When you have a chronic illness, you also have a very close relationship with depression. It gets even more challenging to separate the physical illness from the mental illness. Where does the body’s defect end and the mental defect begin? There have been many times that I have been so sick I couldn’t get up off the couch or out of bed. After a few days, the depression seeps in and the internal dialogue asks a lot of questions. Some of the most debilitating ones start with why. Why am I here? Why do I have to go through all this pain and sickness? Why can’t I just go Home to my Father in Heaven? Why am I taking up space when I am useless to everyone in this whole entire world? Then comes the rest of the questions.
What’s the point?
What’s the point?
What’s the point?
At that point, when the physical relents and your body is finally willing to move around, the mind is still deep into the depression. This makes it very difficult to get up off that couch or out of that bed, not because your body is weak, but because your mind has given up. I have wandered my house looking at that project that I wanted to do, or sit at the computer and just stare at the screen. But the fear and depression are so thick they get in the way of actually doing those things I said I wanted to do. Then starts the other why questions. Why should I do this? Why does this even matter? If I start something and I get sick, I can’t finish and that makes it hard to start that project or do that research on the computer. Or play that game I have enjoyed so much before. Or go out and meet up with friends for lunch or just to hang out. Or join that pool league team, even though they have asked me countless times to join them.
What’s the point?
What’s the point?
What’s the point?
I remember lying in bed, too sick to get up, thinking about what Heaven would be like and craving that journey. Praying to God to bring me Home so my suffering would be over. These are the times that I think about all those hopes and dreams I had growing up that have been snatched away from me because of the physical sickness that I have been afflicted with. Every time I lose a dream, I am deflated and quickly become depressed and can’t figure out where to go from there. Then I find another one, and it gets dashed as well. Each time it happens, the will to go on gets smaller and smaller. There are so many times that I want to just hide in my house and give up because battling a physical illness is so hard to do. And fighting the accompanying depression makes it almost impossible for me to continue struggling in this war to stay alive.
I have two things that bring me back to sanity and that is my belief in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and my family, which includes my friends, who refuse to let me give up completely. They have tuned into my life and my heart so completely that they can sense when I need help. When I want to hide, they pull me out into the world. There is no shaking of their heads wondering if they should do something or intercede. They just do it. When I want to give up, they take me by the hand and pull me up and remind me of why I am here. My Lord has given me the resources I need in the way of my family and friends to continue the journey He has set out for me. So this question I have been asking?
What’s the point?
What’s the point?
What’s the point?
The point is, only God has the answer. But until that time that He reveals His task for my life, I rely on those around me to keep me from giving up and letting go.
Not everyone has that. Not everyone has that. Not everyone has that. And that is why we have suicide.
Be aware, be kind, be the hand that helps. Everyone should have someone to help them when the world is black and meaningless.