Between the ages of 18 and 23 I suffered from depression, suicidal thoughts, and self-harm episodes where I would cut myself. All of this occured because of life choices I made. My younger brother was the only one who knew, and he never told our parents.

One day, when I was 23 I OD’d on some pills. A mutual friend of my brother and myself told my brother about it. He said he didn’t want to “rat me out” but it was time for our parents to know what was going on. I begged him not to tell and promised to “get help”. He told me that he wouldn’t tell – so long as I did the following day.

At 23 yrs old, I had to tell my parents about me trying to kill myself. That was going to require me to be completely honest with them about my feelings rather than being the “happy-go-lucky” person I tried to be around them. I felt some relief that I was 3,000 miles away, but at the same time I wanted to be there at home with them. My dad asked me if I knew what he would’ve done if I had done something so foolish at home. I responded something along the lines of “you’d have killed me” to which he said “I wouldn’t have killed you, that was what you were trying to accomplish. But I would have spanked you and made you wish your attempt at killing yourself had been successful.” My father isn’t one to “pull punches”. He says things the way he means them, so I had no doubts then — nor do I have now — that he was serious about the consequences I would’ve faced if I had been home rather than across the country.

Many who have heard this think that it was down-right sick for a father to threaten his 23 year old daughter with a spanking. I personally thought I was too old for a spanking, however I have never felt more loved and secure than I did during that phone conversation with my dad, and I know this much, a year and a half has passed since that evening, and I haven’t so much as THOUGHT about killing myself or cutting, much less actually done so. Prior to the talk I had with my dad, I thought about death almost constantly and would either cut or make plans to kill myself at least twice a month, often times much more often. Who knows, maybe if my brother had “ratted me out” sooner, I would’ve gotten out of my depressed state a lot sooner and begun living a happy life instead of the mere existence I was in before.

Anyway, just my thoughts since I’ve seen in my own life that spanking does work, if the parent(s) spank with love, and not out of anger. If my dad had been yelling at me (rather than just being very firm with me) the night he told me he would’ve spanked me if I were home; yeah, I would’ve probably been terrified. But with him being calm, yet firm about it, I knew I was loved and cared for…enough so that he wouldn’t allow me to put my saftey in jepoardy and he wouldn’t allow me to disobey God by trying to murder myself.

I know that Tripp uses these same thoughts throughout the book, but someone just reading that quote might think Tripp believes in spanking and walking away, which he does not…