Suicide is a painful, horrific reality. Whenever I hear news of yet another soul taken by despair, it shakes me. A life, precious and sacred, is lost. A human who is irreplaceable, unique and unrepeatable, gone from the material world. There is an empty space that cannot be filled and refuses any attempt to. Yet, I know only a fraction of what the loved ones feel in the aftermath.
When the news breaks of yet another suicide, I mourn in my own way because I’ve been there…suicidal. I have been to the edge, peering over into the great chasm, wishing for the rush of the fall. The perverse justice of it. I leaned and swayed, waiting patiently for the sick courage to rise up in me in response to the voices who drowned out the truth of my worth.
Weight. There is so much weight and torment.
I know what lurks there, preying on the minds of the wounded, oppressed, exposed and outcast. I know what brews in the deep darkness of despair. I remember.
I’ve tried for most of my life to be the “good person” I’m supposed to be or to justify why I actually *was* even when my choices were not OK. To create an image that balanced the scales of my transgression, to make up for any turmoil I felt within or transgression that others caught wind of that might ruin the image and reputation we’ve all been taught to protect. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t providing the emotional relief I was seeking. I received praise for good virtue and hated myself in secret.
The internal critic, echos of the past, ruled me. I was it’s slave. And I could never please my master.
They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It sickens me when such heavy realities become cute tag lines or half truths that fail to capture the core gravity of it all. For me (and I can only speak for me), I honestly thought it would be just to end my life and set things right. As if I was a stain and if I blotted out that stain the world would be a better place. I considered it to be something like a final good act I could do. I did view it as a permanent solution to a temporary problem…BUT the difficult thing I had to overcome was that I thought it was a “good” solution to the problem of being me. I longed for relief from torment. A way to shut up those voices for good.
My sense of justice and goodness had been twisted and perverse. And I was always afraid. Somehow, I had come to believe that overt and covert hatred, insults, berating, and poor treatment of myself was not just OK but holy…some sort of a path to humility and protection from wrongdoing. I knew I needed to treat people well but I thought I could, at the same time, defame and crush my own soul and body (in some ways similar to treatment I had received) without fault and for the betterment of my spiritual state. I even swung a Bible verse or two to defend my behavior.
It was not until I learned about icons, the tangible tradition which represents an interaction with the truth of how all human beings are image bearers of God, that this became fully illuminated for me. It helped me see that the desecration of myself, an image bearer of God, was not just unholy but a great offense against the God I was trying to love. Still, He loved me, not matter what, no matter the wounds. But the consequence was that I could not bring myself to embrace that love for a long, long time.
It is a miracle that I walked away from the edge. A miracle that I found help. A miracle that the people who helped me were good people who were equipped, compassionate, and patient. They did not offer me faith-based, shallow silver linings to try to heal my gaping wounds with quick fixes. They embodied hope. Yes, those people exist. And gifted to me what I could not achieve on my own.
Grace. And the courage to pick up my cross and “struggle up the damn hill.”
When I compare the despair I remember to the growing relief I feel now, now that I have found safety, Truth and Love, I wish I could grab every person who lives in the torment of despair, drowning in the weight of it all, and bring them with me to the safe pastures I’ve found. I may not be able to do that. But here is what I can do.
If you are reading this, I want you to know that you are not alone. You are lovable and worthy of love. You are valuable. You are worth protecting. You are worthy of friendship and companionship. You deserve every ounce of healing that is available and that you choose to receive and engage with. You are worth fighting for. You are a unique, irreplaceable, unrepeatable human being. Now and always, in every season and in the midst of greatest triumph or transgression, that will never change.
You are not disqualified from mercy or care. And you don’t have to pretend to be OK if you are not. Therapy is not a magic pill and it is a path to healing. It’s OK if you don’t believe me yet. For now, I’ll believe for the both of us.
To those who do not struggle in this way, I want you to know that there are always signs. It’s never out of the blue. Please, if you care about this issue, equip yourself. The information is out there in abundance and I will list some links below to get you started. Be annoying and check in. Ask. Support. And please don’t spread myths about suicide you heard through gossip or toxic, fear mongering preachers. It’s OK to investigate what people share with confidence to discover it’s measure of validity.
Human life is so precious. SO precious and worth saving. And when it is lost, it’s OK to grieve and weep for as long as needed. The pain is so real. It never really goes away.
“While human freedom was not annihilated in the fall, both spiritual factors, like acedia (spiritual torpor), and physical factors, like depression, can severely compromise a person’s ability to reason clearly and act freely.”
Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas | Pastoral Letter on Suicide
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Hours: Available 24 hours.
Warning Signs – https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/warning-signs-of-suicide
Recognizing suicidal behaviors and the risks – https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11352-recognizing-suicidal-behavior
The Voice of a Phoenix 