Living Through Suicide
Let’s Chat Afterglow #4
Disclaimer: The statements in bold are not widely accepted language anymore when talking about suicide
Recently on the “Let’s Chat” Podcast we talked about suicide. This has been a subject very near and dear to my heart for over three decades. It is another one of those topics that we used to be afraid to talk about. People whispered when talking about “those people” who had killed themselves. As a child, if you stumbled upon adults who were talking about someone who had committed suicide, they would stop talking and ask you to leave the room, which made it all the more intriguing to eavesdrop on. When I heard people discussing suicide, it was many times with an air of disgust and very little compassion. Instead, those who died by suicide were cast off as someone who was crazy, had a nervous breakdown, were schizophrenic or possessed by demons. To be honest, it kind of freaked me out whenever I heard about someone who completed suicide. I thought about “those people” as being someone who should have been committed to a mental hospital. When I heard that someone in our community had failed at their suicide attempt and was living at home, I was scared to death of them. For the most part, it was the church that thrust these stereotypes upon me.
I was always intrigued, call me weird if you will, with the death of people by suicide. Even as a child, I just wanted to understand. Why would someone want to die this way? What had happened to them? There had to be a reason. How could someone do that? But the more I thought about it, the more scared I got even to the point of having nightmares about it. It was always monstrous, and demons were everywhere. Even scarier than the stereotypical description that was associated with people who killed themselves was the fact that everyone who committed suicide was going to hell.
It just seemed like a subject too dark, too intense, and too sad for me to tackle so I tried to avoid it as much as possible. However, it became impossible to sweep it under the carpet when my sister attempted suicide the first time. She was in her mid-20s and took every pill in the medicine cabinet, prescription and over the counter. Her husband called us and gave us the bad news. I didn’t know what to do. I knew that my family seemed to be more disgusted than fearful, but I was fearful and confused. What drove her to do this? Was her husband abusing her? Had she received a bleak health diagnosis? Had her dog died? It had to be something horrible because only mental patients and crazies try to kill themselves.
My parents saw it as a ploy for attention and a way for her to get out of going to work, a downright selfish act. I said that I needed to go to her, and my Dad said he would come along. There she lay, with tubes coming out of her, she had been given charcoal to absorb as much of the poison as possible. She had obviously vomited because she had the black charcoal all over herself. When she realized we were there, she told me that she just wanted to go, she was tired and in so much pain. I immediately understood what she was talking about. She had been fighting mental health issues since she was a child. I tried my best to help her, but it was beyond my scope. Her struggles were never addressed because it was chalked up to other things, hormones, fabrication, being a spoiled brat, etc. I always knew it was more than that, but I didn’t know what to do with it. And now, it appeared that she had truly given up. She had lost her will to live. It wasn’t demons. It wasn’t because she was crazy. It wasn’t because her husband was beating her. It was because she had a disease. She was tired, in pain, and fearful that she would never be able to please God because of the disease she had. That is what ignorance, judgment, and stereotyping can do to someone suffering with mental health issues.
We did my sister a terrible injustice by not addressing her mental health issues, but we didn’t know then what we know now about this disease. But, more than that, we, the church, as Christians had not done right by Wendy, and I was convinced that there were a lot of Wendys out there. It became one of my missions in life, to try to understand the whys. I quickly began to realize that suicide had so many layers to it that needed to be peeled back one layer at a time. Was it trauma that led to mental health decline or sickness? If so, we need to deal with the trauma. Was it a missed diagnosis or treatment for a mental condition? If so, we need a second or third medical opinion. Does the medication given for the mental diagnosis have side effects such as depression and suicidal ideations? If so, we need to be vigilant in watching for the side effects. We had to factor in all of the above with my sister, trauma, missed diagnosis, and medications that brought more harm than good. It helps to be educated about this subject and attentive in observing. If we don’t address the root cause of suicide, which is mental health, people will continue to take their own life. But, if we continue to learn more about mental health, these numbers will go down. That is the goal. We can’t talk about suicide without talking about mental health, which is a very broad subject. We can only touch on it here, but we will continue to try to tackle this behemoth matter.
No one is too young to begin talking about it. Suicide is not a dirty word, nor are the people who succumb to it. They aren’t crazy, trying to get attention, or playing around. They are struggling with their mental health, it might be a temporary struggle due to their circumstances or situation, a recent tragedy, bad news, etc., but it is still a mental health issue. It may be due to a long-term mental health problem that has not yet been diagnosed or the right medicinal cocktail given. Regardless, it is a mental health issue. Church, please stop saying it is because of sin in someone’s life, disobedience, or rebellion. Please stop saying that people who kill themselves are going to hell because they have completed the unpardonable sin. Who gave you the right to label this sin as the unpardonable one? Yes, it is a sin, the sin of murder, but no worse than any other sin. Do you label it as unpardonable because one cannot ask for forgiveness before completing the sin and in death have no chance of asking for forgiveness after? What about the Christian man who is in the act of adultery, who has a heart attack, and dies? He did not have the chance to ask for forgiveness. Is he in hell? What about someone who has been stealing office supplies from their work place who is killed in a car accident on the way home who has not asked for forgiveness? Is she in hell? Should I go on because I can. Jesus died for all our sins, past, present, and future. From the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). No other sacrifice would ever be needed. Sin had been atoned for, all
sin. We have been justified by the death and resurrection of Christ, it’s just as if we never sinned. He declares us to be righteous. We still sin, but God’s declaration is unchangeable. The fact of our justification argues for the fact that our future sins are forgiven. Amen! Hallelujah! “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Nothing, not even our future sins, can condemn us. Jesus has already handed down our verdict and it is innocent, forgiven in Christ Jesus! “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). The future cannot separate us from God’s love, even if there is sin in our
future. That truly is the Good News!
Yes, I am passionate about this topic. Yes, it is personal for me. You see, my sister went on to have several non-fatal attempts at suicide. I am a suicide survivor. It was heartbreaking every time. The last time, four years ago, turned her life upside down. Her life was falling apart before her eyes, her husband lost his good-paying job of 30+ years, their insurance would come to an end, it was covering the medications that she so desperately needed, it looked like they would lose their home, which meant she would have to give up her beloved pets, and her husband told her that divorce would be their best option. It was just too much for her. She, once again, took a lethal dose of her prescription drugs, washed them down with alcohol, and headed to the garage to top it off by drinking gasoline. Fortunately, she passed out before she raised the glass to her mouth. They were able to revive her once again. She was a shell of a woman at this point and remanded to a mental hospital. There is so much more to her story that I hope to share with you one day, but she was my reason to begin this crusade of addressing the topic of suicide head on.
I am definitely an advocate for suicide awareness and prevention. Where I may differ from other people is that I believe this conversation needs to start while children are in elementary school or shortly thereafter. If we can shatter the stigma that still keeps us from talking about it, we will make even greater progress in bringing the numbers down. People who die by suicide aren’t weak, demon possessed, or crazy, they have a disease. People who die by suicide, die because of a disease just like some people die from cancer, diabetes, or heart disease.
Are people who complete suicide in hell? If that person was born again at the time of their suicide, they are in the presence of Jesus. If you say that someone who is truly born again would not kill themselves, you do not understand mental health issues. Thankfully, Jesus does, and he will receive those who die by suicide into his arms. Our approach to this subject must change because Jesus came to make all things, all people, new. He brought us from death to life. There is nothing that can’t be restored, healed, or fixed by the blood of Jesus. Let us get THAT message out there, talk about it, and break the stigma.
