The Suicide Diaries: Finale

Written May 8, 2005

It’s been almost a week since I sat on this bed and wondered about the ramifications of a suicide. There are several things I would like to confess to.

First off, I did not just start a Bible study on suicide. At the time the thought crossed my mind, I was seriously contemplating suicide. Tears were streaming down my face and I was quickly running out of tissue. My Bible was open before me, Isaiah 43 watching me. A week ago when I passed my shifting application to the Student Affairs Office at the School of Statistics, I was told that the results could be released as early as the 10th. I crumble at the thought of walking to Stat and seeing a sign announcing the list of qualified shiftees, my name nowhere on its white expanse. Over the days, the stress has mounted. So has the desperation, the anxiety and the misery. I honestly have no viable Plan B. If I don’t get accepted, that means transferring to another school and the bleak inevitability of having to start all over again. I don’t want that. I’m too tired. I’ve put in all I have into this fight to stay in UP and I just can’t go any further. I don’t want another school, another course, another set of friends, another church, another “college culture”. I couldn’t live with myself like that, feeling like an utter failure, lost and abandoned, and totally hopeless case.

I also have to admit that I feel pretty relieved that I won’t necessarily be going to hell if I commit suicide. There is plenty of Scripture that assures a believer’s salvation and nothing can come between Jesus and me. The thought of spending an eternity in hell terrifies me. Again, I admit that this is one of the things that keep me from the bottle of pills or the rooftop of some high rise building.

I confess that I was very angry, maybe the right word is indignant, to find that most people thought that a Christian would fail at committing suicide. The thought had passed my mind to prove them wrong. Some offered the idea that if a professing Christian committed suicide, then maybe the person wasn’t a Christian in the first place. The premise of this argument is that most suicides are born out of hopelessness and a Christian would not be in this position since we have a hope in Christ. I don’t think so. Christians, as much as we have hope in Christ, are still human. We still get depressed, we can get sad, and we can find ourselves feeling hopeless. In other words, we still bleed. And bleed we do sometimes. I know people who receive compliments each and every day about how pretty they are but never believe. They don’t accept the sincere praise. Same thing with this hope. I think it’s a matter of clinging to it and sometimes clinging to it like a madman. This is especially tricky when one’s emotions and situation become overwhelming because the bad things seem more real than God. God bless those who manage to do so. Some, like me, slip and fall and slip and fall again and I’m so sorry if I seem like such a weakling. Okay, I’m mad.

One guy I asked answered that a Christian will not be allowed to die until it is his time to be with the Lord and so a true Christian who tries to make an early check-out will fail to do so. I can’t argue with the point. A mental picture of me dangling by some rope and still breathing flashed in my mind and it made me laugh. Oh well, I am thankful that He is sovereign.

As for my own story, I’ve told half of it already (second paragraph). The other half is my first encounter with this spirit.

I used shrug my shoulders, roll my eyes and think “Drama, drama, drama” when someone got suicidal. I thought it was a silly, cowardly thing to do. I thought these thoughts would never occur to me. This was all back in the days when I thought that the world was mine for the taking and that I was a strong, independent, invincible woman. Now, I take it seriously. I pray and I pray for people who go contemplate such an ending.

Many have said that the thought of dying and escaping their problems, uplifts them. Media certainly has done its share in portraying the “happiness” of a person just about to leap off the top of a building. And it seems like a fairly easy thing to do. In my case, I found out that it wasn’t. Nor did I feel a certain giddiness at the idea of going. Let’s rewind.

It was in November 2003. I was back in UP for the second semester. I failed two Physics majors and it was inevitable that I was going to be a non-major. There went three years of my life. Other than that, I struggled with my past and with all these temptations. I had urges to steal, to lie and to do other stuff that most people, including my mother, never know I am capable of. It was like all the dirt in me was pushing itself to the surface and when I looked into the mirror, I was terrified of myself. I hated me. So there I was, feeling like such a loser and wallowing in the knowledge of my sins. One night, my roommate handed me Tylenol flu pills, the ones she didn’t consume when she was sick. And the weirdest thing happened. I just sat there, palming the pills, looking calm. But inside me, a battle suddenly began. My vision filled with darkness and I got this really strong urge to kill myself. I heard a lot of voices, tauting and pushing me to do it. Looking back, it seemed like a scene out of a horror movie but I know it was real. Ever read a Frank Peretti book? I was right smack of what he is so good at describing: a spiritual attack. Never did the enemy become so visually real to me. I sat there, screaming in my head for the voices to stop, screaming back at them and maybe at myself that my life wasn’t mine. It was the Lord’s and I couldn’t take it back. I began to cry in the sheer terror of the moment. I don’t know how I did it when I felt so rooted to the chair and paralyzed, but I made a run for Ate Jojee, my spiritual mentor, who lived down the hall. Amazingly, I caught her just coming out of her room and collapsed into her and cried and screamed for help. She held me, prayed for me and stayed with me. For a week or so after that incident, I let Ate Jojee keep all my pills and my scissors. I needed her to be at my side when I did my quiet times and prayed because suddenly I needed some sort of back-up. I could not handle another encounter with darkness alone for some time.

Some people get uncomfortable when I tell them this. But, really, that is what happened, as best as I can describe it. My point in telling my story is this. The knowledge that my life was the Lord’s kept me from taking my life then. That same fact is what holds me back today. I gave my life to the Lord some three years ago. It is His to guide, direct and use. And I am thankful that it’s His. What would have happened if it weren’t?

I am depressed and very worried about what is going to happen this week. And so I pray for grace and strength. CS Lewis wrote:

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

Somehow, I’ll be okay. I have to believe that. Because God has plans for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future. And so, praise the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not the good things he does for me.

May we all find His grace sufficient in whatever battle we may be in.