Today, while enjoying a delicious pizza at Mellow Mushroom with Katie and Joe, I very casually mentioned to Katie, My Little Princess, that if I happened to kill myself, that it clearly was not her fault. I wanted her to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I love her, Rodney, Harrison and Charlie more than anything in this or the next world. I also told her that the only reason I’m still alive is because of them. And that’s a fact- a very, very sad and painful fact to admit, but a fact nonetheless.

The burden that I have placed on myself has simply become too much to bear. When I first planned my suicide a few years ago, I did it very methodically. I put lots of thought into it to make sure that it would go as smoothly as possible. I had not only planned my death, but had also set up positive outcomes for Dawn and the kids for after I was gone, including planting ideas in the heads of Dawn and a friend of mine to get together “If something were to happen to me”. I was matchmaking for my widow.

Now it’s different. Now the thought of ending it all is spontaneous and powerful. And it is occurring more and more frequently. This is obviously no way to live. So I’m going to be making some changes. Beginning right now.

My issues are ones that I have placed on myself or have allowed to be placed on me. Number one on the list is my obsession- to the point of despair- to please everyone. It is my mission in life to serve others, and for that I am grateful. But the pressure that I put on myself to please everyone is enormous. Unbearable, really. And it started at home. As a baby.

I was disappointment at birth. My mom and my sister really wanted a little girl- not another boy in a house full of boys. I believe that’s when I first learned about the sadness of disappointing the people you love. So, to please my mom, I pretty much did anything and everything she wanted. For instance:

As soon as I could talk, memorize and recite, she and/or my dad had me memorize the Serenity Prayer. My dad was an alcoholic and attended regular meetings at APCI. As soon as I was able, he would hold me up to the microphone and I would lead the audience in the Serenity Prayer. When I was just a little older, it became the Serenity Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer. Then mom and dad discovered that I could sing, and you can guess what happened next- it was AA meetings, plus talent shows, and getting me involved in singing at church. Then I learned to play guitar and it got ramped up even more. Then it was art lessons, and as if that weren’t enough, I also had to enter my artwork into contests and it was fully expected that I would win ribbons. Blue ones. First place. Anything less didn’t quite cut it. Then there were the Halloween parade costume contests, which I was also expected to win, and did. At this point in my life, right here, I would have been about eight years old. EIGHT.

If I didn’t win- at an art show, a talent show, a costume contest- whatever- my mom would raise hell with whoever was in charge. I saw how important winning was to her and I wanted to please her, and I was crushed when it didn’t happen. Naturally, as I look back on this now, I see that she was so lacking any value and affirmation of her own, that she used me to get it. And I delivered at every turn.

By the time I was ten, I was playing shows regularly in the community, leading music at TWO churches on Sundays- St. Catherine in Sebring and St. James in Lake Placid. I was showing my artwork at every possible show, and was already a public figure, having been in the newspaper many times and having feature articles written about me. I still needed to please my mom, but now I had a community to please as well. People were watching me, and I knew it: “You’re the little boy who sings in church! You’re that artist kid. You’re the kid who sang at this, that or the other thing”. I think I enjoyed all the attention, but there was absolutely no way of knowing what was actually happening- that I was being thrust into extremely high-pressure situations by someone who was living vicariously through me because she fed off of the attention that I brought her. I was ten.

My mom was the Queen of the Guilt Trip. If I did anything that didn’t please her, it was, “Go to your room and kneel down and pray and tell God you’re sorry. You really hurt his feelings this time”. Then there was, “we can’t disappoint God/Santa/Santa Mouse/Beanie and Elf etc"- any tool she could find- to keep me as perfect as I could be. She was exceptional at laying on the guilt.

My mom married my dad, had me, divorced my dad, remarried my dad and divorced my dad again before I was maybe eight. I loved my dad, but I was afraid to let it show because I did not want my mom to think I loved him more than her, because I just couldn’t bear to disappoint her. So I stopped calling him daddy and started calling him Ralph. She liked that. And when she was critical of him, I never doubted her. And when she ridiculed him and berated him, I joined in. And that just eats me up, even to this day. He died when I was in sixth grade and I never shed a tear- because I didn’t want my mom to think I was sad- because if she knew I was sad, she might think I loved him more than her. I couldn’t disappoint her like that….

On the subject of using guilt as a tool- by the time I was about eleven, she had me playing is bars, sitting in with bands. As you might imagine, this often happened on weekends. So on a typical Saturday night, I might be out in the bar ‘till after midnight, then maybe mom and Tom (my mom’s live-in boyfriend) would want breakfast, so it might be one or two AM before we got home. And guess what the next day was? Sunday. And guess who was leading the kids band at the 8 AM guitar Mass… me. I cannot tell you how many times I BEGGED my mom to let me sleep in and not go sing at church- “just this once”. But it was always some form of, “Well, God will be sad and disappointed, but if that’s what you want….” or “Father is expecting you to be there. You can’t let him down.” Or, “The people will be so disappointed if you’re not there”. Always with the guilt. And I was ALWAYS a trooper. I would drag myself out of bed, get the guitar and do my job. AND more and more singing jobs in the community. AND more art shows. AND beginning to give guitar lessons. At age eleven. And all that was the easy part…..

The HARD part was trying to be a normal kid. When my friends started experimenting in stuff that boys will experiment with, I wouldn’t. Because I KNEW people were watching and I COULD NOT DISAPPOINT THEM. So when my pals would score a Playboy or Penthouse and duck away to check it out, I would not join in. And when one of them would sneak a beer out of the house and into the woods where we played, I wouldn’t touch it. And when my friends started cussing like the big kids, I didn’t. And when they started sexually experimenting with girls, I held out and resisted. And so I was the goody-two-shoes. The sissy. The scaredy cat. I wanted to do most of that stuff as bad as they did- but I just couldn’t risk being a disappointment. And that commitment to being “that good boy who sings in church” carried me all the way into high school.

In ninth grade I got my first “real” girlfriend- I will withhold her name. I was mesmerized. I had a few light kisses before that, very sweet and innocent. But this girl taught me how to KISS. AND make-out. Well, my mom caught us making out. And that night I got the mother-of-all guilt trips. And the next day I broke up with this girl who I liked SO much. And I did NOT want to break up with her, but I didn’t want to disappoint my mom. So I did break up with her. And I would not kiss another girl ‘till my Senior year. My mom’s guilt-trip skills were THAT effective.

When my senior year rolled around, I was busier than ever- playing more shows than ever before in the community, still playing at Mass every Sunday, giving lessons and life-guarding at the high school pool. But now I was also the school DJ and had a band- California Toe Jam. My mom still had me going out and playing at every possible talent show and showcase and playing in bars and having me doing anything and everything to give her that attention that had now become such a big part of HER life.

I have to collapse the next part just because of the time it would take to tell the whole story. In short, I continued being in the public eye. I played at St. Catherine’s till I was twenty-eight. At that time my little family shifted over to Bible Fellowship Church. (This was a disappointment that my mom was never able to shake, even to her death in May.) At BFC, I took on a whole new level of being careful not to disappoint. When I became music director, the pressure to make people happy escalated tremendously. And the ability to please everyone in such a setting was simply impossible. But that didn’t deter me from trying and it hurt just as bad when I fell short. Add this layer to an already over-complicated emotional balance of being a husband to an often-disappointed wife, the son of a VERY disappointed mother; brothers, a sister and other family members who were disappointed in me because I hurt mom so deeply by leaving the Catholic Church. And believe me, she used all her skills to keep them stirred up.

At this point I’m stopping, because I’m exhausted. I feel like you have enough background to form an understanding of what I’m about to say:

I love you all, but I have spent my entire life of fifty-two years living for everyone but me. My main focus- for my entire life- has been to try not to disappoint anyone. If you are reading this, it’s likely that you are one of the very people I have tried so very, very hard to please. I have no regrets- because I do believe that everything happens for a reason. AND I believe that it’s my purpose to serve others, which I will continue to do as long as I am able.

I love you all, but you don’t know me. You know the image of me that has been created through five decades of living in the public eye. You know Harry Havery the singer; Harry Havery from California Toe Jam; Harry Havery the worship leader. Harry Havery the good Christian man. Those may have all been parts and pieces of me, but none of them are ME. I have darkness in me that is as dark as night- and yet I am known as, and expected to be, one who brings light. I struggle with depression and sadness- all day, every day- yet I am known as one who brings happiness. My weariness and exhaustion are at times unbearable, yet I am known as one who brings comfort. I am in turmoil, yet I’m known as one who brings peace. I have skeletons in my closet. I have secrets. You don't know me.

I love you all, but I can’t keep pretending for you. I can’t keep living to please you. I can’t keep living with my main, number one fear in life being disappointing friends, family, acquaintances and even complete and total strangers who I’ve never met, nor will ever meet. I can no longer carry the weight of pleasing a community on my shoulders. It's just too heavy to bear. I can no longer put your opinions about me over my own health. I’m being crushed and I am looking at escape plans far too often. Weary. I’ve been weary for the longest time. Weary. Living with a worried mind.

My dear friends, none of this is your fault. And I won’t blame my mom, because whatever she did to me was a direct result of something that was done to her- and so on and so on and so on, right down the family line. And I won’t blame the devil. Or society. Or God. Or myself. This is just my life as it turned out for me. Period. I have allowed it all to happen up to this point, and I have the right and the responsibility to manage my life as I see fit, and it’s high time I made some positive changes.
It begins with truth.

I am just a regular guy. I have issues. My job is to entertain people so that they can forget about their worries and be happy, even if only for a little while. I am not passionate about playing the guitar and singing- that’s just the delivery system I was given to help people- it’s my toolbox . I am deeply committed to helping others. I am not a saint. I am not a Godly man. I am not a good Christian in terms of today’s Christianity. I am a man of constant sorrow who is searching for truth and meaning in life. I love God. I believe in God more fervently right now than at any point or time in my life. I am on a lifelong quest to Know God As God Knows Himself To Be. I fully intend to continue this quest, this lifelong quest, to my last breath- because I believe that the pursuit of God is the most tangible, meaningful and heartfelt way I have of showing my deepest love and devotion to Him- wherever, whoever or whatever He is. I will not presume to tell you what to think or what to feel, and I have no desire to defend my thoughts or beliefs. They are mine. I have extreme anger issues and am prone to depression. I have sat with seven different counselors from various backgrounds. I have been on anti-depressants and OCD meds.  I have read self-help books, watched videos and listened to the advice of smarter people than me. What I have never done is allowed myself to be openly honest for fear of disappointing… YOU. My wife knows all about every single one of my issues- the ones I’ve listed and others that for now I’ll keep to myself. She has been faithful and long-suffering. She has done her level best to live with a VERY difficult man for thirty-plus years. I am a HANDFUL. She has done very, very well under extremely trying circumstances and has held on firmly to her faith to keep her strong. She is a woman of the strongest convictions and she is immovable in her beliefs… she is a Godly, Christian woman. I do not fault her for my depression, anger or sadness.  There is no blame, just life.

I am 100% sure that this letter of mine will disappoint many of you. Normally, this is where I would apologize for disappointing you. No more. In the words of the great philosopher Popeye the Sailor, “I yam what I yam and tha’s all I yam”. If I, just being me, am disappointing to you, it says more about you than it does about me. And vice-versa.

I will likely, at some point, write again in greater detail about my quest for truth. But not now.

Moving forward, I am going to try my best to continue to serve you in the best ways I know how, uninterrupted and hopefully without a noticeable loss of quality. I love you, but I’m not going to live my life for you anymore. If I disappoint you in some way, well, life will have its disappointments.

As this journey unfolds, I’ll keep you posted as needed- not to please you, but in hopes that maybe one or two of you may be able to relate and feel a little less alone. I think living a better life is an attainable goal. Maybe we can do this together.
I fight on. The race is not over. Above all, I love you.