Pain, Suffering and Suicide
This morning I could almost take a deep breath and exhale without some emotion choking it off.
Almost.
I know I'm not the only one going through something. There are people in the world going through stuff so serious, for me to talk about my problems or what has happened to me is trivial in their lives.
We all have the same story, the details are just different.
Not even God could comfort me in the earlier part of the week!
Yeah I know, that's pretty freaking lame, but honesty is a strong suit for me.
I'm pretty sure I've ridden the roller coaster of every single emotion a person could possibly have this week and this morning I'm just so thankful to not wake up crying, feeling sick to my stomach and wishing I could just go ahead and throw up, get it over with.
Praise God today is a new day.
Halleluiah I made it!
It doesn't matter that I'm still trying to see the bright side of things, what matters is I am here, because some people didn't make it to here this week.
What matters is God saw fit to wake me this morning.
We all want to be victorious but no one tells you about the journey you have to go on and conquer to be that victor. No one can prepare you for those moments when your heart is completely broken and you want to scream but nothing comes out.
People can tell you their stories all day long but it can't possibly prepare you for the moments when the wind gets knocked out of you.
A song just popped into my head, tell your heart to breathe again. I get it. I had to tell my heart to breathe again, a bunch of times this week!
There were moments when I could do no more than sob and cry out to my Father.
I had people I could have reached out to but my sorrow was so great I wanted to keep it all to myself. I know me, I know what I can handle and I also know sometimes people don't want to hear your problems or be caught up in your grief.
It's a terrible catch 22.
I'm okay with it, but what about those who don't have a voice, those who need someone to reach out to? What happens to them?
No matter what, we need to be more available to others. We need to be sensitive to the fact everyone is going through something and some are going through even harder stuff.
Some suffer in complete silence because we've been taught the lies, you don't put your business in the streets, what goes on in our house stays in our house, everybody don't need to know your dirty laundry.
I remember hearing these lies loudly and clearly when I was young. My mother didn't want everyone knowing my daddy was beating her half to death every chance he got. What goes on in our house isn't everyone's business. Hell the neighbors hear y'all, you're making it other people's business!
Not one person ever stepped in to help her.
Not one person ever picked up the phone and called the police because the woman next door is begging and pleading for her life.
It's a mind your own business and shut your mouth kind of world.
Only now you have people minding their own business and keeping their mouths shut making videos of these horrible things as they happen.
What is wrong with folks? Seriously?
I need my people! I need someone to reach out to! I need someone I can call when things get tough!
I also want to be that person for so many others.
People are hurting, some are thinking the world would be a better place without them and there are no voices telling them otherwise.
Maybe you know one of these people but you've been living life and wrapped up in your own stuff, you may not have noticed them. You might even know more than one.
Pain can be a deep dark prison and sometimes it's so great you embrace the darkness. Then hopelessness steps in and does what it does and before you know it you're talking to yourself about how it would be so much easier to just end things.
I'll be honest, I had a voice tell me it would be better if I just died. It reassured me my pain would be over and I would finally stop crying. For real!
Some people don't know how to push those thoughts and that voice aside. They don't have the voices of others drifting around in their heads, reminding them how loved they are, how valuable they are, how the world is a better place because they are in it. They look at their lives and see nothing to grab hold of and no one there to catch them, because they are falling fast.
Not too long ago a great man of God I know told a story how the spirit of suicide had come over him and how the voice kept talking to him validating itself. He was even surprised by it. It said things to him like, "It would be easy, no one would know, you could just........", "No one's going to miss you, they will be better off."
Its a liar!
It's not easy and everyone will know and no one is better off without you!
When I sat down to write this morning, this is not even what I had in mind, God just brought it to the forefront because someone needs to talk about it. Someone needs to be a light shining in a world of darkness for someone else. Someone needs to not mind their own business or keep their mouth shut.
We don't know what pushes a person to take their own life and we don't want to know.
It's a hard thing to understand.
Like my own pain this week. My girls were calling me every day to make sure I was okay. All this pain and suffering over a couple of dogs, but those dogs were as important to me as any people I know and my heart will be forever broken because they couldn't live forever here with me.
That same pain could have taken me by the hand and led me down a deep dark hole of no return. It was so great there were moments when I thought my heart would just give out.
I hate the to even say it, but you never know what force is waiting around the next corner, ready to jump you and take all your pain and change it into something else.
Your pain can be a prison, it can also be a platform and I always choose to use it as a platform.
I've got to talk about it, I need people to know what's going on with me, I dealt with voices for years. They knew my name, they would talk to me all the time and I didn't know how to shut them out.
I've decided not to be so caught up in just my own life. I've decided other people are just as and more important than I am and I want to be that light for them, that answered prayer, that last ditch telephone call in the middle of the night when someone else is grasping at straws.
I'm never going to shut up and mind my own business.
1-800-273-8255 suicide hotline
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