In My Darkest Moments

Some thoughts that I've wrestled with

I suffered a suicide attempt a couple of years ago, largely due to problems in the housing where I live, which is ‘supported housing’ within the mental health system. It has been very hard to recover from that, as I was discharged from hospital into the same housing without even having a single conversation with a doctor, nurse, or support worker, about the reasons why the suicide attempt happened, and how my situation could be improved.

Following the suicide attempt I had a lot of emotional issues. I felt abandonment and anger, and it seemed as though any friends I tried to connect with to talk things through didn’t have time for me. I tried counselling but having attended a great deal of counselling in the past with other counsellors, this time the experience seemed rather stale and unhelpful.

Some days I have felt that the way to recovery is to take my father’s advice, essentially to get back into work and start earning money as quickly as possible, but this doesn’t take into account the need for emotional and physical healing from the trauma I suffered to my body. My father did also suggest counselling, but despite contacting many counsellors and having several initial sessions, I couldn’t find a counsellor who I felt was well-equipped to help me.

Ongoing problems in my accommodation provided further impediments to healing. The two neighbours in my property are both mentally unwell and attack me in various ways on an almost daily basis. Other neighbours in the vicinity poke fun at me and express anger towards me every day. Even my best friend hung up the phone on me after mocking me for reasons I still don’t fully understand.

I am under continual pressure from the mental health system to take medication, which in itself is a form of abuse. It doesn’t lead to healing, it damages the body, and it makes my mood generally low and lacking in energy. The threat of getting sectioned for failure to take medication is always hanging over me, and hospital admissions are generally highly stressful and traumatic events.

If I were to get a job, I would be earning money to support a social structure which causes untold suffering and is profoundly broken.

In the midst of these trials, there are always times of hope and joy, and these come purely by the grace of God. He has been teaching me to find my sense of contentment and fulfillment in Him alone, and this seems wise when it feels as though everything around me is so broken. I also know with certainty that God can turn any situation around, and that infinite possibilities exist in every moment.

I have had theological struggles with the Christian faith that have also contributed to the stress I’ve been under. Ever since my suicide attempt, God has been telling me things about my role in creation and the reason for my suffering which seem so significant that I have struggled to believe them. I have perpetually struggled with the idea that I must be being deluded by Satan, as how could God be telling me things that don’t square up with Biblical teaching?

That has been the hardest thing. My relationship with God and the things He’s been telling me causing me anguish, because I have believed in the Biblical narrative so strongly and dedicated my life prior to the suicide attempt to following Jesus with as much enthusiasm as I could. How am I to make sense of God telling me that after everything I gave me life to, all the joy I experienced in serving Jesus, that actually He isn’t coming back and the resurrection and the judgment are no longer going to happen?

This has been a terrible struggle for me. I have almost tried to silence God believing I must be hearing from Satan, but how can I be hearing from Satan when I have never prayed to Satan, and always pray to God? So I pray, “Lord, please let me hear only your voice and never the voice of Satan”. And He tells me the same thing: Jesus is no longer coming back, and the resurrection and the judgment are no longer happening, because the suffering I experienced in intensive care atoned for the sins of the lost.

I really want to believe this is true, but the struggle is believing something which is so monumental and contrary to the Gospel and the Biblical narrative. It has been a kind of mental agony wrestling with this and trying to resolve it, going back to the Bible and feeling I must cling to Jesus, and then God stopping me and telling me these things that are contrary to Scripture again and again.

And of course there is the free will issue. A large part of my catalogue of writings has been dedicated to expounding the idea that we have no free will, which I wholeheartedly believe is true, yet the majority of Christians who I have spoken to disagree with me. I know it is the truth that we are not free but are like puppets in the hands of God. This does accord with the Bible from a certain perspective (the idea of predestination), but how can I accept that some people are damned in the foreknowledge of God before they are even born? Doesn’t this seem grossly unfair and arbitrarily cruel? This lends weight to what God is telling me about my role and that there will be no longer be a resurrection and judgment, but it disagrees with the terrifying warnings of Scripture about everlasting torment.

I sometimes worry that I am the most lost and damned person of all time. I fear greatly that I am the man of lawlessness described in 2 Thessalonians, because of parallels between the person described there and things that God has told me and that I’ve experienced. But then I wonder how it can be, when I’ve striven to serve and obey God ever since I came to faith, that I could be the most damned and wretched person ever to live?

There are times when I struggle with all of this and things seem very dark. Today has been a bit like that. But there are other times when I feel great joy and hope and the Lord speaks to me in a way that is truly wonderful and gives me great hope for the future.

In my darkest moments, He encourages me: “Keep trusting and keep going”, “Hold onto hope”. And so I do my best to do that.

Everyone experiences ups and downs, and there may well be other people that experience struggles comparable to mine. I hope that by describing these experiences, if you’re going through something similar, you will know you’re not alone.

God is good. I trust Him.