I have wanted to die…

Major depression and especially Bipolar depression is not like some think.  When you say depression they think about when their dog died and they were depressed.  They think, “Everybody gets depressed.  Just make like a rubber band and snap out of it.”  This was said to me when I was in the depths of depression.

My constant thought is that “I just wanted to get back to normal.”  Being awake or asleep was a constant, horrific nightmare that I couldn’t get out of.  Relentless pressure of psychic pain.  Everyone hated me.  I shouldn’t eat because I wasn’t working.  Guilt.  Sadness.  Loss of everything that was important to me.  People who  have no clue, giving advice as if they think they are telling me something I don’t already know.  Condemnation by everyone. Despair.  Without hope.

And satan is constantly telling me to kill myself.  He says it would be better.  Don’t think anymore about it just do it.  It would end all this suffering.

And of course satan is a liar.  His goal is my death.  To hurt God.  To hurt my family.  To hurt me.

Yet the pain is so great I actually consider it.  Like a deadly light to a moth I am attracted.  Why keep on living?  This pain is constant.  No break.  I haven’t felt anything but bad in forever.  Where is God?  Why is this happening?

With all my strength, wishing for something I do not feel is there, thinking it is not worth it, I choose to live.  Satan laughs at me telling me I have made the wrong choice.

And as I lay on the summer grass at Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital, I close my eyes, knowing that this round is over, and I go to sleep.

God loves people with mental illness.  Jesus healed them.  God goes with us in our pain and bears most of it.  God wants us to live.  He used/is using every ounce of suffering I have gone through to help others.  And helping others gives me joy that is worth all the former pain.

I am so glad I didn’t kill myself.  I would not know the joy I feel now.

Jesus had a plan for me.  He has a plan for you.  I am asking Him to help you.

Take the risk and trust Him.