things *pause*. Mostly just the one thing which is the
all-consuming feeling of depression. Um. It took me a long time during that
two weeks- well, not a long time-but a long time that felt like much longer.
You know, every day felt like an eternity. But-um *pause* To finally admit to
myself after spending nights on the computer looking at symptoms of things
thatWOW. Yes I do have depression. And its- Im so ashamed of it.
*pause* um *pause* So I guess in terms of suffering thats the big thing in
my life thats been, suffering. I dont know what itI honestly dont know
what is worse than depression. And there might be things. But I dont
know if there is. *pause* um. Its a terrible thing to have your own mind
against you. *pause* Your own self- want to kill you.

II.

Um. Sophomore year of high school, I had several things, big things
happen- but I clump it all into sophomore year. Um. My very, very best
friend was moving away. But it was more than that because she- they
couldnt sell their house. So, every week, she would go to the- she would

drive two hours to the other city she was going to. Do school there for the
week and come back on the weekends to my home. So, it felt like like a
scraped goodbye *pause* um. During that time- those couple years she was
doing that back and forth. Um. We started to grow apart because I couldnt
handle the *pause* emotional stress that her leaving and yet not leaving um.
Had on me. Knowing that I like, needed to like, sorta shut that down in a
way. Which made me terribly sad because it also happened that like, we
were growing apart just for natural reasons. And then also that year my
older sister went to college and I had never and then after she left, I was
hit with a terrible feeling of- a terrible realization of the fact that I never- I
have never appreciated her *pause* and she was gone.
And I know that um, that probably we would not ever get to have the same
sort of time together that we had growing up. And I re- I would think back
on the different times I would get angry at her or be frustrated at things that
she was doing, that most of the time were things that I was dealing with and
would take out on her. I think mostly I would set her against me in my
mind. And I would get angry at her. And I would always feel competition
with her because there were many things she was good at that I was notand I would feel belittled. Not necessarily by her, but because of the, the her
that I built up in my mind. And I just had an immense sense of shame.
Because I knew that I had not appreciated this, this person in my life that I
dearly love. And I never *pause* I never admitted that I loved her till after
she left. *pause* um. I would think back on this one story when this one
time when she was, she was babysitting for my family over the weekend, our
parents were gone and I thought it would be really funny if I, pretended like I
was going to break into the house. Uh, it was not funny. And the look on
her face when she realized that it was me- after she had pressed the alarm
system and called the police um. I would remember that lookfor years
after she left. Um. And just be really ashamed of what I had done. Even
though I knew she had forgiven me and had forgotten about it.um.
*pause* It just haunted me a long time afterwards. *pause* Um. And on
top of that, which I wont go into as much detail, my grandfather had passed
away that year and when we returned from the funeral, men in my fathers
church were out toout tothey wanted to- they wanted to get rid of him
from the church. And these were men that I knew had no right of any sort
umand I hated them for it. Um. Cause the things they would accuse my
dad of were umnot true and the things that were true were not- they were
things that um. Were like, good and virtuous actually. Um. So I think that
sophomore year was one of the hardest years probably.

III.

UmI used to think this was a story about me suffering, but now I think
that its a story mostly about my mom suffering. Um. My mom and my dad,
I didnt realize this growing up but um, my mom suffered a lot in her

marriage to my dad because- not because, yeah he has depression, just

because like, outcomes from that and like, other issues. He wasnt good at
resolving conflict and he would get angry and um. He needed a lot from her
and wasnt able to give her any- anything in return and so she um. She
kind of threw herselfbecause she felt like, she wasnt able to have like, a
successful marriage, she kinda threw herself into being a really successful
mother. And so she homeschooled us and we did all these activities *smiles*
and she justshe never rose her voice to us, or ever got angry. And she
always, she always just like, cared for us. Like to me it seems like a perfect
way, and um. And she protected us when my sister got bullied andand um
so, throughout um. When my sister was in high school, she started to be
really emotional and like really big mood swings and kinda started to
resemble my dad in a way. In her behavior. Then when she went to college,
um. We didnt hear very much from her, and my mom worried about her a
lot. And then her first year at school, at college, she came home and um.
Was diagnosed with depression. She had kind of a nervous breakdown and
um so she got on meds, and went back to school. And I went to go visit her
a little while later and. In the midst of this my mom just worried all the time
about her. Um. And. My sister, when I went to go visit her, um. She
accidentally came out to me. Sort of a friend, sort of said something. And
then my sister kind of had to tell me that she was bisexual. And so, she told
me not to tell anyone at home. So I went back home and started to get really
*laughs* like really um. I started to like, question everything. About like,
what does the Bible say, about being gay and bla bla bla bla bla. So, I didnt
tell my mom, but I talked to her about it and the way that she reacted was
not *pause* good. Like it wasntdidnt make me feel good about where
things were going. And. But at the same time I felt like it wasthe secret
was alienating me from my mom. And I didnt know what to do anymore.
So I told my sister that if she didnt tell my mom, that I was going to tell her.
Cause I didnt want it to be a secret anymore. And I hadnt told anyone and
it was justI thought that I was suffering because I had the secret. And
everyone around me was telling me that my sister who I loved was like,
sinful and thatyou know. And it was just very difficult. And so I thought I
was really having a hard time. And so I kind of forced my sisters hand. So
when she came home for the summer, I was.there was this one day when
I was coming home, got out of my car, went into the house, and just as I was
coming into the house *pause* my sister was coming out. And she was
leaving kind of quickly. And she didnt have a car, she didnt drive. So she
just walked away. Um. Like, down the street. And I went into the house and
my mom was sitting on the stairs. Which was weird *laughs*. Cause like,
she didnt sit there. It was a weird place for her to be. And she was kinda
sitting like this. *places hands over face* And she was crying. And I went
and sat next to her. And I dont remember what she saidI dont remember
a lot of what she said because she was doing that croaky cry like the

euuaaahh. Like that. And I just put my arm around her and thenshe
was crying and she said, Sheridan, why didnt God protect her? Like, I
tried so hard, to protect you girls, and I did everything that I could to keep
the bad things away from you. And I failed. *pause* And after everything I
did, why didnt God protect your sister? And at first, at the time I thought
that was so hard for me because my family was messed up and my mom
was messed up.and, and then like, Im kind of realizing that it wasnt
thatI dont think it was that hard for my sister as it was for my mom.
Cause for my mom, it was like a failure. Of everything that she had tried to
do. And she kind ofit was the only thing in her life at the time that she
had felt, had self-worth in. Being a mother. Andand then it was kind of
taken away from her. Um. Through no fault of her own, theres nothing that
she could have done differently, I think. And II think she suffered a lot
through that.

IV.

Umso, summer of 2012 um. My sister started relapsing into episodes of

depression. And a lot of episodes ofwell, not episodes, she had a lot of
situations where she doubting her self-worth and her value as a person.
Um. Yeah, so she was um. She started a new job, she was, lets see. She
was going to be a sophomore in high school. This was um. The end of my
senior year in high school so I was getting ready to go to college. Um. And
so this wasshe had gotten a new job that was really stressful for her. She
was teaching swimming. Um. And uh, swimming can be a hard job to have
when youre teaching kids, cause you are in charge of a lot of lives and if you
turn around for one second, a kid is under water andits a lot of fun. Um.
So it was really stressful, and then also, when you uh, at the end of each
swim lesson, you have to grade your kids, based on whether or not they pass
or fail and move onto the next lesson. That sort of position for her was really
difficult. Growing up in an Asian-American family, its really, really easy to
kind of own a lot of, where your value is set on success and failure, and the
pressure that she felt, and that I sometimes feelum. Both when you fail a
student, shows, 1) that you werent doing a very good job, and 2) you also
are giving that student the experience of failure. And failure is.um kinda
similar to that whole situation of shame versus honor for us. Um. So that
was really difficult for her. And every single time she had to grade a new set
of students, she would be really depressed. She would um lose a lot of
sleep; she wouldnt really eat as much um. She was just like, slowly
becoming more you know, un-functional. Thats not a great word, cause
then we sound like robots. But thats kinda like, where she was at. Um. So
this built. And she got help at that time and she was seeing people who
were professionals in this area and unfortunately they werent able to

intervene as quickly. I remember there wasI was working at another pool

at the time and I was teaching kids. So my work days during that summer
could be from like, 8AM to 7PM. Um. So that day was like, 8AM to like,
4PM, or something like that. Um. So it was a really long day and when
youre at the pool, you obviously cant have your phone out cause its going
to die and.Yeah. So at the end of the day I check my phone and there was
like, two missed calls, a missed voice mail and like two text messages. And
theyre all from my mom. And so I check my text message first and the top
one was like, you need to get out of work. And the other one was like,
come to the ER right now, your sister needs you. So, I had been aware of
everything that was going on at the time and I was already being nervous
about Emily, but yeah. So I got in the car and I started driving as quick as I
could toward the ER. Um. Like half-way down to the ER, I got another text
message and it said she had swallowed like, uh, she had swallowed like 30
pills or something like that. Um. And at the time, I thought it just said lie,
30 milligrams, which, probably isnt any worse. Uh..oh, 30 milligrams, that
cant be a lot. Like, that must be like 3 or 4 pills. But when I got there, I
parked and I looked at the text again and I realized that like, oh my gosh.
She tried to take her life. Um. *pause* So I remember running into the ER
and um. Trying to keep myself really calm. Once the nurse let me through, I
tried to walk as quickly as I could to her room and my mom stopped me half
way through and I was like, I need to see my sister. And she was likeshe
held me down. She held me back and was like, you need to calm down
before you go in. Shes really, really nervous, shes really scared. You need
to be more stable so that she can, you know, react better. Um. But I
remember, I was just like yelling I need to hold my sister. *softer* I need to
hold my sister. Um. So, when I got in, I held her. We cried. And the next
day she was goneshe was in the Psych ward for a while uh. And um, you
know you hear stories about suicide and you hear about them in all sorts of
places that often times arent yours. And it feels like youre distant game. Its
a thing that other people from really bad places have to deal with. And other
people who come from a bar fly situation or a poor family background that
they have to deal with. And uh. I came from a very privileged background.
Um. So I was really surprised. Since then, I havent really been able to
escape um. Stories of suicide. I havent been able to ignore it. In some
ways thats good because um. Ive been equipped with different skills, and
different eyes to see the signs and to see where the hurts are leading or
where the apathy is leading or where the isolation is leading or where the
dosage of the pills changing is leading. So I see a lot of the signs a lot
clearer than I did before. So in some ways, whenever I encounter these new
stories, I know how to respond. I know how to react quicker. I know the
power of intervention. Then again, at the same time, its all soits a bit of a
ghost. It haunts you and follows you and something like you are now given
the eyes to see this, but youre also given the eyes to see the pain. Just this

last year, someone on my floor, I mean the floor I used to live on tried to
attempt suicide. Just in this last two months, someone tried to attempt
suicide. Um. At the rail road tracks. And within this past year, one of my
friends has been dropping weight like a rock. And that wouldnt necessarily
be called suicide, but its an involuntary suicide. And yeah. Thats, I guess
my story.

V.

Okay, uh. When I was fourteen, I was diagnosed with Crohns, which is an
autoimmune disease. Um. And I was not unfamiliar with this. Um. Its
hereditary and chronic, so my aunt um, who has also had breast cancer had
Crohns which can take place anywhere in your body versus Ulcerative
Colitis which just takes place in your intestines. And she had surgery and
she had to have a colostomy bag as well as having like other issues with
cancer. She had breast cancer as well. Um. And my mother had this. Um.
And my older brother, and my other older brother *laughs* and my older
sister. But, two of my siblings had not very severe cases, and my older
brother, before I got diagnosed, the summer before, I watched him. Um. He
is one of the most athletic people I know. Hell go and climb trees and build
things and um. I watched him, just deteriorate and um. Go through these
different medications and umtheres this image that I just so distinctly
remember of him. Um. Hehe came home from spending Christmas in the
hospital um. Because he was losing so much blood becauseI mean I wont
go into details of the disease right now I guess, but he, he got home from the
hospital. Um. I think it was a couple days after Christmas and he was
sitting in this arm chair in my parents room. And *pause* he had a sweater
on, like one of those fleece pullovers and he was trying to take it off and
likelike this *demonstrates with arms over head* um. And he couldnt lift
his arms up. Um. And my mom had to help him. And. I just ran down the
hall and I was just weeping. Cause I hadntthis was before I had been
diagnosed, or had seen any of what this can do to a person. And um. Yeah.
So I guess that was my first real like, this is a serious thing. And so
*laughs* later, so that summer um. I increasingly had more symptoms of
this. For some reason I was afraid to tell my mother. Like I was at a
performing arts festival and um. I was bleeding a lot. It involves a lot of
intestinal, internal bleeding and its not fun. And a lot of pain and um. I
was bleeding a lot and, I mean, involving other things. And I just wouldnt
tell my mother. Like I wouldnt tell her. And it went on for two, maybe two
and a half weeks and my sister came, and she saw me and she like, Why
havent you told mom? Like, why *pause* And I think I just knew that it,
it would upset her. Um. Yeah. That another one of her children would have
to go through the same thing. So my sister told her and I was angry at her

um. And I think I was just in denial. But um. My parents just sat me down
and they were just crying and um, yeah. So um. The next summer which
is I guess the story I want to tell you, is yeah, I was at the same performing
arts festival and I, I came into the festival being very sick. And I had lost a
lot of weight because.and was extremely anemic, I mean, Ive always been
pale, but um. I was just very, very, very white. And I had lost a lot of weight,
so I was like 100 lbs. Just really small. And um I came to the festival and I
was like, no Im gonna do this, like I dont care. I want to be here and I want
to act and I want to do this. So I went, and we were doing Cyrano de
Bergerac and I auditioned, and um the day after the auditionand this was
me, I had gotten really dizzy and weak and so all the people there thought I
was really shy *laughs* because I couldnt really stand up very well and
every time I would stand up I would get really dizzy. And I had to go to the
bathroom like every 5 minutes. Um. And so that, that day I guess. Like,
after auditions, um. I ran into the cafeteria and I knew, I knew that I had to
go and get help. Um, and my older brother was doing better at that time
and was there and so I ran into him and I was just crying really hard and I
was just like, I need to go to the hospital. I need to go. And um. So we went
to the ER and I remember it was raining. And I dont know. Why I
remember that. So we ran, we ran in. I guess at that time I felt a little bit
better because I was sitting down for a while and I was like, Okay, I dont
know that I need to go but umso we went in and I remember these two
women who were working at the festival were just really kind to me. And
they had given me some sort of drug and I was like really, I was just like
laughing a lot *laughs* and they wheeled me down becauseI was like
laughing at everything they were saying. I dont even remember half of it.
But umso they took me in there and they were like, okayum. This is
bad. Um. And they gave me 2 units of blood. Um. Because I had lost that
muchwhen your body has like, 6 I think. Uh. And they gave me a ton of
iron and then they pumped me full of steroids. And I was there for about
four days. I just memorized all of my lines because I didnt want to be there.
I had gotten the understudy for the lead. Um. But I think, I dont know.
This is scattered story I guess, but *pause* this is something thats like,
ongoing in my life. And has been since then (for 6 years). And right now,
Im in a really bad place again. Andwith an autoimmune disease, um. It
feels like my spirit is separate from my body. And my body is attacking itself.
And um. I feel really bitter. And I dont know that I have ever felt this bitter
before in my life, but I just dont understand *crying* why I have to wake up
every morning and feel so sick. And put these medications in my body that
make me feel soso awful. Like, most of the time, if it wasnt for my mother,
um. And the way that she feels about it. Like when I look at my older
brother, I can understand how she feels about me. Because I dont want to
see him sick. Um. But if it wasnt for her, I wouldnt take any of these
steroids. Because umI just hate them. Probably more than anything, in

the way it makes me feel. Um. So I guess, Im just struggling to find out
what I believe about healing and in regard to God. Because I dont ever deny
His existence because of this, but it makes me really angry. And I yell a lot
at God. Um. And I think that is suffering for me. And I think watching
my brother, I think thats suffering. Yeah. (Time 37:12)

Michael: There is still one story that has yet to be transcribed, but will be
finished soon.