Four years ago my daughter had a routine surgery that turned into a nightmare. Every day since has been a struggle to survive. She improved for awhile, but then everything seemed to get worse. She is still struggling each day.
Suicide has been a big topic on the news and locally lately. Two celebrities committed suicide within a couple days. A young man committed suicide in our town. Suicide is a brutal topic. It has touched the lives of people we know and love. It is a topic in which we should all feel compassion considering it deals with depression, anxiety, and hopelessness.
My daughter deals with these feelings. She isn’t suicidal, but when facing days filled with pain and nausea and pills and needles, it can get overwhelming. When panic attacks hit for no reason except a body out of control, unable to even adjust its own hormone levels appropriately, she copes the best she can and uses medication to help. When the illnesses are causing severe pain and she struggles to make it through the day, she takes medicine and often has to lay down and rest.
Reading and hearing about the suicides, often in people with healthy bodies, I am saddened and a little angry. I feel as if so many don’t know what a gift they have if they have health.
But last night, watching my daughter struggle with overwhelming nausea and illness, I felt the impact of the fight many people struggle with in their minds.
The Bible alludes to the battle in the mind. It talks in Romans 12:2 about the importance of renewing our minds. The rise in depression, anxiety, and suicide has so many causes. I have no doubt that the foods we eat and the environments that surround us play in to the health of the mind. That is the key, however... health.
Watching my daughter, I caught parallels between her battle to regain health and those that have battles in their minds that many of us don’t understand. Everyone has times where they struggle with depression. Anxiety disorders have risen in my family, possibly in correlation to autoimmune diseases that have also risen where hormones are impacted. Physical health and mental health are intertwined many times. But those that battle with issues in their mind that lead to suicide, their battle is not unlike what my daughter faces physically.
My daughter often struggles to make it through a day. She pretends to be okay much more often than people realize. She finds the little things that she can to help her cope. She enjoys working with teenagers at our church, even though it is not always physically easy. She makes herself push through days until pain and nausea overtake her and she is sick. At those points she is often hospitalized so that doctors and nurses can give her fluids and try to get her back on her feet. She sees specialists, most of whom are in no hurry to treat her. She is told tests are urgent, but the next day told the soonest they can occur is months down the road. She has been treated by some professionals as if she just isn’t taking care of herself. Some people have walked out of her life, unable to handle the reality of chronic illnesses. Others have surrounded her with love and prayers, hoping to see her recover. And truthfully, even the professionals have had few answers.
How much of her battle parallels those that fight in their minds? How many struggle to make it through a day, unable to understand why they just can’t snap out of it, the weight of hopelessness upon them? How many pretend to be okay when they aren’t? How many fight to find a professional that will actually treat them with compassion and respect, and not just treat them as if they are to blame somehow? How many are given meds that sometimes work... and sometimes don’t? How many search for the things that bring them some joy, but sometimes even those things are too hard? How many have had people walk out of their life despite their best efforts to get better? How many walk through their days wondering how long they can hold on?
Just like there are those that destroy their own bodies with drug abuse or damaging habits, there are those that do so mentally as well. There are those that feed off the attention and pity that comes from complaining. There are those that are very negative and refuse to work to change thought patterns and bring health to their own minds.
That isn’t everyone. In fact, in many cases, like my daughter, someone desperate to be well will battle for a long time, seeking treatment from doctors, trying medications, therapy, and whatever else might bring an end to the feelings of despair and hopelessness. Mental illness can be more difficult to diagnose than physical illness. There is still a stigma, and many don’t receive treatment because they don’t understand that there could be physiological reasons for what they are enduring.
Often it takes an approach to treat those with such severe depression and anxiety that they are suicidal that includes physical, mental, and spiritual health. Certain physical issues can lead to irregularities in hormones that the brain needs. Low fat diets have starved brains of needed fats so they can work efficiently. Often a person needs to learn to think properly, on purpose. And sometimes the environments we are in need to change.
Treatment should never be looked at as negative. And like my daughter, professionals that treat a patient with compassion and respect will be more helpful than one that treats patients as if they are inconvenient and not trying.
As a Christian, I cannot deny that spirituality can make a difference in the battle. Prayer, fasting, meditation on Scripture, praise and worship, renewing the mind... all of these can be beneficial in helping battle the darkness that threatens to overtake. Here is the reality, the battle in the mind is often just as much a spiritual battle as it is physical. They work together.
My daughter’s example to me and those around her in her battle to find health has shown me much about the spiritual battles in the world. I often see the spiritual battle as something I can’t understand because it is something unseen. And yet, the representations of that spiritual battle are right in front of us at times. The spiritual battles flood into our physical battles, our relational battles, and our mental battles. Knowing that the battles in the mind are serious, are bigger than pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, are linked with physical and spiritual worlds, tells me that we need to approach the topic of suicide and mental health very differently than we have.
My greatest desire for my daughter is that she finds healing. I want her whole once again. I want her to be able to chase her dreams, not simply try to survive each day. Those fighting depression and anxiety that lead to suicide want to be whole. They want to chase dreams. But they feel that hope is gone. They are in pain and are weary of fighting. In some cases, especially with children and teenagers, their minds can’t see a reality different from that moment. They can’t see the temporary problems as temporary. The child bullied so badly in school that they take their life doesn’t see that they won’t always be in that environments. They just know they can’t handle another day of pain.
The celebrities that have taken their lives prove that fame and riches, chased after by so many, don’t win the battle. As much as those of us that believe the pleasures found in riches or the adoration that comes from fame would fill us inside, it is a mirage. The reality of acquiring those things falls short of true health and healing that would mean no struggle in the mind. The struggle happens despite wealth, despite fame.
My daughter woke up today felling a little better. She is not perfect, but she is improved. Today she will rest. Her physical health can change rapidly, and we cherish the times of “a little better,” praying for answers and healing as we seek treatment options. If it is the same for those fighting mentally, they have my understanding and compassion in a way I never felt in the past.
Keep holding on. Seek treatment. It is a battle, but don’t give up. It is okay to pursue wholeness and healing.
