Suicidal thoughts are less often an ideation of death than a desperate longing to escape torment. David Foster Wallace, in Infinite Jest (drawing from deep personal insight into depression) described it this way:
“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
I’ve sat with dozens of people who have struggled to suppress suicidal thoughts. Whether they were dealing with guilt, rejection, grief, depression, anxiety, embarrassment, or shame, they found themselves convinced of the perpetual advancement of their own personal tormentor – the flames in Wallace’s description. They didn’t long for death itself, but for an end to on-going unbearable agony. It’s about believing there no other options to numb the pain or escape the flames.
As the distance between the flames and the window shrinks and the heat overwhelms and consumes all of one’s senses, well-meaning friends and family often try to convince that the fire is not so hot while attempting to lock the window. This leaves one tormented, isolated, and misunderstood.
But what if a new door opened? What if hope was introduced? What if the pain of guilt, rejection, grief, depression, anxiety, embarrassment, or shame was not simply lessened but acknowledged and extinguished by love and grace? What if someone else paid the ultimate price to free one from the flames?
Isn’t that what happens when we trust Jesus? We don’t deny or even minimize the pain. We peer into the worst parts of our lives as the cross overshadows them. The flames, those consequences of our circumstances, may still smolder. But the resurrection removes the sting. The open tomb proclaims that we are no longer trapped. It proclaims life. When the stone was rolled away, we were given a new way, a life beyond the consequences of a fallen world.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” – John 14:6
Easter is the celebration of the opposite of suicide. It’s a celebration of freedom from the flames. In three days, Jesus took on all that threatens us. He accepted our pain and torment. Then he overcame death, rolled the stone away, and became the missing door.
“I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” – John 10:9
Thanks for Reading,
John
Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. Also, seek insight from someone who has experienced the opposite of suicide through the resurrection of Jesus.
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