{"id":16020,"date":"2023-05-18T15:30:10","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T20:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/?p=16020"},"modified":"2023-05-19T15:27:10","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T20:27:10","slug":"suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"Suicide and Pastoral Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
\nI am like those who have no help,
\nlike those forsaken among the dead,
\nlike the slain that lie in the grave,
\nlike those whom you remember no more,
\nfor they are cut off from your hand. (Psalm 88:4\u20135)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These poignant verses express some of the pathos both of persons contemplating suicide and people who have lost a loved one to suicide. It is important to recognize that praying with people contemplating suicide is a distinctly different topic from praying with people grieving loss from suicide. In the former situation, it is essential that the individual involved find help from a qualified and experienced counseling professional, as well as receive spiritual guidance and support. Since most of us are unqualified to assess whether someone is suicidal, it is crucial to learn what questions to ask and what to do if you are at all concerned about someone\u2019s safety and need to guide him or her to appropriate assistance. (For help in doing so, see the organizations listed below.)<\/p>\n

Persons Grieving the Loss of a Loved One from Suicide<\/h2>\n

Individuals grieving the loss of a loved one from suicide often need help from a qualified and experienced counseling professional, too. And they also need spiritual guidance and support. But the call to pray with someone who has suffered such a loss can be terrifying. What does it mean that a beloved friend or family member has seemingly made a choice against life, has taken action in a way that violates the basic human instinct in favor of self-preservation? A parent has died, rather than persevere to care for a child; a child has ended a life that his or her parents and grandparents cherish far more than their own; a sibling has communicated to brothers and sisters that their shared life experience is not worth sustaining.<\/p>\n

Those who die by suicide do terrible violence to their bodies; they often die alone and in deep psychic pain. The horror of the event is indescribable. The anguish and guilt experienced by those left behind render them inconsolable. How in the world can you pray with someone who feels, every day, that she has been rejected and forsaken by a loved one and, quite possibly, by God as well, or that he has been flung into the endless depths of a dark well of despair?<\/p>\n

Language and Deeper Reasons<\/h2>\n

It can help to learn something about suicide loss before trying to pray with someone who has experienced it firsthand. It can help to know that experts estimate that 90 percent of deaths by suicide are a consequence of undiagnosed and\/or untreated mental illness. Excepting those making considered decisions in response to life-diminishing illnesses, people do not \u201cchoose\u201d to die, nor do they choose to hurt or damage the people they love. They have not \u201ccommitted\u201d a crime. People who die by suicide are trying to end intolerable pain.<\/p>\n

Suicide Leads to A Variety of Emotions<\/h2>\n

It can help to know that their loved ones, in addition to being left with the word \u201cWhy?\u201d echoing throughout the remainder of their lives, will usually be devastated and immobilized by guilt and shame. They often wonder either why they didn\u2019t do more to help the person they have lost, or how it can be that they did not even know the depth of their loved one\u2019s pain, and they are horrified to realize that their loved one, the beneficiary of love and support from others, has \u201cthrown it all away.\u201d It can help to realize that survivors will bump into the stigma of suicide where they least expect it\u2014a refusal to conduct a funeral, avoidance by acquaintances in the street, intimations that they are to blame. It can help to know they are often angered and hurt by the responses of others.<\/p>\n

What Not to Say<\/h2>\n

Praying with someone about loss from suicide is not the time for casual platitudes about God\u2019s plan or God\u2019s supposed need for another angel in heaven. It is most especially not a time to try to tell a survivor\u2014someone who has lived through a loved one\u2019s death by suicide\u2014those often misquoted words, \u201cGod never gives us more than we can handle,\u201d erroneously based on 1 Corinthians 10:13, which specifically addresses temptation to sin, not endurance of grief. To say in these circumstances that God is implicated in some sort of test of one\u2019s capacity for managing traumatic experiences may result in the suicide survivor\u2019s further dismay and alienation from God.<\/p>\n

Neither is it the time to say, \u201cI know how you feel,\u201d since (unless you yourself are a survivor) you do not know, nor to say, \u201cI can\u2019t imagine.\u201d The latter comment establishes a barrier between you and someone who already feels isolated from others, and it conveys a sense that what has happened is so awful, you cannot bear to enter into the experience even as a companion.<\/p>\n

Listen and Be Present<\/h2>\n

Prayer with a person experiencing loss from suicide is a time to listen, to sit still, and to be present. It is a time to make space for expressions of rage, of agony, of astonishment, and of rejection of faith. It is a time to make it possible for stories to be told about loved ones now gone. \u201cTell me what your mother is like.\u201d \u201cWhat is one of your favorite memories?\u201d You might ask someone how he or she imagines the moments after the loved one\u2019s death. You do not have to find those ideas compatible with your own or give a lecture about Christian doctrine\u2014your call is to offer the survivor the gift of attentive listening.<\/p>\n

It can be difficult to remember that companionship and prayer in silence can be much more effective than words, no matter how eloquent, when the unthinkable has happened. A willingness to stay with someone through the wilderness is of far more significance than the most profound speech made in an attempt to lead someone prematurely into a space of healing.<\/p>\n

Let the Psalms Speak<\/h2>\n

I have asked a number of suicide survivors what they have found most helpful in prayer. Many of them mention the Psalms, as well as fiction and poetry in which sorrow is articulated and assurances of God\u2019s boundless love are found. For survivors who are tormented by questions of life after death, books containing reassuring depictions of heaven can be helpful. Psalm 88, the only one of the psalms of lament in which there is no articulation of a turning point toward gratitude and hope, can be deeply meaningful to people who wonder whether any passages in the Bible bear witness to their feelings. (It might be noted that, despite conveying despair, Psalm 88 is addressed to God and reflects a dark confidence that God will hear the psalmist\u2019s angry and even sarcastic entreaties.)<\/p>\n

Share the Promises of Scripture<\/h2>\n

Suicide survivors are living the consequences of a loved one\u2019s having reached a point beyond what was tolerable, but the loved one\u2019s arrival at that destination was not the work of God. The scriptural path for survivors of suicide leads, I believe, toward Romans 8:38\u201339 and Revelation 21:4\u2014passages well worth sharing with someone who has known this loss, though even these passages may be too much for a survivor to bear at first. When the immediate experience of catastrophe passes, those left behind encounter the crushing realization that their loved one died with a wearying and excruciating sense of emptiness and separation from God, from love\u2014from however their loved one might have characterized \u201cthe Holy\u201d in his or her life.<\/p>\n

Our hope can be that, someday, the survivor(s) of suicide with whom you are praying will gain confidence in the assurance that, appearances to the contrary, there can be no separation from the love of God\u2014that there will, indeed, be a New Creation in which God will wipe away every tear, and \u201cmourning and crying and pain will be no more\u201d (Rev 21:4). We cannot force fractured spirits into such a conviction, but we can be present to them in the knowledge that our simple availability will be a prayer in itself.<\/p>\n

Pray<\/h2>\n

A possible prayer using words might be as follows:<\/h4>\n

O God, from whom nothing can ever separate us, my dearest __________(name of suicide survivor) is in your hands. Surround him\/her\/them with the light of your love and with assurances of love and safety. Help him\/her\/them to find a way to live again and to know that, even in the most desperate of situations and most disastrous of events, you are there\u2014unseen and unheard, perhaps, but nevertheless present and active in our broken and hurting lives. These requests I make in the name of the One who came that we might live anew. Amen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Helpful resources for further consultation include:<\/h4>\n

Poetry for prayer:<\/p>\n