Episode #250 - In Defense of Emma Hale Smith

This week seemed appropriate to bring back Emma to our memory.  She was and is a valiant servant of God.  I believe that she was valiant to the end, even given what has been written.  She did not travel west.  She may have had some issues with Brigham and others.  What I see in her is a brave, kindhearted, determined woman.  Much of what occurred in her later life can be reasonably explained through the science of mental health we know today.  I sincerely hope that you enjoy this podcast.

Transcript

Welcome to episode #113 Emma Hale Smith.  I am your host Damon Socha.  Yes it is that Emma.  The prophet’s companion for eternity.   Before I get started there are going to be a couple of rules.  First you have to finish the podcast if you start it.  Second, if you have concerns you are welcome to contact me only after you have listened to every word of it. I recognize that Emma is a controversial subject and what I will discuss today probably won’t end that controversy.  But for me, I found Emma.  Out of all the famous historical figures of the church, I have always been endeared to Emma and her story.  I suppose like many I have struggled a little with what happened with Emma.  Many like myself have wondered why.  What happened to Emma?  Especially towards the end of Joseph’s life.

Before I answer that question I want to take a look at Emma and her testimony of the restoration because it is important to the overall discussion.  Emma was chosen before this earth as a companion for Joseph and to be equal to one of the greatest prophets to come to earth, to stand by his side, I would dare say that in pre-mortality Emma and Joseph as far as spiritual nature is concerned were two of the most valiant of the valiant.  The Lord chose Joseph and Emma to restore the gospel together.  As you look at her character, nature and boldness one could easily see just how much of a true pair Joseph and Emma were.  She was chosen to experience along with Joseph every event of the restoration up to his martyrdom.  She gave up her own family, a stable home life, wealth and even gave her life and Joseph’s life to the church and its establishment all while trying to maintain some semblance of a family life.  I don’t think anyone would dare question her testimony of the restoration.  She was solid as anyone.  She was perhaps more valiant than any other member of the time and certainly was far more persecuted than any other individual, except Joseph and yet his pains were her pains.  Her testimony was never in doubt for me. And that is important as I work through what I will say today.  I don’t think her testimony ever wavered even during the timeframe of plural marriage, Joseph’s martyrdom and Brigham’s disagreements. She was simply suffering from a very difficult illness. Lucy Mack Smith who became her de facto mother stated the following.  “I have never seen a woman in my life, who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship, from month to month, and from year to year, with that unflinching courage, zeal, and patience, which she has always done. ... She has been tossed upon the ocean of uncertainty; ... She has breasted the storms of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils, ... which have borne down almost any other woman.”

It is from that perspective I would like to begin today.  I am not going to rehearse the history, as you can find that for yourself.  The basic facts are for me that Emma possessed a solid testimony that had been tried in the refining fires of adversity.  She was chosen before this world to hold a particular place in the restoration of the church and would sacrifice as Joseph did for its rise from obscurity.  She suffered with Joseph until his death and after.  We do know that she did not go west with the saints, and of course she had some disagreements with Brigham.  She also had concerns about plural marriage.  I am not going to rehearse the issues they had, I could do no better than what is already documented.  But I am going to add some perspective to what occurred and in so doing hopefully shed sufficient light upon the origins of Emma’s actions that will allow for understanding and hopefully mercy.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have read various accounts of Emma, because I wanted to understand her.  That is just who I am.  I wanted to understand why and what caused her to make the decisions she did.  Of course, with historical figures that can be difficult as everything is second hand except for her own writings which were few.  As I read the accounts of her and Joseph and the later concerns with Brigham and plural marriage I started to notice some patterns, I had not seen before in Emma, but I had seen those exact same patterns in myself.  The more I read the more I was convinced that Emma suffered, crippling depressions and anxiety along with bipolar episodes.  I began to realize why I had been drawn to Emma, she and I had something in common, we both suffered from these terrible illnesses.  Now I get it.  I am a man she is a woman but the things she did at certain times and several of her characteristic patterns appear so close to my own experience that I was shocked upon reading them.  When I began to look at Emma from the perspective of bipolar and or deep depressive, anxiety laden episodes, what I saw was that valiant servant of the Lord struggling to find her footing and acting in ways that were very explainable if one could see the illness in the background.  I realize that the idea is controversial and that I might be wrong but for me, I found Emma.  A powerful servant of the Lord crippled with emotional difficulties.  

So today I am going to lay it out for you.  I am going to lay it out directly as Emma would have.  I hope to show that Emma had good reasons for what she was doing if you simply take her life and live it as though she had crippling depressions with anxiety or moderate to severe bipolar.  What does this say about her?  To me she becomes legionary status.  To have suffered with Joseph under normal emotional circumstances would have been exceedingly difficult but to do it under the burden of depression, anxiety and mania, she becomes all the more valiant and dedicated even in what some might term her failings.  Now we don’t have Emma here with us, so this will never be definitive.  But I would like to lay out the case as to why her decisions make perfect sense and why in my opinion she deserves the highest of respect even while staying in Nauvoo.  Even her decision to stay can be almost perfectly explained based on just a few assumptions.  In the end, when I see Emma struggling to find her footing before during and after the martyrdom, I see Emma suffering with one of the most difficult illnesses to ever come upon man and woman. 

So here is case.  I am going to talk about patterns of Emma’s life based on a variety of sources and use those experiences to explain why it makes sense that she was suffering.  We know that Emma wrote very little, did not keep a journal, and most of the things we know about her are recorded by others.  I am not intending to enter into a debate about Emma or whether or not she suffered with bipolar or just depression and anxiety.  My purpose is to show that it is very plausible that she suffered and that her illness provides a background for some of the decisions she made during and after Joseph’s martyrdom and that the whole disagreement between Emma and Brigham or church leadership might have been forever changed if something had been known about depression and bipolar at the time.  So here we go.

 1)     Genetics – Genetics are the first important factor in depression and bipolar. I have not read everything about the Emma Hale’s medical history of her family nor have I studied their DNA so at best this is circumstantial evidence.  But from accounts it appears, that a genetic connection is very possible.  The first strong case is that her last son by Joseph, David Hyrum Smith was committed to a mental institution from what I could tell from my readings it was for periods of psychosis.  Really that is a very broad definition.  It could have been anything from bouts of serious depression to severe bipolar and who knows what else.  What is important was that it was determined to be a mental illness during a time when little was known about these types of illnesses.  During this timeframe in our country and world most individuals would have suffered mental illness under the radar unless it was very serious.  In addition to her son we can also note the changing demeanor of her father, from time to time.  While moodiness is not necessarily a sign of mental illness, it certainly could be based on the timeframe.  While not all depression and bipolar is of genetic origin, bipolar and some clinical depression and anxiety does have strong genetic connections.  Science has been able to prove that so much so that it is one of the questions asked by psychiatrists when discussing symptoms with their patients.  When you consider the psychosis of her son David Hyrum, Joseph’s last son, her father and her own patterns it is plausible that her genetics contained the necessary elements to provide her difficulties.

2)     Emma’s Evidence

a.      No Journal - I am going to start the evidence with something so simple it might be overlooked but was a sign for me that Emma might be dealing with something behind the scenes that she did not want to remember.  Emma didn’t leave a record.  She didn’t write a journal or really any type of history.  That seemed strange for me.  I realize that not everyone keeps a record. Emma was educated and she knew that keeping records were important. She also in some ways understood how important she was to the church.  So this part of her life appears out of character, although it was eerily familiar to me.  I don’t keep a journal either.  The why for me stems from my journal experience.  I did write for a time, obediently.  However, upon rereading what I had written at a later date all of my memories would come flooding back.  There were memories in those books that I will never open again because of the deep emotional trauma and because I simply didn’t want to feel and experience those moments ever again.  Many people who have mental illness don’t keep journals for this very reason.  We capture difficult emotional phases in those journals and they bring back memories we don’t want to recall. 

b.      Codependences – Emma did write to Joseph and then there were times when she couldn’t even seem to get pen to the paper.  Many of her letters show a deep connection with Joseph but also a deep dependency upon his presence with her.  Anyone who has ever had a major depressive episode has felt this dependency upon another for support.  The physical presence of the support network is soothing to the illness and deep anxieties rise when that network is gone for long periods.  To remove the support from our presence, sends shock waves to our soul.  I could see that in her writings and interestingly enough Joseph often hints how he understands how difficult it is when he leaves.  The telling sign for me is when she simply could not put pen to paper, she was emotionally paralyzed by the illness and a numbness takes over that makes writing impossible.  My wife suffers the same way when I leave for a time and I have experienced this codependency upon her and from her.  This codependency along with the other evidence is a strong indicator that she was suffering.

c.      Trauma – Even without the genetic links and the evidence of codependency, Emma retained sufficient trauma in her life to match up to Job.  Miscarriages, and deaths of several children is sufficient evidence for a possible illness but add upon that the stresses of rarely having your own home, moving consistently from place to place, your husband gone for long periods of time, your husband in constant peril, you are under constant threat because if they can get you they can get Joseph, children at risk of violence, raising young children while under persecution, being the prophet’s wife, and to top it all off, three brothers of what became her family were killed within a few days of each other Hyrum, Joseph and Samuel.  If I gave that list alone to a psychiatrist, I have no doubt they would expect at least PTSD if not full-blown clinical depression or bipolar.  The final blow to that awful illness was the death of those three men she loved dearly.  The depression and emotional darkness that could result from such an event would be catastrophic for weeks, months, and even years.  It would have been almost impossible to see out of the depressive fog for perhaps many years.

d.      Codependency and death of the support network  – Emma was very protective of Joseph’s things including his writings after his death.  This is not unusual for someone who has lost their spouse.  But for Emma whose whole life was wrapped up in Joseph through possible mental illness codependency, those writings and belongings took on a whole new meaning.  Joseph was not going to be by her side and neither were Hyrum or Samuel going to be there for any comfort. Joseph’s mother was aging and would not likely last very long.  Emma had lost her support network and fear and anxiety overwhelmed her.  Emma knew how important the revelations and writings were to church, but if you cannot have the presence of the people in the support network, then you can have things that make you feel close to them, and those were Joseph’s effects. I know that Brigham and Emma had some conflict around these items, Brigham the next prophet trying to preserve history and church property and Emma holding onto what little she had left to keep her alive.  Emma needed those writings and belongings to preserve her own life or what was left of it.  Giving them away was not simply giving away paper, books and articles, or things this was now Joseph for her and she would not lose what she had left of him.  Her reactions to Brigham show how deeply she was affected in her illness by the loss of the three brothers. Because mental illness changes realities, Emma was simply not able to see outside of her own dependencies.  She was preserving her own life by surrounding herself with the support she had left.  Brigham was not at fault for asking.  But one could see how easily the difficulty might have arisen without understanding of her illness.  When we look at Emma during this timeframe and consider her actions in light of a possible deep depressive episode, she reacted exactly as would be expected.  She couldn’t have left Nauvoo or parted with anything associated with Joseph.  The animosity and anger she appeared to have for Brigham was simply the outcomes of the illness.

e.      Believing That She Killed Joseph, Hyrum, Samuel - Due to the anxieties and codependency for the illness, Emma had asked Joseph to return to Nauvoo just before he went to Carthage.  While we all accept that she was not at fault, depression would have convinced her otherwise.  Not only would she have believed under the influence of a depression episode that she was responsible or at the very least contributed to the killing of Joseph but also Hyrum and Samuel and the sufferings of John Taylor.  I have been on the guilt side of depression far too many times and I would have believed that I sent them to their deaths, and I would also believe that the saints would see me as an accessory to their deaths.  I would worry that they wouldn’t accept me any longer.  The insecurities would have been very real to her.  It doesn’t matter if the saints thought those things or not, they were a reality for her.  

f.       Marriage to Lewis Bidamon – The need to have a support network often causes issues in finding relationships and tends to at times cause bad ones to occur.  This does appear to be the case for Emma with Lewis Bidamon and their marriage.   Lewis was unfaithful to Emma. And their relationship was not the best one at least if we believe what is written.  Although Emma remained with Lewis even after the affair.  Also a possible sign that Emma was suffering and needed the support network.  Dysfunctional relationships tend to occur with mental illness.

g.      Reactions to plural marriage – Emma was at times hostile to plural marriage and at times accepting of it.  Even after accepting it she would reject it again.  While there could be several explanations for the vacillating behavior, if she had serious bouts of depression and anxiety or even bipolar, her actions now seem exactly as they should be.  When the depression and anxiety was not as present, she could feel the truth of the doctrine and be more accepting but when the darkness of depression descended upon her with the insecurities that go with it including the codependency she could no longer feel the truth of it and her insecurities would get the best of her.  From one who has lived the codependences and has literally lived upon the life and energy of my own support network.  Her actions were identical to what I would have done with my bipolar.  When I took all the reactions and the emotions that bipolar would create, I could almost formulate the experience exactly as she had experienced it.  Yes I am a man and I am never going to fully understand, no one will every really understand her.  But I could see just how easily it could have occurred.  I have been in the darkest of places with my depression and anxiety and I would have reacted identical to her outright rejecting the revelation and when my illness was more managed I could see the truth of the doctrine.  When you are in the deepest of depression, you cannot feel the truth of things.  Depression, anxiety and bipolar change your realities and the way you feel and work with the spiritual promptings of truth.  When I see Emma vacillating from acceptance to outright rejection, I simply see the swings of bipolar.  

h.      Cycling – Throughout the various books I read, it noted that Emma would at times work herself to the bone and then be sick for several weeks.  This was not just one simple occurrence as it appeared to happen many times.  If you were to explain outwardly the appearance and symptoms of bipolar, this is how it would be described.  The energy to work in plenty during the mania and then the sickness descending upon the person for several weeks, only to repeat itself.  Considering the amount of stress and trauma she experienced, her swings could have been terrible on the depression side of things and we do find her sick on a regular basis.  I have spoken on these podcasts much about feeling physically sick and worn out because of bipolar symptoms.  Emma was at times frequently sick and often after traumatic events.  

If taken together, her solid testimony against the background of the genetics, several serious traumatic events, deep codependences, lack of personal history, cycling illnesses, vacillating emotional states, Emma appears to suffer with serious bouts of depression and anxiety or even possibly bipolar disorder. While my list of evidence perhaps deserves a longer treatise, I believe that from what I have seen of Emma that she suffered greatly.  If it is true that she suffered from serious emotional difficulties brought about by bouts of mental illness, and ultimately we will only know when we get to talk to her on the other side of death, then Emma’s actions and reactions make sense.  Staying in Nauvoo was probably her only option based on the illness.  Leaving Joseph’s body and even the bodies of Hyrum and Samuel and the thought of Mother Smith perishing on the great plains, would have paralyzed her emotionally.  The deep depressive episode that likely ensued after the deaths of the brothers would have been terrible upon her mind and body.  She would not have had the physical ability to make the trek to the Salt Lake Valley and likely would have perished on the plains.  If more had been known about mental illness at the time perhaps the disagreements between her and Brigham could have been more easily resolved and understood.  We will never know in this life.  For me though, I found Emma.  That stalwart saint, foreordained before this world to stand alongside Joseph and to be his companion.  I regard her as a heroine in her time and one of the greatest to walk the earth.  Her actions, while not always understood, for me appear to be nothing more than a significant trial of faith brought upon her by genetics, a serious of traumatic events, and time.  If she suffered with such illnesses, then her actions appear all that more impressive to me and her life all that saintlier.  I think I could say that she lived great and died great and will be classed among the most valiant of her time.  For now, I will leave it to you to decide.  And I will leave Emma with her beloved Joseph.  Until next week.