depression – Page 47 – Broken Believers

Suicide– A Second Look

The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 1 million people die each year from suicide. What drives so many individuals to take their own lives? To those not in the grips of suicidal depression and despair, it’s difficult to understand. But a suicidal person is in so much pain that he or she can see no other option.

Suicide is a desperate attempt to escape suffering that has become unbearable. Blinded by feelings of self-loathing, hopelessness, and isolation, a suicidal person can’t see any way of finding relief except through death. But despite their desire for the pain to stop, most suicidal people are deeply conflicted about ending their own lives. They wish there was an alternative to committing suicide, but they just can’t see one.

Suicide is not chosen; it happens
when pain exceeds
resources for coping with pain.

Because of their ambivalence about dying, suicidal individuals usually give warning signs or signals of their intentions. The best way to prevent suicide is to know and watch for these warning signs and to get involved if you spot them. If you believe that a friend or family member is suicidal, you can play a role in suicide prevention by pointing out the alternatives, showing that you care, and getting a doctor or psychologist involved.

Common Misconceptions about Suicide

FALSE: People who talk about suicide won’t really do it.
Almost everyone who commits or attempts suicide has given some clue or warning. Do not ignore suicide threats. Statements like “you’ll be sorry when I’m dead,” “I can’t see any way out,” — no matter how casually or jokingly said may indicate serious suicidal feelings.

FALSE: Anyone who tries to kill him/herself must be crazy.
Most suicidal people are not psychotic or insane. They must be upset, grief-stricken, depressed or despairing, but extreme distress and emotional pain are not necessarily signs of mental illness.

FALSE: If a person is determined to kill him/herself, nothing is going to stop him/her.
Even the most severely depressed person has mixed feelings about death, wavering until the very last moment between wanting to live and wanting to die. Most suicidal people do not want death; they want the pain to stop. The impulse to end it all, however overpowering, does not last forever.

FALSE: People who commit suicide are people who were unwilling to seek help .
Studies of suicide victims have shown that more then half had sought medical help within six month before their deaths.

FALSE: Talking about suicide may give someone the idea.
You don’t give a suicidal person morbid ideas by talking about suicide. The opposite is true –bringing up the subject of suicide and discussing it openly is one of the most helpful things you can do.

Source: SAVE – Suicide Awareness Voices of Education

Excellent site: http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

More info: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/suicide_prevention.htm

Upgrading to Joy

by Julie Anne Fidler, BB Weekly Contributor

I don’t know about you, but when I’m feeling ill – particularly with depression – I don’t want to do anything. Getting out of bed is a chore, tackling business or housework is excruciating, and when it’s all over we are twice as exhausted as we were when we started. Church seems out of the question. Reading the Bible seems impossible. Joy is a far-away star hurtling through the cosmos that you can’t grasp and reign in. Your world shuts down and you have no desire to grant access to anyone or anything. Sadness is a great isolator.

One of my favorite websites is www.dictionary.com (a writer’s best friend!) It defines joy as “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying.” The primary words here are “caused by.” We don’t always feel joy. Heck, nobody does. But if you battle mental illness, that statement is especially true. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy and he uses our brain chemistry to do so. He’s so, so good at stealing our joy. But knowing that joy is caused by something should give us a lot of hope!

Maybe the Enemy can snatch our joy, but we can snatch it back. How do we do that? We decide to go against our feelings of despair and exhaustion and pursue it. Job’s suffering makes ours seem almost laughable by comparison and yet even he was able to find the cause of joy and run to it.

“let their flesh be renewed like a child’s;
   let them be restored as in the days of their youth’—
²⁶ then that person can pray to God and find favor with him,
   they will see God’s face and shout for joy;
   he will restore them to full well-being.
²⁷ And they will go to others and say,
   ‘I have sinned, I have perverted what is right,
   but I did not get what I deserved.”

-Job 33:25-27

Job, a man who lost everything and was abandoned by everyone he ever cared for, understood what unlocks joy, and that was God himself. Jesus, of course, understood the same concept.

“Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” –John 16:24

During a very dark period in my life, I started visiting my current church with friends who were already members there. My church is a rather Pentecostal church (no snake-handling or anything crazy like that, I promise) and at the time I was visiting, I was a member of a much more subdued church. I was in so much emotional pain that I opted out of worship altogether. I sat in my seat and cried as others raised their hands and shouted praise and I wondered how they could be so happy when we live in a world that is so cold.

But a funny thing happened as I sat there in tears – the little layer of ice around my heart began to melt. I wasn’t on my feet dancing, but I felt warm peace seep into the frigid hopelessness. I had found a tiny bit of joy, CAUSED by getting out of bed, getting dressed, and sitting in that church pew.

Say the word “joy” and two different pictures come to mind. In the first image, I see someone jumping up and down, pumping their fist in the air, shouting praise to God. In the second image, I see someone quiet and reserved, eyes closed, a tiny, peaceful smile on their lips. I believe that both of these images apply to us. Sometimes joy is all-consuming and we can’t help but shout. Other times, joy is a quiet whisper of hope in our ear, a flicker of happiness that says “take heart, God loves you.”

And I am learning that if we have no joy, whether it’s because we’re suffering a rough bout with our disease or because life is just hard in general, it’s because we’re not close enough to the cause of joy. Often, our minds say there is no hope or joy in this world, so we have to make a decision – are we going to listen to our messed-up emotions, or live by fact, which translates into walking by faith? If we want joy, we have find it.

One of the associate pastors at my church once said something that stuck with me. He said, “I want to be under the spout where the stuff of Heaven comes out.” It may be a little bit cheesy but it’s true. Corporate worship, quiet time alone with God, reading the Word, private worship and surrounding ourselves with people who compliment and encourage our faith are all “the stuff of Heaven” that cause joy. We have to get to the spout.

If you feel the walls closing in around you today, deny your pain, get up, and go find joy. The joy of the Lord is so powerful that a tiny drop is more than enough, I challenge you today to believe for an outpouring of it. Get up and get under that spout.

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Julie Anne Fidler is a contributing writer for Brokenbelievers.com. She comes with a humble and understanding heart for those with a mental illness. Her writing gift is valued greatly. Look for her post weekly, on this blog.

She keeps a personal ministry blog at www.mymentalhealthday.blogspot.com. Read more there.

Coffee, With a Shot of Truth

by Julie Anne Fidler, BB Weekly Contributor

I am sitting across from one of my best friends in a trendy little café, sipping coffee as we always do. We have been good friends for years; we can tell each other things. We can screw up and make amends. We know each other’s heart. We both love Jesus and came back to our faith after an extended period of wandering away. She is single and wants to be married. I am married and want to have children. There is a lot we can relate to, except for one issue.

My friend is depressed. I have never known her not to be. I’ve never known her to be suicidal, but she suffers from mild depression most of the time. It permeates her life and while she doesn’t see it as a nagging issue, I do. We have never had a conversation in which she does not bring it up. To her credit, she handles it well. In fact, I’d say she handles it better than I do a lot of the time. She is a social bug who constantly thrusts herself into activities, whereas I am more of an isolationist when I’m depressed.

No, the issue is not how she handles her depression. The issue is that she does not want to acknowledge her depression is an illness. She is stuck in the place I was in for so long – believing that if she could be a better person spiritually, she would not be depressed at all. We’ve had “the talk” many times. I’ve told her about my own trials and tribulations and I’ve gone so far as to look up and explain the brain chemistry behind depression. She always insists she can handle it on her own.

It’s a free country and we can’t force anyone to take medication if they don’t want to. I would even go so far as to say that while I think my friend is suffering needlessly, the fact that she is able to “maintain” and lead a productive life shows that medication might not be a dire necessity. I’m hoping that one day she realizes that 25 mgs of something won’t make her any less of a person or any less of a Christian. But it’s not my place to force that pill down her throat.

When does mental illness go from being a nuisance to a life-snatcher?
Throughout my life, I have had my share of strongholds and I would even venture to call some of them addictions. At one point I realized that whenever I was depressed, stressed, or angry I would automatically reach for the wine bottle. 2 Peter 2:19 says, “…people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” That single verse influenced me to change my behavior, and I believe it can be applied to mental illness, as well.

Jesus Christ came to free us of our sins, but also to free us from all the things this world uses to hold us back and keep us down. That is the beauty of Christ – we don’t have to wait until eternity to reap the benefits of being Christians. Jesus came to give us life and life more abundantly. That abundant life is, however, a choice.

There are different severities of mental illness. Not everyone needs the same thing. I need insulin for my diabetes, but my husband doesn’t take anything at all. Some choose not to seek help for their problem and that is their prerogative, but when does it cross over into foolishness? When someone asks me how I knew it was time to get help and seek a mental health diagnosis, I tell them I knew it was time when my problems ruled my universe and I lost just about everything and everyone I had. I had become a slave to bipolar disorder, and it had mastered me.

I used to believe that mental illness was in no way a spiritual issue, but I’ve come to realize that it is very much a spiritual issue. God never promised that life would be easy for believers. Come to think of it, the Bible tells us the exact opposite. But if you examine the Word of God, you will see that the Holy Spirit gives us gifts and abilities that enable to us to have inexplicable joy in the midst of painful circumstances. Are you facing your circumstances with a sense of hopelessness and despair? That’s not from the Lord.

Does your entire life feel hopeless? Do you despair when you should be having joy? Take a look at 2 Peter 2:19.

“They promise them freedom, but they themselves are not free. They are slaves of things that will be destroyed. For people are slaves of anything that controls them.”

Are you a slave to hopelessness and despair? Then maybe it’s time to reexamine your views on seeking help.

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Julie Anne Fidler is a contributing writer for Brokenbelievers.com. She comes with a humble and understanding heart for those with a mental illness. Her writing gift is valued greatly. Look for her post weekly, on this blog.

She keeps a personal ministry blog at mymentalhealthday.blogspot.com. Read more there.

2010 Links, Favorites

Below you will find internet links. I have gathered these up, finding them useful, entertaining and a blessing. Some of these are mental illness links, others quote links. Some are quite general, and others much more specific. There are also a few Bible study aids, and these are quite valuable as ‘good ones’ are hard to find.

I am sorry that they are just laid out like this, but to categorize them would be difficult. My apologies. I realize that this pretty raw, but I hope you’ll be able to ‘mine’ something out of them. I skimmed through and left a comment on some the url’s. Handling some of these may require some patience.

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http://www.biblegateway.com/, perhaps the best Bible/versions

http://www.thegracetabernacle.org/quotes/gracequotes.html

http://bipolar.alltop.com/

http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_publications

http://newstracts.org/christiansites.html, great collection

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/imonk-101-when-i-am-weak-why-we-must-embrace-our-brokenness-and-never-be-good-christians, the Monk is always good, this is one of my personal favs

http://www.gotquestions.org/, hundreds of questions, good site

http://www.moodyradio.org/brd_AudioMin.aspx?id=13144, interesting, and Moody as a rule is solid

http://www.preceptaustin.org/, good site, but take your time with it.

http://net.bible.org/home.php

http://www.roundtripmissions.com/, planning STM trip?