SID: Hello, It’s Sid Roth, your investigative reporter, here with Jack and Peggy Joyce Ruth. What happens when, instantly, you’re normal, and then you become psychotic, you become a basket case, you become a vegetable and doctors offer no hope? This just happens in the movies. It’s not supposed to happen in real life. But it happened. And it happened to my guests that are here. But before I let you hear their story, I want you to know that this telecast is different than any telecast you’ve ever seen. Why is it different? Because you are not going to just sit back and relax, and be entertained. You are not going to be just a spectator. I tell you the supernatural is going to invade you. Sometime during this telecast you’ll see what I mean. Peggy Joyce, from what I understand your husband’s a successful businessman, you’ve got everything going for you, and you decide to talk to a neighbor of yours that is Buddhist. What happened?
PEGGY: Well, I had been reared in a Christian home, and we’d gone to church, it was a Baptist home, and I decided that I needed to go and tell her about Jesus, because she kept her house real dark, and she burned these incense, and I didn’t know anything about spiritual warfare. And so I went to her house and knocked, I was frightened. I really wasn’t doing it necessarily because God sent me; I just felt like I didn’t want her to go to hell. And when I got in, she said, “I want you to keep an open mind.” And she said, “I’ll listen to you if you’ll listen to me.” Well I thought that sounded like a fair exchange.
SID: Sure
PEGGY: And she started talking, I don’t remember anything she even said, but I just felt like all of a sudden I felt like I was chocking, my mind just started blitzing, and I couldn’t think where I was. All of a sudden I was so confused that I didn’t know, all I could think about is I have just got to get out of this place. And as soon as I got out I starting walking and all of these unbelievable thoughts started going through my mind. You know, what if there is not a God? You know, what if Jesus is not the right one? And I just, I literally went crazy in that…
SID: This isn’t supposed to happen in real life. Uh, Jack, when did you, were you first aware that something was going wrong with your wife?
JACK: I really wasn’t aware of it. I was a workaholic and so I spent fourteen hours a day at work and the lady at the library called me and said, “Your wife has serious problems, I think.” You know. And so that’s when I realized that she had been going down there every day studying the various kinds of religions.
SID: Why were you studying this Peggy?
PEGGY: Well I wasn’t, I wasn’t really trying to find one that I wanted, I was trying to disprove all these other religions in the hope of proving to myself that Jesus was the right way. And of course I was just getting deeper and deeper into this uh, horrible fear, and panic attacks, and depression. And it finally came to the place where I couldn’t even stay by myself. So when Jack found out about this he refused to let me go to the library and he started taking me…
SID: So you must have thought somehow the library was causing that…
JACK: Yeah, I thought she was too intelligent.
PEGGY: But I would steal encyclopedias out of my mother’s house and take them home so I could continue in this search.
SID: This was compulsive.
PEGGY: Oh, I was just obsessed. You know, and I got to the point where I couldn’t think. I would cry all the time. I would sleep, I would go to sleep to try to escape, and I have never been as tormented. I can’t even describe the torment that I went through. And I came to the place where I just said, you know, this isn’t worth living. I would never have tried to take my life, because I was too afraid to do that, but I knew that I had to have some help.
SID: Well Jack, did you arrange for her to get help?
JACK: Yes sir, I did. Of course, part of it was survival on my part. I was a backward multi-millionaire and so I had a lot of pressure on me at the company, and then, had this at home. She would wake up at 2:30 in the morning and just scream out, “Is there a God?” You know. And I don’t know if you’ve ever had someone screaming in the middle of the night, it takes your breath, you know. And it also made me think, is there a God? And she would say, “Tell me, how do you know there is a God?” And it moved me as well as it moved her. But interesting enough, I started searching for a reputable psychiatrist, and I found one that cost so much it had us going in the poor house rapidly. But I would keep pushing him, I would say I don’t care how much it cost, just get her well. And he would say, well, and after I nailed him pretty hard he said, “I can treat the symptoms, but I cannot treat the cause.” And that threw me.
SID: And so, all of a sudden you became hopeless.
JACK: Yeah.
SID: Now, you had shock treatment. Did that help?
PEGGY: Well, he put me through a long period of just doing the testing, and the talking with me. And when that didn’t work, well then he went to the shock treatments. And I had months of shock treatments. And of course I was on a lot of drugs.
JACK: That was every other day.
PEGGY: Yes, we would go every other day. And they say that that kills brain cells. It stops your short-term memory. And I was still miserable. I couldn’t remember what the problem was, but I knew there was something back there that was so desperately wrong that I would have to go to this measure to get well. And then of course, my memory started coming back. And when that started happening then I was in desperate shape again.
JACK: Yes. We had to take her back again.
SID: Okay. How long did this go on? How many years?
PEGGY: This went on for eight years.
SID: You must have totally given up.
JACK: Uh, she would have her good days occasionally.
SID: So, why didn’t you just do what a lot of people do, divorce your wife?
JACK: Well, the thing is, if I’d have been sick, she would have taken care of me. And she and I had a phenomenal marriage, I mean it was excellent. It started off good; we never got in an argument.
SID: You never saw anything like her behavior before.
JACK: Oh no, no, no, no, no. She was it. She was popular in high school; she had all sorts of honors in school. She just did everything perfect. But this thing sort of collapsed on me all at once.
SID: All that money and it didn’t help you one bit.
JACK: No.
PEGGY: He was a backward millionaire. That means he didn’t have any money.
SID: I missed that part. But I tell you what, she cried out in a desperate prayer, and supernaturally she was helped. Don’t go away, we’ll be right back after this word.
