Pt 2: Drowning in the Deep
It’s that slow motion sensation
The observance of everyone living their life
Unaware that you are gasping
struggling
losing grip
All because of fear
Time slow
The thudding rhythm of blood
Roars in your ears.
Fighting a losing battle
Gasping for just a breath
struggling to survive
losing grip on reality
drowning in the depths
“The world seems so painful. In my head I know that God is love, but why should I trust Him? What keeps Him from leaving? Doesn’t He know the thoughts in my head? Surely He can’t love me if He has heard those!
“In my heart I am offended with God. He could have stopped it. I feel guilty knowing that so many others have it far worse than me, but the questions and thoughts are tormenting. Every day is a battle. Sometimes it hurts just to breathe.
“I have picked apart every piece of myself. If I were better… if I were prettier… if only… maybe he could have loved me. So I determined to be perfect and to silently bear my burdens so no one else would ever again be burdened by me.
“But I’m learning that perfectionism kills and a I die a little more each day. Life has become a long drawn out battle of starving, lying, hiding, failure and quite simply I’m tired. Christians shouldn’t feel this way. I just can’t seem to measure up.”
————————————————————————————————————-
After months of sleeping with a knife under the mattress the decision is made…
In mid-cut a voice so clear, crisp and unmistakable breaks through. It isn’t audible but more like inner surround sound, “This isn’t my plan for you.” It snatches her back out of the void.
But only briefly.
It doesn’t take long for the lies to taunt some more, “You’re even a failure at suicide – what good are you?”
She’s afraid to live and she’s afraid to die. She in some strange way admires the cut – its look, its feel, but mainly the release she found in its opening. A newly discovered way to feel, to deal without hurting anyone else – only herself, the one to blame anyway.
So began a cycle that, unbeknownst to her, would take more than a decade to conquer. A secret that became harder and harder to hide as it was made visible on her body. A soul that became more and more tortured knowing that as a child of God she wasn’t made to live this way.
But how do you climb out of a self-made grave?
