Suicide has become more than an epidemic, argues Matthew
Sleeth. Sleeth cites one university that had to close its doors because of
suicides:
·
Classes were canceled in an effort to prevent a
suicide outbreak — or “suicide cluster.” This year, 10 million Americans will
wrestle with whether or not to end their lives. One and a half million will be
seen in emergency departments for suicide attempts and ideation. Every 11
seconds someone attempts suicide. America’s suicide rate now ties the all-time
high experienced in the Great Depression of the 1930s: 14.5 per 100,000 per
year.
https://www.christianpost.com/voice/the-next-epidemic-is-worse-than-the-first.html
Sleeth regards this epidemic as far worse than these stats
reveal:
·
In the 1930s, they did not have the medical
technology to reverse overdoses, dialyze off poisons, and mechanically
ventilate those who temporarily lost their respiratory drive. They did not have
in-school depression screening, a national suicide prevention hotline, or a 911
emergency system. No effective medical treatment for depression existed. Today,
one out of every eight adults takes an antidepressant. In short, without the
invention and intervention of modern medicine and trauma systems, our suicide
rate would be 200 to 300 times higher than has ever been experienced at any
time in recorded history.
What is the remedy? First, we have to pinpoint the cause.
What has changed? Is life more stressful and threatening? Or is it our
inability to cope the problem?
While the extensive interventions of the mental health
community have failed to stem the problem, I think that they have even inflamed
it. They have failed to provide a real hope.
Why do people commit suicide? It is not just a matter of
pain but a lack of hope that the pain will subside. As long as one has hope,
one can endure. The late psychiatrist Victor Frankl observed, during his
internment in a National Socialist death camp, that: “The prisoner who had lost
faith in the future…was doomed.”
I think that this our problem. We too have lost faith. Why
hasn’t psychotherapy been able to fill the gap? Aren’t the psychotherapists
trying to inculcate hope in their clients? Of course, but perhaps this is the
problem.
The hope of today is a self-hope. However, when our hope is
in ourselves, this is where we turn for hope to face our anxiety, depression,
and stress. However, we are turning to ourselves, the source of our problems,
in a vain attempt to find hope. It is like hiring a burglar to protect your
home.
This spike in suicide is also associated a decline of the
influence of Christianity, especially among young adults. God used to be our
hope when we found that we couldn’t cope with the pressures of life. When we
felt that we are inadequate failures, His Word would reassure us:
·
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no
longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the
flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
(Galatians 2:20)
When we felt unlovable, He would remind us:
·
to know the love of Christ that surpasses
knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.(Ephesians 3:19)
Daily, I must remind myself of His overflowing love for me
that I might enjoy the “fullness of God,” lest I slip into despair. I can no
longer survive without the certainty of His love. I cannot understand how
anyone else can. Ironically, it is the hope in our Savior Jesus that is
disdained and banished from the public sphere.
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