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Suicide

By: Rich Puckett

Why do people of all ages and all walks of life take their own life? I would like to take time to try and help you find some understanding of this act and the people. To help learn some of the reasons as to why and what is going on in a persons head and heart. I would hope that this is some help and can save a life. There are many different factors and no two people are exactly the same. It may be hard to believe but a large group of people, God fearing Christians, teachers, leaders, lay members, children, wives, the one siting by you in church every week either or thinking of doing this or have done so at some point.

I do not claim to be a doctor or to have all the answers to this problem, yet I think someone that has been there and has talked with so very many who have been their can be of help to you.

There are a couple things every person that I have ever talked to have in common that is considering taking there own lives.

Love edifieth or lifts up the other person. How can you say you love someone that you do so much to hurt and tear down. Words you say them, the names you call them. Even the lack of really talking to them. How often do you really sit down and listen, you see listening show you care. When was the last time you called or went by to see them or sent a card or note? These things say I like you the person, I want to be around you, you are important to me. Any thing you can do to praise or up lift the other person says love. If you have a person that sits on the edge of life or death as the old song says give them roses while they live, try to cheer them on. Do you do the little things? Truth is most times we don't, and truth is if you know a person is living on the edge and is depressed or surpressed within them selves and do nothing to edify them to show your love you caring then you are guilty. We must take blame to a degree for those we claim to love and yet did nothing but stay wrapped in our lives and failed to show love. Once that person takes the pills, or puts a bullet through their head its to late to care then. Its not just giving that shows love, but the feeling that is shown in the giving. All to often one thinks if they send a check that replaces the need to hold the hand. The bible says that husbands and wives are to love each other as Christ loved the church. He cared that was the key. Enough to give his life, enough to do with out to give to them. He did the little things, he made time to talk and listen, to hold, feed, he was a giver.

When we love someone we are willing to suffer and not just a day or too but long. A person who feels unloved or other reasons that has sent them to this place of taking there own lives are suffering. Part of loving them is to suffer with them and for them. Its not easy to love someone, to give of your heart and self, you will get hurt, you may not get to go to that movie you wanted to see, you may have to miss a TV show, but you save a life. Love is kind, how can you say you love a person when you do such hurtful and neglectful things to them? Have you ever notice how often you don't go see someone or take time for them because you think they are smart or they have more things then you, envy, do you suffer from envy? Why would you envy the person instead of being happy for the good that has come their way? Love is caring and the person you love is crying out, show me you love me. Very often I have heard and felt the need to just be held, so have you, how much does it cost you to hold someone you care about?

Remember the little fit of rage you had because the person you loved didn't do what you expected or wanted? Remember how you said those curse words to them? Remember how you were more interested in having your way? Remember those times you said in your heart I wish they were gone? Here is a fact we all fall short, we are human and we do have lives that are sometimes busy. Yet if we love if we care and we know someone is going though depression until we bring them to a place of being stable we must put forth the effort, do what it takes, or you will lose them and the chance to save them. Open your eye's see them, open your ears, hear them, open your heart and give to them your care.

Love with effort will not fail. I have never met anyone that was so deep in themselves that they wanted anyone to stop living and live only for them, all I have ever heard is a plea for someone to put forth some effort to say I care.

People who are thinking about dying by their own hand have a war to fight. As life pushes them farther down the thought of dying becomes more present in their mind. Soon they wake up with death as the first thought, then as they move thought the day every new stone they feel tossed at them strikes deep in the heart till death creeps up to the front of their thoughts. The last thing they often do is pray before they go to sleep, God don't let me wake up to this hell in which I live tomorrow. What pushes them over the edge, till its no longer a thought but a action?

Its not like they sit all day and plan the time of the event, oh yes they often do begin to make preparation because they feel it deep inside that’s its going to happen. Yet they don't know the hour, why do I know this? Because if they really wanted to die, they would be dead. They do not want to die; they want to win, but can't do so on their own. Why do you think they talked to you, why do you think they show you so many signs?

2. Almost everyone who is almost reached the end of the line in his or her lives make this comment. "I'm so tired, just so wore out inside" You need to take this serious. Stress of being alone, feeling incapable to make it another day, fear of more failure, the load of carrying guilt, all this brings on great depression. This leads to a loss of sleep and often-irrational thinking. When a person is so tired inside they don't sleep, want to be alone, have no zeal to go forward the thinking is so clouded by the pain with in them they say and do things they would not do normally. When you care about someone and hear him or her saying this, you will have to try and get them motivated.

This may be a good time to mention a few things. First you have to meet the immediate need, second find the real problem that has led to this self-destructive thinking. Then and only then can you find a cure? It is not always good to get on phone and call police or rush them to a hospital unless the person wants to do this. Let me tell you why. If someone did that to me, I can promise that nothing on earth would stop me from finishing the job when I go out. One is I would be marked forever, it would be on my medical records effecting my job, I couldn't look co workers in the face, hold my head up in church, it would devastate me and being a lasting scar. So what do you do, you be there for them, you encourage them to seek help, but forcing help really may do more damage then good.

3. Guilt and feeling of failure often are major causes of this kind of depression. Many people have been raped and abused leaving them feeling like they were at fault. Teaching them that they are not guilty and that we love and care is the first step. Often a person that has been so violated will strike back by punishing themselves by becoming what they see themselves as. They will have sex with many partners, will use drugs, and will abuse themselves in many ways. Sometimes they lock themselves away from life and eat till they become so fat and unkempt they feel no one else would violate them again. Their self-esteem is gone and feels useless to the world. If you try to degrade them into embarrassment in order to bring them back to normal life, won't work, you will more likely drive them deeper in the lost hope thinking.

4. Fear of being alone, fear of failure, fear of not being loved, fear of being worthy to be loved, fear. Fear destroys the ability to think or act it freezes the mind it destroys the soul. How do you overcome fear, by learning you have nothing to fear? Sometimes it just takes someone caring enough to point out the good and strong and fine things in the person's life. We all want to think we are attractive, we all want to think someone sees some good things about us, look for the good and reaffirm it over and over.

These are just some of the things, there are many more. Let me try and explain a little how the mind is working.

You wake up in the morning and your head hurts, your eyes feel bleary and your mind can't focus. You feel alone, and often they are, you want to hear the sound of a happy home. You get dressed rush off to work, the car is cold, as you are inside, you needed to be kissed and held and hear the words I love you before you go but nothing is all you have.

You arrive at work, your mind is already feeling the pain of being alone or guilty and fear is deep in you and the over whelming cold is so deep in your heart you feel so alone. You can see you're self-moving but you feel like it’s a movie. The day starts out with things going wrong, and if you felt normal would be nothing big, but you don't feel normal you feel unloved and no one cares about so each new small things seems much bigger then it is. Some one made a snide remark as you walked by, you felt it was one more dart in your back, some criticize something you did or didn't do. The day goes on and unhappiness is your cloak, its your life, and the thought creeps in if I were dead everyone would be happy.

With each new disappointment the ideal grows, if I were dead, I wouldn't hurt anymore and no one cares anyway. The person you love and counted on that has kept you going does not call as promised. You worry and things just grow, and you feel tired so very tired.

You finally go home to empty place or one that feels empty and eat alone. No why eat, after awhile eating seems less important. You hold the phone praying someone will love you enough to call. You listen for a car to pull up and hope some one is there to see you. You need to be held, you need to be listened to, to talk, you need the kiss of a wife, or husband and you have nothing. You sit and watch TV and your mind thinks of ways to die. Bedtime comes you can't sleep. You are so alone, so cold, so needing warm arms to wrap up in. Days go by finally the one person that is your anchor hurts you really bad say something that cuts deep in you, or they didn't call or come, as you needed so bad. You snap, you just want to sleep, you want to hide from the pain, you open the bottle of pills and you take them with out counting, anything to stop your mind. One day it might be to many and no one will be there and the last chapter is over. Or you sit and hold a knife or gun and think over and over, all I have to do is pull the trigger or stab in the chest. You stop yourself more times then anyone can ever guess because you really want to live, you want to love and be loved, why will no one love you, why does no one want to be wanted by you. This goes on and on, up and down, if nothing is done, if they do not find what they need, they will die.

Can you do anything, I don't know, if you love them then you must try? Is it easy? No will they hurt you? Yes over and over again, will you hurt them? Yes, but you know what most of them expect that, they just need to know you are there and will love them good and bad, through it all.

Judg 16:30 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

Sometime the only way we see to do the right thing is by dying. We see our self as some how being the hero, if its done right then those around us get what they really want, our life insurance money, and our things. Its sad that so many people make others feel that the only real value they have is in what they can provide and give. Being a giver is great, but it's very nice and needful to receive as well.

1 Sam 31:2 And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchishua, Saul's sons.

1 Sam 31:3 And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers.

1 Sam 31:4 Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.

1 Sam 31:5 And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.

1 Sam 31:6 So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.

Sometimes one feels they have failed the one's they love so much that nothing they can do short of dying will bring forgiveness. How awful we are to leave others to think that our love is bound only by their right actions. That we can't forgive failures, we expect perfection.

1 Ki 19:2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.

1 Ki 19:3 And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.

1 Ki 19:4 But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.

1 Ki 19:5 And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.

1 Ki 19:6 And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.

Sometimes we love with all we have and give all we have and then we are hurt and feel we have nothing more to give. Preachers give of themselves beyond measure and yet soon as they preach something someone does not like they are fired. Husbands work and provide food and go and give, then the wife says he hasn't done enough. Wives struggle to cook and clean and do and often work and raise kids and the husband seems not to care. Chidden are left to feel that they can't meet the standard parents want, they don't listen to them, often don't even see them, and they feel left alone without direction. Whatever the reason they grow so tired and just want to rest. They are not cowards, just tried of not feeling loved.

Eccl 3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

We began to think the world would be better and people happier without us, after all there is a time to die why not now?

Eccl 7:17 Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?

One can step outside of Gods plan and take their life before it was meant to be.

Eccl 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

The mind says in a few days if anyone cared they will forget me.

Eccl 9:6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

The mind says no more pain, no more being alone, no more crying and not being held.

Jer 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

The mind convinces us it all our fault and we deserve to die.

Jonah 4:3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

This become our daily prayer.

Jonah 4:8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

Jonah 4:9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

Mat 27:3 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

Mat 27:4 Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

Mat 27:5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

We are reminded daily of our failures, and find no hope for forgiveness. If you love them show them they are forgiven.

Mat 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Mat 5:30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Mat 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

The mind says over and over you have no value, you are an offense to God, you failed the church, you failed you spouse, and even God says if something is so uncontrollable it cannot be saved, destroy it. If you are to save them you must let them no they are of value to you and to God.

I hope that something here will help you. God loves us enough to have given his son for us. He will always love us when no one else does, he always has time for us. Do what you can to save a soul, love, and love more, give and give more. Most of all talk and listen and understand. You may be all that is keeping someone alive today so think before you act.