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A member of my church committed suicide this week. He was a kind man, an ordained minister, who crashed into a clinical depression after a series of deep losses over the last few years.
I had been working with him and with his wife since last September. I watched helplessly as they walked through the morass of clinical diagnoses, attempted and failed treatments, one after another – hospitalizations, stabilizations, relapses.
Through all this his wife attempted to navigate a healing path, pleading with doctors, cajoling her husband, begging him to fight for his own life.
It was pretty clear to both of us in February that he had just given up all hope of being well again. The incredible emptiness of deep depression numbed him to the bone.
On Thursday, after his wife went to work, he found the wherewithal to take himself downstairs to his private study, find the antique shotgun that had been his father’s and the bullets hidden away and ended his own life.
Suicide brings up so many conflicting emotions. Someone I love has been murdered by someone I love.
I understand his horrible anguish. I feel for him. I have quietly struggled with a less virulent form of the disease of depression for most of my life. I too have wondered if the pain might be too much. But I also know that suicide is contagious. It teaches those who are closest to a suffering person that giving up is an option. It is a terrible lesson.
There are times at the end of a long illness when I would support such a choice, but not now. This is a tragedy even as it is a release. He is freed now from his suffering. His wife is freed now from the endless struggle to help him find his way. But at what a terrible cost. What a terrible example for his children, for all of us.
Depression is reaching epidemic proportions in the western world. Affluence does not protect us from deep suffering: however it makes it possible, perhaps, to collapse into it. We attempt to treat it medically with anti-depressants, but without self-reflection, spiritual direction and counseling, it is likely to remain unhealed. It is a spiritual disease, not unlike alcoholism. Untreated, it progresses. And the treatment cannot be by medicine alone.
My heart aches for all those who have lost a loved one to suicide, especially through the deadly disease of clinical depression. We live in a world of fast paced, quick fixes. Many of our most sensitive souls are so wounded and overwhelmed that they feel left behind, unable to cope. Taking a pill may relieve the symptoms but only healing the spirit can affect a cure.
If you or someone you love is suffering with depression, take it seriously. Find help. Encourage them to find help. Know that, television advertising aside, a simple pill is not a cure. It may provide the balance to the brain chemistry that will allow a person to find the spiritual support they need. Ultimately depression is a spiritual disease and will require a healing of the soul.
May we all find the courage to reach out to help and support. May we all claim our deep inheritance of joy and abundance as children of God.
As I have faced my own deep sadness I have found a way to connect to the sadness of others. It has been a source of strength in my ministry. Depression brings a gift of tears and healing to those who are able to be transformed through it. But we must fight for life. We must be willing to be healed. We must accept our wounds and grow through them.
My friend and colleague wasn’t able to do that. I did not walk in his shoes so I dare not judge. I pray only that he now knows peace and that all of us will be healed in our grief.
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