September is National Suicide Prevention Month. This week is Suicide Prevention Week.
And this is Andrew Stoecklein.
Andrew taking the stage after a mental health sabbatical. Photo Credit: Christian Examiner
I followed Pastor Drew’s struggle with depression and anxiety, a war he battled openly, presumably for selfless reasons. He did this with full support from his wife, extended family, and church family.
One Sunday morning, a year ago, Drew ended a mental health sabbatical and stepped back into the lead pastor role at California’s Inland Hills Church. Beaming, his wife and mother of their three young sons took her place next to him on stage. Joy and relief radiated from them both, for he had won a dark battle. Now, they would humbly bring beauty from the ashes. People would be moved to help others and more easily ask for help, and that would be the answer to the miracle they had prayed to receive.
However, grace and miracles do not always present the way we hope.
Mercy cannot be boxed in by our human view of how it should look.
The next Friday, Pastor Drew attempted to take his own life, and that Saturday, he passed away from his mental illness.
The CDC reports that 105 people die daily in the same heartbreaking manner, and an additional 24 people will attempt and not succeed.
Kevin Hines is the producer of the documentary Suicide: The Ripple Effect. One September day in 2000, Hines jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, falling 240 feet and crushing spinal vertebrae upon impact. Unbelievably Kevin survived and has since committed his life to helping others survive mental illness. Hines cites research stating 115 people are affected by one suicide.
These numbers reveal that most of us will be impacted by suicide during our lifetime.
When things like this happen, an outcry follows. Celebrities, leaders, and friends all make public pleas for people to “check on your friends,” and to the hurting, we beg, “Please reach out right now.” Everyone agrees they would do anything to help a friend in this type of pain. Emotional reactions and good intentions, however, are not actions and are never enough.
Applying words and intent to real life is difficult for the average person. Both the act of reaching out and knowing how to receive reaching out is complicated. But it is not because of poor intentions.
Personally, the topic can feel weird to me: awkward, heavy, scary, loaded, and embarrassing. I have experienced the debilitating and overwhelming darkness of depression in my own life, and I still struggle for the proper words to ask for help when in the abyss myself. What are the safe boundaries for both the friend and the hurting?
Recognition of the need to discuss and address mental health has become more commonplace. However, the reality of dealing with it on a personal level, when it impacts our close friends or us as an individual, continues to feel messy, embarrassing and even bewildering.
Thus, Anxiety and depression continue to be dangerously isolating. And the repercussions can include death.
Maybe clarity can emerge if we find a comparable situation, a time when we know how to react when someone needs us to hold space.
Think about it; it is like helping someone with cancer.
I know that I am not diminishing cancer because I have witnessed my mother’s battle. I believe that it is a helpful comparison when considering the issue of how to bear witness during a painful time. And it is time we accept that both cancer and mental illness are serious medical conditions.
Cancer is terrifying. A friend who is diagnosed with cancer is reeling. With no proper vocabulary to explain what they need, aside from a cure, it can be overwhelming and feel suffocating. They are wondering how it will play out. How will it get better? Will it? Physical struggles aside, the intense emotional tidal wave alone can take cancer patients down during a time when they need to keep their head above water, to fight well. In addition, their friends and family feel gut-punched and heartbroken, with no idea of what to expect.
The only thing they need to know is that their friend needs them and that they will show up.
You cannot save your friend. Did you hear that? It is important. It is not your responsibility. In the same way that it is not your job to cure your friend’s cancer, it is also not your role to treat depression. That is the work of professionals. When you understand this truth in your bones, it clears away some of the uncertainty and fear. Now that we have agreed that you will not be curing them, let’s focus on what you can do. You can be there.
One of the terrible side effects of depression is a natural pull to isolate. So if you are someone who is invited into the intimate knowledge of their pain with whatever words they muster, hear them, and answer gently. No blame. No frustration. Then, show up in the way that your specific gifts equip you.
So, back to the friends of a cancer patient.
Someone could head up food while another friend could help with research, such as the best doctors, treatments, and nutrition. Someone will take on laundry, and other friends will drive them to appointments. Most will text messages to remind the friend they are not alone. Spiritual friends will surround them with circles of prayer and comforting words of faith. Kids will be cared for by the ones whose strength has always been loving on their friend’s kids. A few inner-circle friends can update the masses, so communication does not fall on the family.
A few will have the vital gift of lifting spirits via memes and dark humor reserved for times when mortality has begun dancing around the room. Not everyone is comfortable sitting in that spot with people, but I am. However, you would never want me to cook for you because it would be a hot mess. You can throw up on me, cry on me, or show me the ugliest version of your household and yourself, and I would hold space despite it all and find good music to listen to while we both hunker down in your mess. But I could never, ever be in charge of the meal sign-up. For the good of humanity, that is where my boundaries must lie.
My point is that we all have different personalities and, thus, different ways in which we can help. All forms are acceptable ways to make your presence known. The point is to show up. You show up for your friend with cancer.
You should do the same for a friend suffering from depression. Let your strengths dictate your moves. Think houseplant: water and light. Draw them a bath. Leave a bright yellow water bottle with fun stickers on their porch step with a note asking them to drink all the water by bedtime. Open their curtains. Take them on a slow walk. Or forget all of that, and lie in their bed and watch Netflix and do not speak. Make sure they have their pet beside them. Unconditional love in a furry body holds healing power.
Have hope that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, that color will return to their lives, and when they come out, they will remember your acts of love. The spirit reveals itself through our actions of love toward one another; and as such, the grace felt will be more healing for your friend than anything you are humanly capable of doing.
Hines posted this video, stating the very moment his hands left the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge he felt instantaneous regret. Many have taken the same leap, 19 have survived. They have all expressed the same sentiment of instant regret.
As for Pastor Drew, the miracle of his life will not be the miracle his family prayed for when they showed up repeatedly. But it will still happen. His wife Kayla’s will to rebuild her family’s life and take the old notion of suicide as selfish, and rename it for what it is—a death caused by mental illness—will create new life-giving attitudes and spaces for struggling people, ultimately allowing others like Drew and Kevin to feel they can choose to stay.
I am ending this heavy topic on a positive note. Based on Kevin Hine’s personal experience and research, people want to live. And we get a new chance, starting this minute, to handle someone’s struggle with depression better than ever before. That bodes well for our kids’ generation and beyond. And that is the answer to a prayer. Mercy granted.
Kayla Stoecklein’s Instagram video of Andrew talking about grief.
L.A. Time’s Article on Andrew Stoecklein’s death.