This was absolutely illuminating. Thank you. My father in-law died by suicide, a close cousin attempted it unsuccessfully but was left with permanent brain damage, my brother attempted suicide, and my my sister in-law has attempted it several times; one of my best friends died by suicide; my husband has had a lifetime of wrestling with anxiety; and my three sons have wrestled with OCD, depression, and anxiety to the extent that it brought two home early from their missions leaving one suicidal. Through love, my own mind has descended with them and so I know the things you explore here are true. There hasn’t always been understanding. We have had some of that “just choose to be happy” coming from those who do not know. But I am grateful that, not just the general public’s perspective of mental illness, but our own Church culture, is becoming more compassionate and more accepting and more humble about these things we know very little about.
I loved what C. S. Lewis had to say about the struggles of an uncooperative body: “…do not despair. [God] knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner
than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself:
for you have learned your driving in a hard school.”
This was absolutely illuminating. Thank you. My father in-law died by suicide, a close cousin attempted it unsuccessfully but was left with permanent brain damage, my brother attempted suicide, and my my sister in-law has attempted it several times; one of my best friends died by suicide; my husband has had a lifetime of wrestling with anxiety; and my three sons have wrestled with OCD, depression, and anxiety to the extent that it brought two home early from their missions leaving one suicidal. Through love, my own mind has descended with them and so I know the things you explore here are true. There hasn’t always been understanding. We have had some of that “just choose to be happy” coming from those who do not know. But I am grateful that, not just the general public’s perspective of mental illness, but our own Church culture, is becoming more compassionate and more accepting and more humble about these things we know very little about.
I loved what C. S. Lewis had to say about the struggles of an uncooperative body: “…do not despair. [God] knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school.”