Beauty from Ashes

I recently noticed that in the first few pages of the phone book, there is a section with emergency numbers. It’s not a very long list, but among them is a suicide hot line. Did you know that people want you to live? Suicide is something so troubling to others that there are people waiting by telephones 24 hrs. a day to help you stay alive.

I write today not because this is a subject I enjoy, but because I simply can not keep silent. I feel compelled to reach out in this small way and perhaps touch someone’s life and shed light into their darkness. If you stumbled on this blog because you are having suicidal thoughts and are seeking help, I’m glad you’ve come . Maybe you are ashamed that you are having these thoughts. Perhaps it is your deepest darkest secret that no one knows about. You may have just gone through some traumatic experience and wish to never see the light of day again. Whatever the case, suicidal thoughts are very, very real and painful. You can’t run away from them. Reading this may make you feel even worse, but I think that the first step towards recovering from suicidal urges is to recognize that they are what they are, and realize that you have a problem. My heart aches for you and I wish that I could somehow relieve you of your pain, but I can’t. However, I want to share with you some things that I have found helpful in dealing with this scary and painful issue.

A little bit of my story…

I have often questioned why I have experienced suicidal urges and found myself depressed. I mean, I can think of many things in this world that are horrifying, but they don’t actually affect my personal life. I am surrounded by loving people, yet somehow convincing myself that I should not be depressed doesn’t cut it. I have had bouts of depression and suicidal urges since I was a child, and often spent nights filled with paranoia, nightmares, and discouragement.   As I navigated through my teen years I bottled everything up inside and shared nothing of my desire to end my life. In fact it may have appeared that I had it all together pretty well for a teenager. Still, I was lonely and depressed. There was one very special friend who listened to my heartache, but still did not know of my darkest moments. Now I find myself happily married to a loving and caring husband. We have the cutest little boy you have ever seen, and on top of all of that we have a most loving and loyal dog.

Things really started to escalate for me right after our son was born. Perhaps this would have been considered post-partum depression, but since I had experienced depressive times in the past, it was not alarmingly unusual. My husband knew that I would get depressed from time to time, but I was so ashamed to share that sometimes I had suicidal thoughts. Here I was at the happiest time of life, blessed with so much, but yet there were times when the waves of depression would come crashing down over me, envelop me, and make me cry out for relief. Your situation is most likely much different than mine, but I share all of this to point out that depression and suicidal feelings can afflict any of us for seemingly no good reason.

Depression can be caused by so many things and any one can feel it. In fact everyone on this earth has probably felt down a time or two. This is normal, however it is not normal to find yourself in a place of despair frequently and for it to take you to a place of wanting to end your life. It becomes exhausting to visit these desperate moments over and over again.

Coping

Learning to cope with difficult situations is a wonderful skill to have. When you break a bone you learn to cope with a temporary disability as you wait for your body to heal. After your body heals you continue to be more cautious, being careful not to stress the wounded area so that you regain complete strength and mobility. Coping alone does not mend the broken bone, but certainly aids in the recovery. In the same way, learning to cope with your depression and suicidal feelings can lead you to a place of healing and peace.

Here are some practical ways of learning to cope:

First of all, when you are in the middle of those overwhelming episodes, assure yourself that this will not go on forever. You’ve had these feelings before, and they eventually passed. In the scriptures Psalm 30:5 says “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” At times I have thought of this verse and found it to be encouraging to continue on, knowing things will get better. Recovering from an experience like this is not impossible, so just staying calm or literally sleeping it out can bring you to a better place. Tell someone about what is going on. Sometimes it is hard to trust others when you are this depressed, but think back to a time when you felt good and remember the person you were with then. Go to that person and just let them in a little bit. Express your feelings. Keep in mind this can be really scary news for them to hear, but it is better to let someone help bear your burden then slowly crumble under the pressure of it alone. If you don’t share what is going on with those you are closest with, don’t fool yourself in to thinking that avoiding the problem will actually keep it from affecting you and those you love. When we are depressed and suicidal we are capable of acting and doing things that are hurtful to those around us, sometimes unknowingly. We are not ourselves, and we tend to act out of character.

Second of all, if your times of depression tend to stretch over the span of several days or weeks you must learn to take care of yourself during this time. Let me be really simple here, you must eat, sleep, and most likely you have a job to do. If you are a new mother like me, you simply must take care of your child even if you are depressed. How does one do this?

There are several simple things that I found helpful.

Get plenty of rest. Even if you are not taking care of a new baby still your body needs rest. Depression is very stressful for our bodies, and sleep can help to alleviate that. Set some very simple goals for the day. Make a list that goes something like this:

Shower and get dressed in the morning

Make a smoothie

Go outside for half an hour

Put the dirty clothes in the hamper

This can help you to focus on something else and cause the time to pass more quickly.

Another idea is to choose activities that will not only give you something to do, but will do good in someone else’s life. Thinking of others is sometimes a very enlightening thing to do, because often you come to realize that others are struggling too. This can help you to not focus on yourself constantly. During the times that you are depressed, finding ways to normalize your day is super helpful. Even though being depressed makes you feel pretty bad about yourself and you may want to neglect things that make you feel better, try to just do the basic stuff. Sometimes even this can feel impossible to do, but once you start taking little baby steps it becomes easier.

Depression comes in waves. Celebrate when the tide pulls back and seize that moment to look in to the faces of those you love and appreciate them. Take that moment and venture to an activity that you enjoy. Enjoy and savor those moments and remind yourself that there will be more of them. Sometimes this can help to keep the waves from sweeping back over you.

In the times when you are able to see the sunshine and appreciate the good around you, take the time to research and observe yourself. Step back and look at your situation. Pinpointing something that seems to bring on depression and later leads to suicidal thoughts can help you steer away from that particular activity or person. Perhaps your diet is lacking in foods that help promote wellness of mind and body. Maybe your living situation is very dismal. Here in the northwest people can get really depressed because of the lack of sunshine in the winter. Do you have goals that you are pursuing? Or is your life a monotonous stream of uninteresting events. Sometimes life does just seem like a bunch of nothingness; but, if you have just one thing that you day dream about, one thing that you enjoy, or one all consuming goal, you may find yourself happy to go about your daily chores and not find them discouraging because your main interest is elsewhere.

Consider the obvious. Did you just give birth, have some big life change, lose someone you loved? These things are hard on anyone, so don’t beat yourself up because you are not responding perfectly. Study up on supplements and herbs. Look into making dietary changes that might help. There are of course drugs that can help mask the symptoms of depression, and there are professionals whose job is to help people navigate life’s challenges and provide support and advise. The point is, there are things that can be done to help you recover and live a normal and happy life.

A little experiment I did on myself proved to be quite helpful. In an effort to look at the reality of my depression I made a quick spreadsheet and wrote all sorts of feelings at the top:

Joy, Sadness, Happiness, Overwhelmed, Hopeless, Depressed, Suicidal, Contented, Satisfied, Peaceful, Hopeful.

For one month I tracked each of these feelings and documented all the feelings I felt each day. Sure there were some days I felt super low all day, but there were many days where I would swing from one end to the other end of the spectrum. This was quite revealing and although it was sad to look at how many times I had checked the box under “depressed” it was amazing to see how many days I had also felt joyful and contented. Sometimes when you feel so down all you can remember are the many, many times before you have felt just this way, and lose sight of the times even quite recently you were doing well.

The most amazing insight I gained from this experiment was that these were all just feelings engulfed in a swarm of emotions. Feelings is all they are. They alone do not have the power to destroy me.

Psalm 23 is a beautiful Psalm, but until recently it had no personal meaning to me. Vs 24 says “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me.” When we are in those dark, low times we are not alone. We can turn to Jesus knowing that he will not ever leave us, He will carry us through.