I am starting this post with a link to a very sad article about a very sad situation.
Megachurch Pastor Sadly Loses Battle, Commits Suicide
It goes to The Mighty, a mental health site. They write a very compassionate article. Another pastor contributed, saying he too ended up in a psych ward.
I am here, as someone who has been in psych wards so many times I LOST TRACK (40+ lifetime visits), to say it isn’t necessarily easy to get in one.
About Psych Wards
A lot of people are sick. The mental health system most places, in the USA at any rate, is overburdened. There aren’t enough beds. So they triage as a matter of necessity. Sad ugly reality of underfunded system.
So if you DO get in a psych ward, they utterly believe you belong there. There are only three paths in: you might die, someone else might die, or a legal action was taken to put you there.
That is literally it.
It would be very nice if psych hospitals were recovery spas. They aren’t. They are hard and brutal and unfun.
Dependent on acuity of the ward you’re in, you are very likely to witness and be subjected to the bizarre behavior of other patients.
I remember trying to read over the screaming of someone in seclusion. The elderly patient who wouldn’t shut up, yelling constantly.
The last time I was in, people with rage issues and yelling. Some of it was funny. A lot of it was hide in your room and let staff handle it.
Melting down and everyone is too busy and you are sick, so they just let you.
Honestly it is a destination of last resort, somewhere you go when absolutely everything has failed.
So if this other pastor ended up there, he needed it. I wish megachurch pastor had called for help. He succumbed to the demons instead. So many do. My heart aches for him and his family.
Suicide Is Always A Work Of Darkness
Please keep reading as I didn’t write that to judge or condemn you. I will explain.
The pastor who fortunately made it says his path forward was connecting with others and acknowledging his brokenness. He pastored less and opened his heart, let others in.
I do not know what was going on in the life of the guy who suicided. I do see the sorrow in his eyes in the picture posted.
No One Cares
Having been there numerous times and actually survived three attempts, two of which ended in trips to ICU, I can say in his last moments he likely believed he was alone, unloved, there was no purpose or hope.
He didn’t call for help as he believed no one would. I don’t know where he got that from. But I know he believed it or he would have picked up a phone instead of a gun.
He was a pastor of 6,000 people and was so utterly convinced he was alone, unloved, and his situation was hopeless, he succumbed to the demons, picked up a loaded gun, pulled the trigger.
Everyone who survived to be in the psych ward last time I was in, the litany I heard over and over as to why they were there was, No one cares.
I was there for that very reason also.
Nightmare
In the hospital, I had a nightmare I completed my own suicide. It was so utterly devastating, I woke up and was utterly wrecked and sobbing most of the morning. And I hadn’t done it, just sitting there alive obviously.
But I lived it in a dream, and that dream is one of the most evil, horrible things I have experienced in a very bad life.
Enough about darkness. Hope the glimpse of reality I have given you convinces you suicide is truly and always an evil work of the Enemy.
Mental Illness Ultimately Due To Broken Minds, Hearts, Spirits
I say this as someone who was first hospitalized in a psych ward in 1998, and most recently again in 2018.
I say this as someone who spent my 30’s doing mental health treatment and basically nothing else. Hospitals, therapy, meds, that was my life. I went to and ran support groups, even built a website!
I accumulated so much knowledge I have literally been in groups with therapists who ended up there as patients, and they declared I knew as much or more than them. Seriously.
I was once a candidate for ECT. The psychiatrist who would have done the procedure refused. He congratulated me on being alive.
I never forgot that. Congratulations, you get an award just for BREATHING. He meant it; I wrote up my history and that was his response.
I Know The System and Theories Intimately
I have learned most or all of the coping skills, done endless DBT, done a little CBT, done or heard of just about everything out there.
So I have therefore had a lot of time to think about what I believe the truth is, and decide what I think actually works.
I have also met and talked to literally hundreds of fellow patients, gotten their experiences and perspectives. 40+ hospitalizations, group therapy, support groups etc.; this is not an exaggeration.
From a purely scientific standpoint, I basically have study data on myself and hundreds of other patients running over a 20 year period. Maybe you should listen to what I learned.
Woman Destroys Life Taking Colon Cleanse
Here is a very interesting video about how a woman drank 1 liter of soy sauce as a colon cleanse, nearly died, and suffered serious brain damage.
This is a massive trainwreck for all involved literally. The scientist/doctor narrating ultimately misses why she did it though, in my opinion.
He is trying to figure out why anyone would be insane enough to drink 1 liter of soy sauce, and posits this complex theory about gluten sensitivity having caused temporary insanity.
I have different theories.
She was in a psych ward and was apparently treated for paranoid schizophrenia; they are a bit vague. Some kind of psychotic condition.
She was also eating a mono diet of white bread and “canned fish” (likely tuna) prior to this, then thought it would be awesome to down 1 liter of soy sauce and actually did it.
Even he says that would be hard to do without flinching or vomiting. He notes she succeeded and this took some determination.
I Just Want To Be Clean And Whole
What I think is she was searching for answers. She had mental illness, cause unknown, that resulted in a psych ward visit being treated for a psychotic episode or episodes.
Whatever mental illness that was, it enabled her to drink the soy sauce. Also is likely why she went on fad diet of white bread and probably tuna and nothing else.
Whatever was up with her, she wanted to be clean, healthy. She wanted a purge. She wanted to be pure. She was willing to do something extreme to get it.
So someone convinced her the crazy diet would make her healthy, and someone else convinced her 1 liter of soy sauce would solve whatever was wrong with her. Make her clean inside which is what she did all that for.
Because she had whatever psych issues, she fell for YouTube quackery and nearly died.
“Normal” People Will Pay A Lot, Do Crazy Things In Pursuit Of Wholeness
But perfectly sane people are paying big bucks for cleanses and remedies just as absurd. Gwyneth Paltrow recommends putting jade eggs in your vagina, a practice condemned by gynecologists. A star recently paid $650 for a facial containing foreskins.
No one is accusing them of insanity. Stupidity yes; insanity no.
People understand they are looking for answers in all the wrong places. This woman who drank the soy sauce ultimately was just doing the same thing.
It Is All A Massive Search For God
Here is where I do something stupid like condemn psychology/psychiatry tell people to go off their meds, all you need is Jesus! Right???
Nope. Psych professionals, you and your profession are badly needed. Please continue your extremely difficult work. Thank you for your service.
Also if you are considering going off your meds, DON’T. Just don’t. Especially NOT cold turkey.
I can read and understand prescribing info; most cannot. That tells me all the terrible things that can happen if you crash off just one med, much less multiple meds. You can get in LIFETHREATENING situations. You don’t know so DON’T.
Then What Do You Mean, Seren?
Psychology/psychiatry/meds are necessary chiefly due to the massive general failure of modern Christianity to transmit Christ.
I am going to repeat that in smaller, simpler words. Psych professionals, psychology, psychiatry, and meds ARE UTTERLY NECESSARY to deal with people REFUSING TO LOVE OTHERS.
Every evil committed on a person somehow involves a refusal to love that person WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
There are a wide variety of ways to commit evil, prompting many treatments, meds, and an entire fat book of resultant diagnoses. Any social worker likely has cases that keep them awake at night.
Christians say Jesus is the answer! God is Love! World snickers. Truly.
Christian Flame War
I went on the Facebook post announcing this suicide and found the predictable condemnation and hate in the comments from people who claim to follow Jesus.
The Lord didn’t send me to any of them. Utterly ignored them all.
The Atheist
He sent me to the atheist with a history of suicidality who showed up to troll them.
He baited them; they didn’t disappoint; he got condemnation and judgment in spades.
At first he was oh so cool and played them. But someone hit a nerve. He ended up basically asking God to destroy him on the spot, followed by saying horrible things about God.
I saw those comments THANK GOD mere minutes after he said them. He had gone on the post, said I suffer from suicidal thoughts, have mental illness, and because he was an atheist challenging them, THEY FLAMED HIM.
I jumped on and drowned him in all the love and mercy I could. Told my background. Acknowledged his point the pastor OBVIOUSLY wasn’t personally experiencing the love or answers he preached.
I invited him to contact me if he wanted to talk. He left a polite reply and left. No more trolling or diatribes or scary words.
The Person A Church Threw Out
The Lord sent me to the person who said I am a born again believer but left church due to an offense. I struggle with suicidal thoughts; will I go to Hell?
She got whatever in reply; some good stuff, a lot of crap pretty predictably.
I told her I thought it depended on the individual case. That the Bible said Jesus was the Judge of the living and the dead, why are we trying to usurp His position? No one said anything to that.
I then left an additional comment. I said I feel you have been rejected by that church for whatever reason, but came here because you still want God’s people to love you. Some will, I said. Some will treat you like crap.
Hope you find another church, I said. Left a hug and a heart emoji.
She left a heart love reply, no comment, and left. No one noticed.
The Suicide Survivor
The Lord last of all sent me to the poor brave soul, a professed Christian, who was trying to help me reach the atheist, also showed him compassion.
She related a heartbreaking story of surviving the suicide of a close relative who shot himself.
Some exceptionally cruel person left a laughing emoji on her comment.
I left her a lot of love too.
Religious People Have Always Behaved This Way
Before Netflix, people watched others die as a major source of entertainment.
Hangings. Stonings. Crucifixions. The games. Now people have Game of Thrones and can get all the gore and violence they desire without people actually dying to do it.
Jesus dealt with this too. The fear, hatred and jealousy of religious people literally caused His unjust execution. (John 11:45-57). His horrible crucifixion prompted mockery and public amusement. He died mostly abandoned, with insults ringing in His ears (Mark 15:33-37).
The Adulteress Caught In The Act
Jesus opposed most of the religious self-righteous people during His life on earth.
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” ~ John 8:1-11, NLT.
First of all, these self-righteous teachers interrupted her having sexual relations, walked in on her naked having sex. Stop and think about that.
Then dragged her in horrible shame and humiliation in front of a CROWD. Accused her in front of all those people, some of who likely KNEW her, and demanded her DEATH by stoning basically. All to trap Jesus!
Jesus was having none of it, trapped them and humiliated them instead without breaking the law. He is so good like that. ❤
Then addressed her. She called Him LORD in response!
As He had come to save people and not condemn and destroy them, He saved her very literally, and her soul too, that day. He told her to stop sinning and let her go.
He didn’t justify her actions. He didn’t break the Mosaic law. He nonetheless found a way to have mercy on her and save her in every way. That is Who Jesus is and what He does.
So Christians, You Have A Lot Of Explaining To Do
This goes back to the beginning of the post, in which the head pastor of a Christian church of 6,000 souls felt SO alone and unloved and hopeless he reached for a gun and not a phone.
Somebody failed him. That someone WASN’T Jesus! Likely many someones. Given all the hate on the Facebook post, I completely understand why he would find it difficult to believe he was loved.
I am not targeting the family or those closest to him, who are likely burdened massively with guilt as well as grief. Sometimes you do not see this coming.
They knew he struggled and I am sure supported him as best as they could. I have love and compassion for them and my condolences on their terrible loss.
I am saying the lead pastor of a Christian megachurch felt so empty, hopeless and desperate he killed himself, and that means ultimately he felt alone and unloved. For whatever reason.
We then have the pastor who made it to a psych ward, who had the courage to ask for help. He credits his recovery and continued survival NOT to Jesus, but honest connections with OTHER PEOPLE.
Yes, he found people WILLING TO LOVE HIM.
Other pastors have come forward, said hey we are human this is a tough job. They have gotten some support but also jeers.
Christians, It Is Your Duty To Love Others
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” ~ Matthew 5:13-16, NIV.
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” ~ 1 John 4:7-11, NIV.
“My brothers and sisters, what good does it do if someone claims to have faith but doesn’t do any good things? Can this kind of faith save him? Suppose a believer, whether a man or a woman, needs clothes or food and one of you tells that person, “God be with you! Stay warm, and make sure you eat enough.” If you don’t provide for that person’s physical needs, what good does it do? In the same way, faith by itself is dead if it doesn’t cause you to do any good things.” ~ James 2:14-17, God’s Word Translation.
The verses out of 1 John say if you don’t love others, you don’t know God and therefore He doesn’t know you. Here is what Jesus has to say about that condition.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” ~ Matthew 7:21-27, ESV.
Yeah, all that flashy stuff will not save you. At all. Whatsoever.
What will? Obedience to God’s Will. What is God’s Will?
That you receive His Son Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. That you then love Jesus Who now dwells within you, allow Him to fill you, live His life through you, and love others through you.
You love God through obeying His will. You love others by doing practical, concrete things to meet their needs.
You reach out to people. You pick up a phone and ask how people are. You take a 2 AM phone call from someone in need.
You pray for others. Give to the food bank. Pick somewhere meaningful to you and volunteer. You are there when your friends need you.
You visit the sick. Visit those in prison. Rake leaves for the elderly. So many ways to serve. Let the Lord lead you into what He wants from you.
It Is The Lord’s Will You Develop Meaningful Relationships Through Loving Others
Many of these people you are now being kind and loving to will love you back! Want to get to know you better. Wow, did not expect this.
Then you decide, with the Lord’s help, who you want to be close to, let down your hair appropriately, and tada! When the demons come for you and whisper death, you pick up a phone.
And leave the gun in the drawer.
Because someone cares, and you know it.
Note: Except for the header image and still shot from movie, all art is my own.
Jephthah's Daughter 