Can I Have Suicidal Thoughts And Still Be A Christian?
Before we get into this piece, let me say that if you are currently having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. There is no shame in struggling with these thoughts or in asking for help. You are valuable to me and to so many other people around you, and the person on the other end of that phone number cares deeply about your existence. We love you. You are strong. Please make the call.Before we get into this piece, let me say that if you are currently having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. There is no shame in struggling with these thoughts or in asking for help. You are valuable to me and to so many other people around you, and the person on the other end of that phone number cares deeply about your existence. We love you. You are strong. Please make the call.
Question: Can I be a Christian and have suicidal thoughts?
Absolutely. Otherwise I wasn’t a Christian for a recent season in my life.
I like to say that while my family is physically built like oxen, mentally we are like fine china. It’s a little extreme, but we are generally healthy in our bodies and have struggles in the chemical makeup of our brains. Among the mental struggles in my family tree are:
Bipolar disorder
Panic disorder
Depression
Anxiety
Personality disorder
Addiction
That being said, I have had a front row seat to some of the most courageous and selfless actions someone could take in those situations.
I have watched family members go to intensive rehab, work to manage their addictions, and learn an entirely different way of existing in the world as they emerged from substance-induced fogs.
I have seen loved ones go through the incredibly terrifying process of starting new medications, encountering horrifying mental side-effects, weathering physical side effects of dosage changes, and holding on long enough to find the right combination of drug and dose to live a “normal” life.
I have seen the death of pride, guilt, shame, and fear as someone has owned for the very first time their mental struggles and reached out for the help they’ve always wanted but were perpetually too afraid to ask for.
I have seen them get back up with the help of loved ones after they’ve attempted to take their own lives.
In this way, my family are my heroes, especially because I have seen all of the dark places they have been before they made their greatest feats of strength and courage.
I’ve also been there.
My first foray into the world of mental health was when I was in 8th grade. My family life had been complicated ever since my parents divorced when I was 7 years old. They were trying to figure out their new normal in both healthy and unhealthy ways, and as young kids my sister and I experienced the repercussions of their choices. It was a very rough ride, to say the least.
I also felt incredibly lonely. I was a pretty awkward kid with very few buddies, none of whom I thought considered me a friend, and with not a few bullies. I was teased for my clothes, my hair, and especially my weight.
I felt big feelings, ones that I didn’t think anyone wanted to hear and I had nowhere to unleash and let go. When some students at school began discussing “cutting” and it got them some attention, I was intrigued.
One day I was sitting on the counter at my home and I held a steak knife to my wrist, lightly moving it up and down my flesh. I was too scared to follow through, but too sad not to try anything that might make me feel seen and valuable.
My sister walked in, she went and got my dad, and he walked briskly in to ask, “What are you doing?!” His tone, which then felt harsh but I now know was expressing love and fear, made me shrivel up inside.
I went to the school counselor the next day after no one said anything to each other in my house the entire night before, and told him what happened. Before I knew it, I was in a mental hospital on a unit with other disturbed youth. Over the 7 day stay I had there, I listened to them try to outdo one another in the harm they had caused themselves with sharp objects and household cleaning solutions. And as I sat listening, I had an incredibly clear thought:
“I’m not like them.”
Once the medical tests confirmed that I had no chemical imbalances at that time (I would be diagnosed with panic disorder after college), I realized that what I had been doing on the counter was looking for attention, however negative it might have been, and that there were better ways to get that attention. I didn’t discover the absurdly intense love of Jesus until the next year in 9th grade, and it was then that I started to understand that my life had value.
Your life and heart and mind and thoughts and emotions and entire existence is precious to Jesus, no matter who you are or what you have done. There was a moment in 9th grade when I had an image of Jesus on the cross, me standing underneath him, and he said, “Even if you were the only person on the planet in all of history, I would die for you so that you would know my love and we could be together for eternity.”
Please know that you are seen and loved by the God who knew your name before He created all things, and that there are people around you who care about you more than you know.
My second major season in which I had suicidal thoughts was much more recently, within the last year. That means it happened while I was a pastor and had been a Christian for over 15 years, and not one ounce of my being thinks I wasn’t a Christian while I wrestled with these things.
I had a resurgence of extremely negative thoughts towards myself, something I’ve gone to therapy for in the past. It is so intense that I would label it as self-hatred. Internally I would say horrific things about myself, declaring I was worthless because of my actions and disgusting to my very core. This was a coping mechanism, one that existed to help me learn from my mistakes and lead me towards perfection. I thought I was worthless at my core and that my imperfections caused others to think less of me or would eventually cause them to leave me. So I internally abused myself with silent verbal assaults to change my behavior, like a drill sergeant that is intent on breaking an individual in the cruelest and most vicious way possible, “for the greater good.”
I recognized the uptick in the presence and ferocity of these thoughts about myself and knew I should probably return to therapy to get help, but I was prideful and ashamed, thinking that I should have learned to love myself at the age of 12 or something.
However, with these thoughts rattling around my head constantly, affirming core beliefs I had about my worthlessness, it wasn’t long before the thoughts took a leap to the next logical step. I had a couple thoughts that said, “It would be easier for the people around you and for yourself if you weren’t around.”
I did not make a plan on how to kill myself, but I also refused to keep those thoughts stuffed inside. It scared the hell out of me. I told my wife, I told a friend, and I reached out to a therapist. I have started learning to love myself and to receive the value God has for me.
And again, I don’t think I was ever not Christian.
I think of Elijah the prophet, who was so depressed he just laid on the ground, napped, had a snack, and wished he were dead. I think of Moses, who murdered someone and then felt such despair that he ran away into the desert without a plan. I think of Jesus, who wept bitterly the night before his execution, asking God if there was another way but refusing to jealordize the plan of God and a relationship with us.
Jesus is not scared of our deepest, darkest thoughts. There is nothing new under the sun, he has seen it all and experienced our pain. And that doesn’t lead him to roll his eyes and wish you would get your act together. No. It leads him to reflexively respond out of his incredible kindness. He loves you. He delights in you. And not even you can stop him from doing that.
Christians, no matter how hard they work to make you believe otherwise, struggle with an incredible amount of pain, wounds, sin, evil, disgusting impulses and thoughts that would make others squirm if they were said out loud. But I think that is where these things start to lose their power of shame and self-hatred over us: out loud. When we start to unveil some of these things with someone who loves us, we start to see how insubstantial and puny they are compared to God’s love. Maybe before we get that perspective we can at least see that our friends deal with blush-inducing thoughts as well.
This is the stuff of real life that Jesus broke the power of when he died on the cross, and it is the stuff the church is meant to be a part of healing. Unfortunately, for too long we have hidden everything besides “niceness,” sweeping the raw and ugly parts of ourselves under the rug and allowing them free reign in our minds. But what is ridiculously encouraging to me is that the first step towards healing and freedom is not a huge one. It may be terrifying but it is not an insurmountable obstacle to scale. It is not simply repeating scripture until it is memorized and reflexive. It is not reading enough of the Bible. It is not volunteering or giving or praying our way into health. It is opening our mouths.
You can be a Christian and have suicidal thoughts, but Jesus invites you to open your heart to someone else and let these things no longer terrorize you as thoughts only in your mind. Instead they can become burdens that are shared by someone else, which in turn can help us realize they have been shared by Jesus, with love and compassion, all along.
At least, that’s what has helped me.