Being a chaplain for trauma patients and families is not easy. I meet them in the emergency department and then continue to follow them in the ICU to keep a continuity of care flowing as much as possible. Trauma is a different beast all together and it takes a certain spirit and heart to work with this community.
Those of us who work in trauma have a unique gift of strength and resilience. Trauma is not for wimps. A former chaplain resident I mentored called me “hardcore”. You see things you never imagined you would ever see. You hear pain that you’ve never experienced in your life. It’s challenging all the time. It’s difficult most of the time. And it’s heartbreaking a lot of the time. It’s deeply humbling to walk along side each patient and family member I meet. I am incredibly grateful to work beside the ED and Trauma Teams as we walk in the trenches together.
There is one particular population that I am quite sensitive to; a population I see all too often – patients who’ve attempted to die by suicide. When I say I see them a lot, I am not exaggerating. I’ve seen patients as young as 12 to as old as 93. This year alone, i’ve faced a 12 year old child and 78 year old adult and plenty of ages in-between. There are too many. Unfortunately, many accomplish their goal but not without our team trying everything humanly possible to save them. They die while hearing the screams of their family members crying out for answers as their loved ones take their last breaths. There are many things I can’t do and on top of that list is responding their “why” question. I will never be able to answer them.
The question “why” is more complicated than you think, especially for people of faith. When a family is dealing with the trauma of their loved one (any kind of trauma), I often hear, “I don’t know how people who don’t know God, get through this.” Their faith allows them to cope and survive through the challenges of trauma. However, faith and suicide have a different relationship. For families of suicide patients, faith is another dimension of struggle and pain. There is a level of unwarrented shame and misunderstanding. I met a family deeply devoted in their faith, who lost a loved one to suicide. Their faith caused more pain because the older generation in this family could not acknowledge the suicide. “We went to church. We prayed. We were happy. There has to be something else that caused this. We are not going to tell anyone what happened.” The pain and anger within their broken hearts kept them from seeing beyond their faith.
Faith becomes a struggle when the pastor tells the family, “Are you going to believe the doctors or are you going to trust God?” They demand the families to “pray harder…call out to God..repent for your lack of trust…God will save him..you’ve just got to believe harder.” Those are actual statements I heard from a “pastor”. I cried after that individual poured the salt of shame and guilt into the open wounds of the family. I could see the pain in their faces. They were already grieving the anticipated death of their child. This pastor’s rant made them grieve a loss of their faith, at least what the pastor thought was lost. The patient died that night, after shooting himself through the side of his head with the bullet hitting both hemispheres of the brain. The metal escaped through the other side of the brain but not before causing irreparable damage, a “non-survivable injury”. The only reason I share the specifics of the injury is to help you understand that a patient will NOT come back from this. There will not be the miracle of complete healing. They will die. Even if the body survives, they are already gone. The pastor would not accept that but instead of being the pastor the family needed, he was so much worse. He caused irreparable damage, too. I can only imagine what he said at the funeral service. Why do pastors do that to their flock? How can they inflict so much pain and guilt into the families that trust the pastor with their faith? I will never be able to understand.
There is another level of shame that needs healing. Suicide comes from a deep, dark pain from within the souls of those who are hurting. The pain is so dark that they are willing to do just about anything to stop the pain. It’s a pain so deep they can’t carry it anymore. The pain is nothing to be ashamed of. This darkness is a cancer, it’s a disease, just like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc..that needs to be treated. It is depression and anxiety. It is loneliness and grief. It is aloneness and a loss of control. God knows it’s real. God gets that. God feels our pain. There is no god i know that would brush away the pain of one of his children. God would not shame or sentence their child to hell. No earthly parent should feel that way either.
There is nothing shameful in regards to suicide. Painful, yes. Shameful, no. A patient who shot himself in the chest, removed his oxygen mask and cried out to me, “Just let me die.” The pain in his voice was heartbreaking and painstakingly real. I spoke with his sister who would not accept that this was a suicide attempt. She told the family they were not allowed to share what really happened. She was ashamed of it; likely because of the stigma she grew up with as well as some struggle with her faith. I talked with her about that shame and explained what I shared above. She listened but did not verbally respond. I could tell she was thinking. A couple of months after her brother’s death, she returned to the hospital. She thanked me for explaining the pain that he brother felt. I suspect she knew the pain was there all along. Our conversation helped to free her brother and ultimately, herself, from the shame of depression, pain and suicide. She was able to learn more about her brother’s tragedy and pain and help others understand it, too.
Suicide is real. Depression and anxiety are real. Loneliness is real. Pain is real. People struggle every single day with the darkness that has taken control of their lives. The one way they can gain back any control is to do the only thing that will take away all the pain. I get it. I get it more than you can imagine. If you feel that pain, please reach out. Call the Suicide hotline, meet with your doctor. Request a counselor. If your pastor is a safe person to talk to, meet with him or her. find someone to help carry the yoke with you. Don’t be ashamed.
Life is a continuous struggle for someone in immense pain. Faith should never be a conduit of that darkness. Faith should be the one constant place where you can find a glimpse of light that will guide you through the wilderness and the valley, where you can fight to live another day.
This Chaplain's Journey 