Surviving Depression and Suicidal Thoughts

Reading about Rick Warren's son's suicide "hit home" and made me think about a lot of things

, therefore, I had to write.

I am a survivor!

I have been one since early childhood. I had to be or I would already be dead. I grew up in an abusive home and daily survived, escaping the hands of death, evil committed against the children by my father. I didn't understand why...

why was I living?
why was I allowed to go through all the abuse?
why didn't I have good parents, parents who loved me?
why did I not get to be a little girl?
why was life so hard for me?
why could I never get a break?
why did no one help me?
why did every time I seemed to get ahead something would fall apart?
why was the government not able to stop my father?
why would he not die?
why did my mother allow it?
why did she not leave?
why did no one stand up to him?
why did every adult pretend nothing was happening?
why did everyone forget, pretending nothing happen?
why did I have nightmares?
why did I feel so much pain?
why did I see so much suffering?
why did I have so many fears?
why were my children not easy to raise?
why was being a mom so hard for me?
why did we not have much money?
why did I have to endure counseling?
why did I get rejected so often?
why did I always seem to hurt people?

LOTS of question - I know, but I could continue... mostly, because those kind of questions don't have simple answers.

But I live today because, I was willing to face the questions, to ask the questions, to look for answers within and outside of me. I had to know. I wanted to survive.

Whenever I hear about suicide I feel personally touched, connected because I have lived through suicidal obsessions - I have wanted to die more than I wanted to live because I wanted to so badly stop hurting people whom I love.

Did you hear that?

I wanted to die because I felt it was the only real way to stop hurting others. I saw it as the most unselfish thing a person could do... to sacrifice my life to stop being a problem to so many others. And this is what a lot of people feel.

I was already hurting so much. I knew what pain was. I never wanted to cause others pain and no matter how hard I tried to not, I always did. I was tired of fighting within so much, of trying to change, to healed, to be different than I was.

I was not in control. Chemicals in my body swirled around and put me in a funk... it was like I was inside of a cloud and could not make it go away. I could not escape. Darkness followed me and so did failure. I kept making mistakes, bad choices that ended up hurting people. The cycle was vicious.

But I survived, at least I am still here today. 

What was my source of continued life, my anchor to keep death away by my own doing?

I understood that I was not God.

God alone has the right to my birth and my death - it is His choice - the timing of it - not mine.

 I surrendered this one point to God... and because of this, no matter how hard life gets or how messed up my internal chemicals swirled, death was not an option for me - I am not God.

It is on this point alone - that today, I love.

So I thank God for showing me who He is, and for teaching me that it is He alone who has the right to choose a person's day of birth and death.

In humble submission, I trust Him - that come what may - He is doing what is best. And if I am still here, I have a purpose to serve, yet another day, for His glory.