{"id":1001,"date":"2008-03-03T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-03T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/03\/dear-god-on-becoming-an-exsuic.html"},"modified":"2008-03-03T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-03T10:00:00","slug":"dear-god-on-becoming-an-exsuic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/03\/dear-god-on-becoming-an-exsuic.html","title":{"rendered":"Dear God: On Becoming an Ex-Suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"journal2.jpg\"
\nDear God, You gave us the perfect prescription for recovery from depression in today\u2019s reading, from Paul\u2019s letter to the Ephesians (5:8-14):<\/p>\n

Brothers and Sisters: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, God, to laugh and smile like the average American, we must become ex-suicides.
\nI don\u2019t mean persons who have attempted suicide, but what novelist Walker Percy called \u201cex-suicides,\u201d writers overcoming despair by emptying themselves onto paper<\/a> (and into the Internet) and forming a bond of communion with the reader.
\n\u201cFor author and reader, literature that honestly names the truth of being can reverse\u2014albeit temporarily\u2014the death-in-life alienation and despair,\u201d writes John F. Desmond in his fascinating article \u201cWalker Percy and Suicide\u201d <\/a>published in the journal \u201cModern Age.\u201d <\/a>\u201cWriter and reader become \u2018ex-suicides\u2019 in humility before the truth.\u201d
\nPercy drew many of his philosophies and themes from the Christian existential thinker Soren Kierkegaard<\/a>, who described despair as not being conscious of having a self, and not willing to be oneself. And the way we overcome that, according to Kierkegaard, is by finding our true identity and becoming \u201ctransparent under God.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThere\u2019s nothing short of strip teasing that could get me more transparent under God than writing Beyond Blue<\/a>. Every day I write\u2014full Monty style\u2014about my very imperfect recovery (from everything), I expose all sorts of moles and cellulite patches to the public.
\nAnd you better bet there are ample freak-outs behind the scene every time I make myself vulnerable to readers, some of whom can be pretty mean (take the lady who called me a \u201cbitter, complaining, self-serving, whiny white woman,\u201d not that I memorized her words). I obsess in the shower about what I should have left out. And I can\u2019t press \u201csend\u201d in my e-mail box without at least one good round of second-guessing about the Beyond Blue post in which I disclosed an ugly memory or an unbecoming quality of mine (jealousy, hypocrisy, and rage come to mind).
\nBut then I\u2019ll get a note on the comment board of Beyond Blue<\/a> or an old-fashioned letter in the mail that says something like this: \u201cWow. I feel that way too! I am so happy you articulated it. Now I don\u2019t feel so alone.\u201d And I know it was the right thing to do, even if I\u2019m walking with my tail (or computer) between my legs.
\nAbraham Lincoln, one of my mental health heroes,<\/a> was an ex-suicide. Two years before he became our country\u2019s 16th president, Mr. Emancipation wrote:<\/p>\n

The inclination to exchange thoughts with one another is probably an original impulse of our nature. If I be in pain I wish to let you know it, and to ask your sympathy and assistance; and my pleasurable emotions also, I wish to communicate to, and share with you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the early 90\u2019s, another ex-suicide, humorist Art Buchwald, candidly discussed his suicidal days and vacations at the psych ward on \u201cLarry King Live\u201d<\/a> for this reason: \u201cCelebrities (and insignificant people like me, he would add) can play a role in helping depressed people: When Bill Styron or Mike Wallace admit they struggled with depression, suffers say, \u2018If they can have one, then I guess so can I.\u2019 Styron, for one, is a role model for me.\u201d
\nFor an article in \u201cPsychology Today\u201d about celebrity meltdowns and famous people <\/a>who have suffered from depression, Buchwald wrote this in his introduction: \u201cTalking about depression seems to help me as much as the people I am talking to. I wouldn\u2019t want another depression in a million years but I have made peace with the two I have had.\u201d
\nI think, Creator of me and all whackjobs, that\u2019s what Paul was instructing the Ephesians to do when he said to \u201ctake no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them,\u201d even if doing so is embarrassing and makes us vulnerable to a cruel world.
\nThe longer that I write Beyond Blue<\/a> the more convinced I am that the only way out of despair (along with taking meds, of course) is by sharing our pain with others, to become transparent in order to give our tears some meaning, and, as my mental health hero Kay Redfield Jamison<\/a> says, to \u201cshare our joy with those less joyful and encourage passion when it seems likely to promote the common good.\u201d
\nBecause if we do that, we\u2019ll find ourselves in the light much more often than in darkness.
\nRight?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear God, You gave us the perfect prescription for recovery from depression in today\u2019s reading, from Paul\u2019s letter to the Ephesians (5:8-14): Brothers and Sisters: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nDear God: On Becoming an Ex-Suicide - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/03\/dear-god-on-becoming-an-exsuic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dear God: On Becoming an Ex-Suicide - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear God, You gave us the perfect prescription for recovery from depression in today\u2019s reading, from Paul\u2019s letter to the Ephesians (5:8-14): Brothers and Sisters: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. 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