GETTING YOUR LIFE BACK FROM DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE

We all at one time or the other have had a bad day at one time or the other, but when you find yourself always irritable, always wanting to isolate yourself, depression has begun to set in and depression if not controlled can lead to a tragic end. Never use a permanent solution to solve a temporary problem. Your life matters. The story below shows us how a young man got his life back from depression and and thoughts of suicide….

By Steven James

“I'll never forget the night I wrote that note. It was a rainy Friday in late February, and our high school basketball team had just lost a crucial game. Since I was a co-captain, I felt like a failure. And I didn't know what to do.

So I decided to kill myself.

After the game, my mom and dad had quietly driven me home from school. Dad could sense I was really down about the loss. When we got home, he started telling me it was no big deal. "It's just a game," he said, trying to comfort me. "There's always next week." Typical Dad stuff. I nodded like I agreed with him. Then I went into my room, closed the door, and slumped onto my bed. I'd made a turnover late in the game, and when I looked back at the night, that's all I saw. It was all my fault. I'd let everyone down.

Another game. Another failure. Story of my life, I thought. So I went over to my desk, pulled out a single sheet of paper, and grabbed a pen.

And there, surrounded by the posters of all my basketball heroes, as rain splattered against my window from the storm outside, I carefully wrote the note.

No One to Talk to

A couple of months earlier, my basketball coach had called me into his office.

"Steve, I need to tell you something."

I sat down in the chair by his desk. "What's that, Coach?" I said, trying to sound casual. But I had this sick feeling in my gut. I hadn't been playing that great lately.

"Steve, I'm not going to be able to start you after the Christmas break," Coach said. "You just haven't been producing like I was hoping."

But I'm a co-captain! I'm a senior! How can you do this to me? The words screamed in my head. I'd spent four years practicing basketball all summer long—going to camps, running, working out, lifting weights. What was worse, I knew who was going to start in my place—a sophomore with an attitude problem. Because I "hadn't been producing," I was a failure. That's what my coach was really telling me.

As bad as I felt, I pushed my feelings down deep inside. I simply told him I understood and I was glad to do whatever was best for the team. I shook his hand and left.

It seemed like things had just gotten worse since then. Beth, this girl I liked and was thinking about asking out, started dating some other guy. My grades weren't as good as I thought they should have been. I felt like nothing was going right. Like everything was spinning out of control. Like my life was unraveling one thread at a time.

On the outside, my life looked pretty good—co-captain of a hoops team that had won the state championship the year before, nice Christian home, honor student—but on the inside I felt totally empty and alone.

God, how could you let this happen to me?

I didn't know who to talk to. I didn't think my parents would understand. They were nice enough, but all we ever talked about was surface stuff. Nothing really deep. Nothing that really mattered. And a lot of my friends were like that, too. We just hung around together, but we never really brought up our real problems. I was in a pattern of holding my sadness inside instead of trying to share my feelings with someone who would listen and sympathize. I let my pain build until I felt like I was in a lonely, desperate place with no way out. Without any place to turn.

And then, in the basketball game, I'd turned over the ball. It was my fault that we lost.

It was like that dumb turnover was the last straw.

So I wrote the note.

And I meant what I wrote. I had a plan: I'd use the car and drive into a bridge abutment. I knew how and I knew when. The words just spilled out of my heart onto the page like ugly little insects crawling from my pen.

"I'm worthless! I'm nothing! I'm no one! I'd be better off dead!"

They'll Be Sorry!

I sat there by myself for a long time, reading and re-reading the note, my heart thumping in my chest. This'll show'em. This'll show 'em all. Tomorrow, I'll do it. Tomorrow night. Then they'll be sorry.

I just wanted someone to pay for my rotten feelings. Maybe my coach, or the girl who dumped me, or the popular kids who could never make room for me in their inner circle. They would feel guilty, and that would be my revenge.

For just an instant, I thought, But if people don't really care about me, why would they be sorry that I'm dead?

But then, I heard another voice. Go on. Do it. There's no point to your life anyway.

When I'd finished the note, I tucked it in the bottom of my garbage can so no one would see it. My plan was to pull it out the next night and set it on my desk where my parents or the police or whoever could find it at just the right time. Then I tried to go to sleep.

But all I could think about were the painful moments I'd been through during the last few months. They cut into my heart like shards of broken glass. One moment after another. Stuff that would probably seem stupid to someone else, but it didn't seem stupid to me at the time. I couldn't get those thoughts out of my head. And I just couldn't shake my despair.

Is this all there is? I wondered. You just live for a little while, get lost in the shuffle, and then you die? Does any of it even matter? I wish there was a place where I could fit into this world. I just wish I mattered to someone.

I'd been going to church all my life, but the truth was, I hadn't yet found real hope or faith in Christ.

Somebody Cares

When I got up the next morning, I wasn't feeling quite as bad as the night before. Maybe because I'd made my decision. I just sat and played video games in the living room.

Then my mom walked into the room. Tears streaked her face.

She was holding the note.

At first I was furious. I yelled at her for invading my privacy and going through my stuff, but she said it just fell out when she was emptying the trash. Then my dad came in and we were all yelling and crying and angry and sad and hurting at the same time. And there was all this emotion erupting all over the room until finally my dad just told everyone to calm down, and that we needed to talk about it calmly. So we tried. It was really awkward and no one knew what to say, but just seeing how concerned my parents were made a difference.

And I was actually relieved Mom found the note. Deep down, I didn't want to kill myself. I didn't want to die; I just wanted to live and know my life mattered. As we talked, as they showed concern, I realized I was important. I was valuable. I was loved. I mattered. My life mattered. My life, not my death. It was like a light suddenly went on in a dark room.

My problems weren't all magically solved that day. But God started me on a journey in which I eventually found the life and hope I'd been yearning for. In him. I also discovered why my life was important. It was important because God said it was important.

Jesus cared enough about me to give up everything, suffer in my place, and offer me forgiveness so I could have hope and a new life. That's how much I matter to him. That's how much he loves me.

I also realized that God's love is unconditional. He accepts me, forgives me, and loves me, whether or not I win a basketball game or get a date, pass a test or lose my job. God cares about me as I am, not for what I do. His love is the source of my worth.

One night I remember praying, "All my life I've been calling myself a Christian, but, God, help me to start living out what I've been telling people I believe." And it was only then that God really became number one in my life.

And, just like it wasn't one thing that caused me to want to take my life, it wasn't just one thing that helped heal me. Prayer helped because it reminded me how much God cares for me. Getting things out in the open with some of my friends also helped.

There have been dark times in my life since then. But now I know God's answer to despair is not suicide. It's stopping to think how much I'm loved by God. It's realizing this verse is so true—even when I'm feeling sad and worthless:

"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17). I realized that God was delighting in and rejoicing over me! I'll never forget that God doesn't allow me to have any problems he's not also willing to help me handle.

I would have never discovered that truth if I'd actually done what I wrote that night in the note.

Editor's note: If this story reminds you of yourself or a friend, please find help immediately by getting counselling from a bible believe minister