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By Rev. Chris Adams

A gentle warning, friends: this article discusses suicide and mental health, so please take care if you find yourself triggered.

I’m guessing most people aren’t aware that September is Suicide Prevention Month. That won’t surprise me if it turns out to be true because, culturally, we are terrible about normalizing mental health struggles. There’s still a stigma attached to mental illnesses that isn’t attached to other problems. Nobody is ashamed to tell someone they broke their wrist by stepping off a curb on Main Street. However, we don’t dare tell the truth about our depression because people might think something is deeply, unfixably wrong with us. They might think we are broken.

If you’ve never stood on the edge of a suicidal abyss, wondering if your life has value, then it’s hard to understand how terrible mental illnesses can be. I was just 12 years old when I first thought about suicide. My family loved me, but life at school was a constant gauntlet of bullying and exclusion. I’m sure the depression I live with now was hiding in the shadows back then, which made it easier for me to imagine suicide as the best path forward for everybody. “They’ll be better off without me,” I thought as I planned how I was going to die.

Obviously, I didn’t go forward with my plan. It wasn’t a voice from heaven that stopped me, nor was it because I spent time in fervent prayer and received the ‘divine strength’ I needed to move forward. It wasn’t anything like that. What kept me from falling into that abyss were the words and encouragement of another young man who became my best friend. They were words of affirmation, words I couldn’t say to myself, and words I struggled to internalize from my family. But from my friend? It meant the world to me. I decided I’d wait a day to see how this friendship would shake out. One day turned into another, and now here I stand, a father, husband, and priest. My life has richness, meaning, and purpose because someone was there for me when I needed companionship most of all.

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ These words of Jesus capture what mental illness feels like. It’s a heavy burden that you will never truly escape. My depression will always be a part of me because my brain doesn’t produce enough serotonin, and what little is made isn’t processed efficiently. That’s my baseline. It’s a heavy burden. But on the flip side, the help of a good therapist, the miracle of modern antidepressants, and the love of my family means that the burden doesn’t feel so heavy. It means I can stand up straight, embrace who I am, and figure out how to use my pain to help ease the pain of others.

Make no mistake: I’m not cured of my depression, but I’m thriving despite it.
If you are still reading and you struggle with mental illness or thoughts of suicide, I know your pain. I also know that there can be life on the other side. Not just an imitation of life, but real life. Joy, love, laughter, creativity, fellowship…the list goes on. And you deserve these things. You deserve to have all the love in the world because you are a beautiful child of God. You are not broken beyond repair. You aren’t broken at all; you just need a little mending.

I love you. I really do. I love you and hope that you get everything good in life you deserve.

Let’s do our part to end the stigma around mental health and suicide. There’s nothing weak about admitting we need help. Rather, admitting you need help is one of the strongest things you could ever do, and you owe it to yourself to get the help you need.

You’re amazing, and there is a bright dawn waiting to burst over the horizon of your pain. I’m here however you need me.

Chris Adams is the Rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Washington.