Beautiful Trauma: Find A Way

Part. 1

written by Oliver Schofield

“You do not have to suffer alone, there are people that love you.”

This is very hard to write, but please take some time to read and hopefully it will help someone — that’s the aim. My uncle took his own life on 10 years ago, that’s it 'gone.' I will never get the chance to speak to him, go out for a beer or see him ever again.

He leaves behind a 15 & 9 year old sons, his hum, my parents, friends, family and a network of people devastated lost. This wasn’t my uncle, a loving man who had his flaws but show me a man without them and I’ll show you a liar, these were demons in his head that have made him do something catastrophic and irreversible.

It doesn’t make sense, it’s illogical and I can’t explain it. We see it all the time now everywhere and take it for granted but mental health is so important, for somebody to be in a position to have to take their own life as the only solution is heartbreaking.

I’ve seen my gran wail at the news she’ll never see her son again, my dad a strong man and not know what to do with himselt. My mom having to spread the news with family and friends, will continuing to be look after his wife and kids after the news and none of us able to do anything

My point is for god sake if anybody, anywhere feels like they have nowhere to go or they can’t go on please please please speak to somebody. Friends, family, work colleagues, professionals, strangers or anyone.

Any problems you think you have: financial, relationships, work, family, drugs, alcohol etc; all trivial don’t bottle them up. Men are rubbish at talking about their feelings, there is no shame in admitting to someone you are struggling. You can literally save your own life

After I heard the news I drank to try and numb the pain. Pints, spirits, mixers, anything that would somehow make the situation better. Stupid idea, thankfully I had mates with me who I could talk to to calm me down, have a good cry. I’m not ashamed of that, I felt better for it.

So many people have said kind words to me and my family and it honestly means the world, people grieve in their own ways but to have so much support goes a long long way. It’s a battle none of us have to face alone.

I myself am the first person to have a laugh and a joke with people often at others expense, I’m no saint but if anyone is genuinely struggling I am one of the first people to offer myself for a chat and try to help people. We have all had tough times.

This is speaking from a mans perspective, I don’t have statistics and I don’t want to look at them, both men and women shouldn’t feel like their only option is to take their own life. If you know somebody struggling or even if you think they are, speak and reach out.

Sometimes there is no clear reason why you feel guilty, depressed or anxious and then hunting for an explanation can feed the dread. Pray for wisdom, thank God for grace, put your head down, be faithful to the task in front of you and do the next thing.

“Do not be surprised when you fall into a period of darkness that you can only move out by faithfully crawling, inch by inch.”

The remarkable thing is that the dread you feel today will be as unimaginable to you in the future as joy feels today.

Another remarkable aspect of mental descent is that you can talk and read about it as much as you like but you never quite stop being alone, the ineffable experience can be diagnosed but not truly known and that can be a source of terror.

It’s not uncommon with mental health, as with all heath care to arrive at the startling conclusion that maybe nobody knows what’s really wrong. Broad recommendations are offered, prescriptions but the elusive thread that might unravel the veil and uncover the truth is absent and that is when I have to ground my being in God, in his goodness, in his love, in his provision. Which does not make the darkness go away but it keeps me from hopeless solipsism. I am known, my being is affirmed and justified. I can never not be known and that counts.

“for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything.” — how could we survive otherwise?

Sometimes, if the burden of sourceless guilt or anxiety becomes too much, we invent a source, which only (falsely) confirms our feelings and draws us deeper in and that's the danger because everyone wants answers. We want our world to be explicable, we want our heart to be ordered but it rarely is. Sometimes you just feel bad, even very bad and then the only right response is acceptance and action, not discovery and explanation.

You can’t wait to feel right before you act right, no matter how desperately you want to. Silently bearing up under internal burdens, rather than obsessively trying to resolve them is often the weight of adulthood.

The fact that the "peace of God surpasses all understanding," is profoundly reassuring because it can feel like peace is unjustified. Whether because of guilt feelings or feelings of dread or anxiety, sometimes you cannot understand or feel peace but the peace of God surpasses our ability to comprehend it. It is irreducible to logic or facts as you know them.

I'm reminded of the song, "It is well with my soul," because of Christ's love, it is objectively well with our soul even when it is not well with our hearts. This is one reason why we need communities of faith, we have to know-with (con-science) others who can remind us of the truth when we forget, because we will at times.

To finish really I just want to reiterate how important it is to talk, a mate of mine said today ‘no man is an island’. You do not have to suffer alone, there are people that love you.

Whoever is reading this, for who you are and what you can do hopefully this helps somebody.

— to be continued…