“Have you had thoughts of taking your own life?”
The pastor’s question to me in my early twenties was met with a pause, a hesitation. Then my response.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Dave, I wonder if the hesitation there indicates that maybe at some level you had considered it? “
His reply shocked me. No, I don’t think that I had really any serious thoughts of ending it, not even the kind of half hearted attempt to make a cry for help.
I know friends who not only have wrestled with the temptation, good friends, faithful brothers in Christ who have made serious attempts to kill themselves. Sadly I have known people who did follow through and commit suicide. One of the hardest things to do was to take a funeral in such a situation
That has not been the case for me. Of course I can talk here about why not in terms of theology, I know it would be wrong etc. I can also maybe see this as being linked to a squeamishness about pain and blood. It is worth noting though that these factors alone don’t explain things, after all there are plenty of people who hold the theology and experience the squeamishness who do end up emptying the bottle of pills or jumping off a cliff. Perhaps there is just something in my disposition which guards me about thinking and feeling that way. Maybe there is something in God’s providence to me which means he has kept me from that specific temptation for a reason.
However, one of the things I’ve learned through life is that there is more than one way to die. Indeed, death is not just about a physical end. In Scripture death is closely linked with the idea of exile. This has helped me to think more about what I might be prone to in those darkest moments.
For me, there is something that prompts a desire to flee, to escape. In my dreams at that point I am running away. In life it can come on as a desire to just keep walking, or even once I remember the desire to just find somewhere to go, lie down, curl up and sleep.
There are other ways that we can try to end it, or try to escape that are not literally suicide but may well be a form of suicide. These might include seeking to hit the self destruct button on hopes and dreams or friendships. Sadly for some it can mean walking out on a marriage and family. For others it might mean making career ending choices, even such as the desire to send in the resignation letter. And indeed, with all of those, there can both be the full on attempt to follow through as with an actual suicide attempt, there can be the botched attempts as well as the successful and there can be the cries for help .
On a side point, I was once told that you should always accept someone’s’ resignation and not attempt to keep them. That’s true and good advice to some extent. However, we might just want to be alert that there may be something going on in terms of mental health. This may be their cry for help.
Anyway, my point here is that there are these other ways to try and end it, to try and escape. I think that as with literal suicide we can do things right help ourselves and others.
First, it is helpful to make sure that those around you, those you trust are aware of this, both that this is your risk and the occasions when you are particularly feeling the pressure. Additionally let them know what might particularly trigger a response from you so that they know what buttons not to press.
Secondly, we need the good, healthy theology of the Gospel. I think once we remember that death is a change, not the end then it helps with these metaphorical attempts to die. The reality is that I don’t really get to escape from what matters. I still have things to face.
Better still the Gospel hope of resurrection brings light into those situations too. If I’m in a place where death seems to be ruling and the end point destination, I’m reminded that it is not.
Faithroots 