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By Kent Larsen
Phoenix Journalist Says Laake Blamed Mormons for Her Mental Illness
PHOENIX, ARIZONA -- In a tribute to Mormon journalist Deborah
Laake, who committed suicide earlier this year, Phoenix journalist Terry Greene
Sterling says that Laake blamed her clinical depression on
"Mormonism and the men in her life." Laake was the author of the controversial
tell-all "Secret Ceremonies," which detailed LDS Temple ceremonies
and led to her excommunication from the LDS Church.
Laake's book was published in the spring of 1993 and became an
immediate success, appearing on the New York Times' bestseller list for 15
weeks. Laake went on to appear on talk shows, fielding questions about the
book and trying to explain why she claimed that her religion nearly destroyed
her.
But Sterling says that she didn't realize the extent of Laake's
mental illness, which Sterling says she saw as early as 1989. That year
Laake won a top Arizona writing award for her work as a journalist on Phoenix's
alternative New Times. Laake ordered an assistant to bring a dozen
long-stemmed American Beauties to the ceremonies, so that the roses
could be given to her at the award ceremony, at which Laake gave "an
offensively self-congratulatory acceptance speech." According to Sterling,
Laake remains the only recipient to demand roses. Sterling also says that Laake
picked fights with other editors and writers on the New Times' staff who she
perceived as a threat
Sterling reads "Secret Ceremonies" differently than most
Mormons, calling it a "fascinating and compelling read about Laake's struggle to
survive waves of self-destructive depression." She says Laake blamed Mormonism
and the men in her life for "terrible dark spells that followed giddy manic
highs."
After writing Secret Ceremonies," Laake developed breast cancer,
and blamed the side effects of chemotherapy for preventing her from writing
again. "I often wondered whether she was actually paralyzed by
depression," says Sterling. Laake then moved repeatedly between Phoenix and Charleston,
South Carolina. Sterling says she last saw Laake after her mother died.
During dinner with friends, she fell apart and cried over the refusal of
local LDS Church officials to let her give a eulogy at her mother's funeral or
sit at the front of the church with the family. According to Sterling, Laake
couldn't understand that her attack on Mormonism in "Secret
Ceremonies" was the reason.
Source:
Secret grief
Salon.com 27Oct00 P2
By Terry Greene Sterling
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