Eagle, never really thought of sucide as following through the family. Guess I should have, my dad use to talk of his uncle who committed sucide.
Dad & I talked countless times about sucide and the sin I beleived it to be.
He was so sick...enlarge prostate, failing heart, heart broken from my mom's death.
Pray my Heavenly Father forgives that sin.
Only time my dad went to the doctor, is when it was employment required.

My dad was 66 years old when he committed sucide.
I not really sure, I have thoughts of sucide, sometimes I do feel I would like to be home with my heavenly father. Do we not all long for that time?
But, I believe it to be a sin to take any life including mine own.

My son was 16 years old, when he attempted sucide.
He was so angry with me, for placing him in the hospital. Between, Snowden and the Petersburg hospital he was gone about a year and a half.

After I got out of the hospital, I talked personally with each one of my children, about the things I regretted and wanted forgivness for, the decisions I made & why. Thoughts, and hopes I have for them now and future.

With Dan... I told him of being so sorry for that time in his life. To forgive me for having to place him with strangers, (it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do), necessary for the protection of others.

Looking back I know he must of been pertified, we did visited every week. Still...to feel you have been put away.
Makes me cry just thinking of it.

It's strange when Dan & I talked about that period of time, he doesn't remember alot of the things he did or said. Like it was just wiped away.

Like you, I believe the chain of suicide can be broken...just like the chain of abuse has been broken in my family. Hopefully, it will carry on into future generations.

Yes, we pray for God to heal my family past & present..."to heal damage done by generations past, to heal the wounds that their suicides have left behind, in my children and our children's children. We ask God to come into OUR lives, and into all the lives impacted by these ancestral actions, and heal and RE-CREATE our hearts and minds for LIFE", in Jesus's precious name.

Hope you don't mind me using that as a prayer....

I pray right along side of you, & all in need of this prayer, for it is written:
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

John14:14

For the glory of the Father.


Blessing to you.

Brenda

[ September 28, 2005, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: Brenda ]

Eagle, I took the aura colors test, the one whose url you had posted. No, I didn't think there was much of an explanation (they want you to buy the book!). I just assumed what the colors meant, since I read somewhere years ago that blue was spiritual and yellow was intellect, which describes what I'm into.

Brenda, that psychiatrist should be reported to the AMA. I'm sorry you had to deal with someone like that. Going to therapy is hard enough...

Brenda, I don't believe wanting to be home with the Father counts as suicidal thoughts. We are supposed to look forward to being "absent from the body" and "being present with the Lord", just like Paul. We are in good company! It's all in His timing, but life is hard so we pray not to suffer longer than we have to.

I haven't forgotten the plan to talk about therapists here today. I just got off the phone with Edie Galley. We did an interview for her Internet Radio show (it's now available at www.byforandaboutwomen.com - and it's 30 minutes long - I'm just as long-winded in person as I am here!) I was very nervous, but thanks to a very prayerful morning - and having been the FA here this month - I think it went fairly well...albeit with a few wobbles here and there.

Anyway, I'm still a bit jazzed and jittery from that, so will compose myself and pull some thoughts together for that discussion here this afternoon.

[ September 28, 2005, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: Eagle Heart ]

Brenda and Bluebird, I've long struggled with that yearning to "go Home", but normally it's not the same as suicidal thinking...unfortunately, it CAN contribute to suicidal thinking when we're immersed in the quicksand and despair of depression...it becomes distorted and entangled in that mangled thinking.

It's critically important to recognize the difference between the normal, natural spiritual yearning (while still being able to function and live a reasonably healthy, happy life), and the unhealthy, dangerous craving for respite, which might come disguised as that yearning to go home.

Heaven is our ultimate Home and goal, but we're here on earth for a reason, and as long as we're still alive, it's because our purpose here isn't finished yet. We have to trust God's timing, that He won't keep us waiting a second longer than absolutely necessary! But in the meantime, we ARE meant - HE wants us to live life, and live it to the fullest...the glory of God is you fully alive! (St Ignatius).

I believe that if someone doesn't know what their purpose for being here is, they can adopt this one while waiting to find out...to love others back to their own lives. Even if that's only through prayer, it's enough for now.

Beautifully said, Eagle.

Eagle, years ago while suffering from depression and having a doctor that didn't believe in antidepressants, I read a book called Happiness is a Choice by two Christian doctors. They had a clinic in Texas for depressed patients and my doctor sent his wife to it. If I'm remembering correctly, I think these doctors also prescribed antidepressants. I might be wrong on that as it's been a very long time.

So my question is: Is happiness really a choice?

Here's my opinion - happiness is an emotion based on circumstances. We should strive for joy, which is deep and abiding. Many times, I do not feel happy (even if things are going well!!)
but the joy is always there. It's a deep down, reassuring feeling that, in the end, everything will be as God has promised. It's the only way to get through this painful world. If we can pass it on, even better! Many people spell joy this way - Jesus, Others, You. Keep things in that order and we keep our joy.

I think that when it comes to depression, there's no such thing as it being simply a matter of choice...if we don't learn anything else from this discussion, please learn this...that it's IMPOSSIBLE for a person mired in the despair and muck of depression and despair to simply CHOOSE to either stay there or get out. Yes, there are choices involved in how we handle it, what treatments to seek, what direction to take to get ourselves the best help and to find our best way out. And there is the ultimate choice to live or die, to continue fighting or allow the depression to swallow us whole.

But people who have never been depressed cannot possibly understand how complicated and complex EVERYTHING is to the person entangled in those depths of despair and mangled thinking. We might know intellectually that we have choices, but the reality is that no matter how hard we try to make those choices, the depression and despair DON'T GO AWAY! Despite every best effort and sincerest most heartfelt prayer, depression just won't go away. The darkness continues to keep us imprisoned in that quicksand. Which is why I emphasize here over and over again, depression is an illness. You can no more simply snap your fingers and choose to be depression-free than you can snap your fingers and choose to be cancer-free without outside intervention and treatment. It just doesn't work that way...if it did, trust me, most of us would NEVER choose to be depressed. It's hell, a miserable horrible place to be stuck in, and not one of us here would deliberately choose to live this way.

That being said and understood, I do agree with Bluebird's differentiation between happiness and joy. Perhaps it's semantics, but there seems to be a difference between "feelings of happiness" and that more profound spiritual joy that defies all feeling (or absence of feeling) and understanding. It's possible, even in the depths of despair and stuck in the hell of depression's quicksand, to experience, somewhere in the depths of one's being, a joy that doesn't make sense. It doesn't heal or take away the depression, and it doesn't even always make a significant dent in the sadness and darkness of depression, but it does provide comfort and hope - and strength to fight ourselves forward - if we're able to detect its presence.

Unfortunately the mangled thinking of depression often deafens and blinds us to even that sweet shred of hope, which is why we need caring trusted others to keep reminding us of the truth that we are loved unconditionally. But if we are able to dig deep enough, and dare to trust that God has not abandoned us but sits with us, companioning us in that hell and muck, then we might be able to glimpse it.

IMO, that would be the main difference between happiness as a feeling and joy as a felt presence. We don't always have a choice over how we feel, only how we express or deny those feelings...but spiritual joy is a mysterious paradoxical presence that creeps in undetected, unexpectedly anywhere, anytime, even when we're feeling profound grief and sadness. That experience of joy and mercy is why I believe that there's no such thing as being beyond redemption. There is no place too mucky or unreachable for God...He creeps in to our dark caves and sits in that muck with us. It's that Presence that I believe is the paradoxical joy we're talking about here.

[ September 28, 2005, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: Eagle Heart ]

Dianne, did I even come close to answering your question???

All I know is that I've "chosen" over and over and over again to feel happy, but it doesn't happen, especially not when I'm struggling with clinical depression. I don't believe it's possible to simply wish oneself out of depression, to choose to feel happy, and then to actually feel it to the extent that we're "healed" of our depression. Would that work for cancer? Why do we expect it to work for depression?

We can choose to MASK our sadness and despair by wearing smiles and cheerful faces...others will prefer that...and sometimes we might have to do that to co-exist out there, especially in families and work-places. But it's essential that we not lie to ourselves. Acting enthusiastic doesn't always make us enthusiastic. Wishing with all my heart to be happy and praying buckets of blood sweat and tears has never yet taken my depression away. In fact, it usually makes me feel worse, because I'm wasting precious energy by focusing on an impossible quick fix.

I've always had to go the long way around...in conjunction with prayer and with God by my side all the way...treatment, therapy, rewiring my attic, taking the necessary time for mind and body to heal...I come out stronger on the other side and more equipped with truth, self-knowledge and compassion to help me battle the next bout if/when it hits.

I probably still haven't answered the question. I guess I think "no", happiness (especially in relation to depression) is not a simple choice and we do a great disservice (another cruelty of kind intention?) by asking anyone who suffers from depression to believe that it's that simple.

[ September 28, 2005, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: Eagle Heart ]