Suicide and Eternal Damnation: Who Is Going to Hell?

Some of the comments are incredible in their lack of understanding. I am a survivor of suicide. It's such an odd way to say it, but I'd be what is often called a "failed suicide" in the mental health field. Ironically, or perhaps not, that is also the field I work in. I had that thought, that urge so many times, over years and years. I had a relationship with God and at one time felt very close to Him, but as my life spun out of control, I felt Him less and less. I still prayed, well, as much as I could. Prayer would often spin into anxiety and worry. I'd so often prayed for a change in circumstances or a change in myself, but that didn't happen. I have struggled with depression since childhood, and it's not as if my relationship with God was not also part of that picture. The time I actually attempted it was somewhat of a surprise. It was not the worst moment of my life and I probably was less depressed than I had been in the past (I have spent years in such a fog. I remember a year before I finally got on meds that I felt I was following what God wanted but also felt no real sadness and no real joy, I was numb to everything. I'd recognize that I should and usually would have had a certain emotion at various times, but I couldn't feel anything. The numbness that can come is the darkest depression I know.)

Anyway, when I attempted suicide, the initial spark, the incident that led me there was difficult and sudden but not the worst thing I'd lived through. But, at that point, I'd had enough. I had prayed. I had studied scripture. But, over years and years I didn't feel things, or me for that matter, change much. I heard all the good, well-meaning people say "God won't give you more than you can handle." I don't see that as a completely Biblical comment anyway, and it often is an attempt by a well-meaning Christian to ease pain. But, for me it just made me feel that God didn't know me that well at all. In the end, my attempt was not so much about the precipitating event as it was about my relationship with God. I felt that He just didn't hear me, that He didn't know that I was past my breaking point. I took the pill. I wrote down everything I took in case it was needed. I did call someone. And, I drifted off until I awoke in the hospital. I had thought that God didn't recognize that I was past my breaking point, that He had indeed allowed too much for me to bear. I thought it was in His hands, although I did set it up so that I could get help. I left it to God. I thought that I'd either die or that He'd finally help me and change my life, change me. I thought that if I lived through it then things would change. I thought survival meant that God would finally act to lift the burdens I'd been carrying. It was when that show "Touched by an Angel" was popular, and I sort of thought that if I woke up Della Reese would be sitting there, with that glowing light all around, and a real miracle would occur. I felt so desperate that I tried to force God's hand, to make Him really know how much pain I was in. Then, I woke up and found a psyc tech there, not any real change. It was odd afterwards, but life soon drifted back to "normal." I did get a dog, and that helped because I felt too guilty to leave her. Maybe that was God's action. I sort of see it that way because of how she came into my life, but that was months later.

Today I still feel that anxiety, the depression, the quetioning and hurt. I pray when I can but still often feel that God just doesn't care. I even at times feel He's "out to get me" for some reason.

I don't know why God hasn't delivered me from this. I don't know why He didn't deliver my mother from cancer, either. God does not always take away an illness, any illness. I am so glad that for some people it seems that God acts in big ways and that the miracles of their life are very apparent. That also makes such a great story or "testimony." But, that is not the experience of us all. And, I have been a very committed Christian who studied the word, prayed, even worked in churches for Him. (I think I did have a bit of a maryter complex and thought that God's will always meant I had to make some great sacrifice and be unhappy, but that by doing that I showed Him I wanted to follow His will. I see it a bit differently now. I don't necessarily think God's will is always some difficult thing. I think, for example, that the profession one chooses may feel "right" and not have to be an aweful sacrifice of other dreams. Some of those dreams we have are from God, and we don't have to seek out suffering.) Anyway, my long drawn out point is that I had a relationship with Him.

I had a relationship with God. (I still do, but it is a bit more complicated as often a child's relationship with any parent becomes at certain developmental points, as part of the process perhaps of even "growing up" spiritually. But, it still sucks.) I was the poster child for a "good" Christian, whatever that means. And, still, I tried to kill myself. That relationship doesn't mean we won't face the same trials as others do. My mother had an amazingly strong relationship with God and did not want to die of cancer. She looked for and longed for and made me ask for a miracle. The cancer wasn't taken from her. I tried so hard to have enough faith, but we are not perfect and even with great faith bad things happen in this world.

I do not understand the evil and pain in the world. I work with children whose parents have done unbelievable things to them. Sometimes these children have already done unbelievable things to others as a result. I can't always reach the pain, the brokenness. I cannot see this as part of God's will or be comforted by a lot of the platitudes people use. I know God is there. I know about His salvation. I do not understand evil. I do not understand at all why it exists or why bad things happen. All the explanations in the world don't make sense in the end. I just know that God is real and that He created us and redeemed us. The older I get the less I know it seems, but the more I am comfortable with the questions. And, I try to get up and do good in the world as much as I can even while dealing with my own pain and suffering.

Depression and anxiety are not easily understood by those who do not live within it. This isn't normal "sadness" and may not be sadness at all. I have often described it as living for months and years feeling like you do when you are the most bored. There comes a point where nothing matters much. It's like being wrapped in cotton. You can sort of feel things or at least recognize what you would normally feel, but there is this insulating force, this "thing" keeping you from the world and from yourself. As in any illness, God can be there and will take whatever action He chooses, but that doesn't mean that the illness still won't kill you, just as not all "good" faithful believing Christians recover from cancer.

If it helps any for those who have been the victims of someone else's "completed" suicide (these are actual terms that are used, so weird), I'll tell you a bit about those moments.

I had a shock and felt great pain, but then I felt that God really didn't know He'd given me "more than I could bear." I actually became really calm. I was very deliberate and felt more rational than I had in a long time. I took all the drugs in the house except my roommates medication for her heart because I didn't want her to suffer. Because I wanted to live if God decided to change things, I left information for others. I actually wrote down all the drugs I took and the amount of each. I made a list. I made a list of who to call. I asked that my one brother and his wife not be called because I felt they were having their own difficulties right then and didn't need this added on. (They later felt that I had just not wanted them or not felt they could help.) I thought I was sparing them. Now, that isn't rational at all. If I had died, they would have had to be told and would have been impacted for life. But, in the moment, I thought I was protecting them. It felt rational even though when examined later it was anything but. I still feel guilty that I almost left my pet rabbit and that I didn't care enough about him to stop myself, but I did leave instructions about how to care for him. It's not that I didn't think about others, it's that I really was out of my mind at that moment. Once that desire to kill myself, or at least to express to God that He needed to step in if He wanted me to remain on earth, I got calm and felt rational. (yes, I know I "tempted" and "tested" God, but I ultimately felt that He had not acted through so many desperate situations). I just remember how much sense it seemed to make. I remember that I really felt in control and rational but looking back it was just the opposite.

If any of your loved ones did suceed in killing themselves, their brains weren't working correctly. There was a glitch in that organ, in the brain. The biochemistry somehow got very out of whack. They experienced things that were not at all real, just as I experienced myself as being very rational. I felt everything made sense. I felt I was trying to look out for others. But, it made no sense really. What I experienced was not real, but I felt like I was making really good choices right then. It truly is not something that one can control once a certain point is reached. I'd been more desperate and hurt before, but now it was the weight of years of suffering. I can't tell you why that moment was the moment I chose, but I can tell you that I now recognize that irrationality better and seek help if I feel that way. But, when I made that attempt, I could not reason myself out of it. And, I was actually praying and talking to God the entire time I prepared. But, the organ that is my mind was not working correctly, just like other organs don't work correctly at times. When the brain is sick, it impacts one's sense of self to be sure, but it still is illness.

I can't tell you anything except a strong relationship with God and lots of prayer do not always prevent suicide attempts. It might have been possible for the concern for someone else to break through and stop me, but I had wrongly reasoned that I was thinking of others. I hurt people and scared them, but that wasn't my intent. If a loved one of yours has succeeded in taking their own life, understand that is was actually an illness that eventually became out of their control that killed them. I think that feeling so very rational during my attempt was a delusion. I experienced a shock that piled onto years of struggling and praying for things, or me, to change. I experienced a shock when I had suffered for many years from depression. That shock triggered something in my brain to misfire. I'd thought about suicide many times before and felt sadder even, but something about the cumulative effects of my experiences and lifelong depression made me vulnerable. So, when I had those thoughts again, they felt rational. It's not that I wasn't praying enough because I prayed then. My ability to reason and to make sound judgements was broken, and I could "will" myself to do differently because my broken brain believed I was doing the right thing. I knew what the Bible says about killing someone. But, I still felt I was doing the right thing. Sure, for me there was even some anger and frustration with God as well, but that delusional state that actually led me to take action rather than just feel the pain was a brokeness of mind, a misfire in the brain, a thing I could not change at that moment anymore than a person can "will" away any other disease. My mother didn't want to die of cancer, either, and told me to pray for physical healing not for an easy passage into death. But, all the faith that could be mustered didn't make the cancer go away. She had had medical "miracles" before. You can say all sorts of platitudes about why God let her die, but for me it's never enough. We humans could not cause a miracle to happen with her cancer and I couldn't with my suicidality. For some reason, not necessarily ever known to me, I survived.

Please understand that most people at the time they actually go through with a suicide are not thinking clearly and are incapable of changing that. Even for a Christian, it seemed a reasonable and ratonal response to the situations in my life. I tried to spare others suffering but really could not comprehend what impact my actions would have. I have been in that state and can tell you that I absolutely believe that someone is not damned for committing suicide any more than they are damned for dying of cancer, which some people would also say represents a lack of faith. There is a physical reality of illness within the brain. We are just beginning to scientifically understand, but I can tell you that the thoughts and emotions are outside of "normal," even outside of "normal" for someone with depression. Something misfires, some physical aspect of the brain does not work correctly at that moment. I did sort of tell God I was sorry but at the same time I honestly thought I was doing the right thing, the reasonable thing. This would have been a "sin" that I didn't recognize as such. I didn't experience it as necessarily wrong so repentence was not necessarily possible. I thought I was maybe even doing what God wanted; that's how crazy I got. It's not about willful sinning and failure to repent.

If Christ died to forgive our sins and completed the act of redemption before any of us were even born, before any of us even sinned, then the words "It is finished" should be of comfort. Grace is not about having "enough" faith, and faith itself is a gift from God, not something we can create within ourselves. (We can do things to foster its growth, but faith is still a gift from God. Christ admonished Thomas, but He also met Thomas in his doubt and gave Thomas what was needed to have more faith. Christ didn't wait for Thomas to come to Him, he met Thomas right where he was, right there in his doubt. Wouldn't he met us there, too?) Our sins are forgiven even before we committ them if the words "It is finished" are to be taken to heart. So, even the "sin" of suicide is already forgiven. We can never repent of every sin because we don't recognize all our sins (and some of them we secretly like). If God only forgives sins we recognize and actively repent of, we are all damned because we do not see our own sins. A person does not recognize they are sinning when they kill themselves.

I still struggle. I recognize that it's an imperfect world while also recognizing that it is God's world and that it also has wonderful things in it that I want to see and do. I don't understand the "why" of many things in life. I accept that I may never understand while on earth. I can't just cover it all up by saying "It's God's will" because I am sure some of the things that happen to the kids I work with are in no way part of His will. There are miracles, and I don't know why some people experience the big, physical, obvious miracles while others just as faithful don't. It does seem arbitrary and I express my real feelings, including anger and frustration, to God. He's big enough to take it, and doing anything else would be to stand before God and lie. I am full of doubt. But, just as courage is not the absence of fear but the reaction in the face of fear, faith is not the absence of doubt either. I don't believe God needs to be defended, so I don't talk to too many people about this. Too often people want to rush in and "fix" it either for me or even for God. They seek to explain His choices and His will, but we are just humans. We can and do know parts of the will of God, but we cannot understand it all. It is beyond us. And I, like Thomas before me, stand in my doubt and challenge Christ to meet me there. There is a reason that story made it into the Bible. I expect that Christ does and will continue to meet me in that doubt and give me what I need to have faith as well. I don't always experience that, but I do believe it.

None of this makes sense, but suicide does not make sense. It is an irrational act of a brain that it not functioning correctly, of a brain where the chemistry is askew, where the connections of impulses between brain cells is not functioning correctly. My sins were forgiven 2000 years ago. That's when I was saved. It is about His action not about mine. It is grace and faith is the gift that comes through it. I now live with more acceptance of the questions, of the fact that we cannot know everything. We actually know so very little. That is true in all areas but especially with God. We can have a relationship with Him, but that doesn't mean we can completely understand Him at this point in time. He isn't just a super-human, He is a different entity than we are. I live with depression while I seek to aleviate it to some degree in my work. I really meet God there. It is easier to see Him and to act and speak accordingly when I look at someone else. I come closer to seeing them as God sees them than I can do with myself. I am broken, but we all are. I will experience death at some point in time; this body will fail at some point. I can't possibly repent of every sin. And, even when I repent in broad sweeping statements, I cannot free myself from all sin and will not before I die. In the secret recesses of my heart there will always be some sins I sort of like. They might be more minor like breaking the law and speeding, but there are there none the less.I think that's true for all of us if we are really honest. I can repent of not wanting to repent, but that's about it. Suicide is illness. I don't think it results in damnation. Either God forgives us because of His actions and His promises or we are all screwed. If Christ met Thomas in his doubt, why would He not meet someone who commits suicide in their's?

some people give really easy answers such as "just pray" and think that will "fix" depression. It doesn't always work that way. Some people actually think that they will be able to repent of everything, even those sins they hide in their hearts, in order to be saved. Some of us have even prayed for forgiveness for sins we may do in the future just to cover our bases. But, is God really looking for ways to "nail" us? Repentence is a means of growing in a relationship and is vitally important, but if something we do or think or feel or believe is what saves us, it will never be enough. Grace is what saves us. Grace is about God's choices and God's actions, not about ours. And, it covers us all, takes us in as we are. I think someone who has killed themselves is met on the other side just as Thomas was met in tihs life. God is going to be limited in what He can and will do to meet a person in their pain and doubt by a time factor, by the fact that the person didn't have time before death to repent? God will be limited by death? God will damn us if we suffer from a brain misfunction that takes us out of this life before we have time to repent? We will be damned because of an illness that makes us think we are doing the rational thing when we aren't? I just don't see God as acting that way.

If you haven't survived your own suicide it must be hard to imagine how screwed up the brain is at that time. It is easy to see it as more of a willful act than something beyond our control. There was a spiritual aspect to my suicide attempt, but I'd been frustrated with God before, and much more so. The spiritual aspect was there because it was a part of my life, even the questions were a part of my life at that time. But, the actual decision and the subsequent actions I took were outside of that. Something literally wasn't working right, and I actually thought I was doing something that made sense. I was praying and I had studied scriptures but I even experienced the suicide as being okay in some way. It felt "right" and I couldn't tie it to the Commandments because I was delusional, at least to the degree that I thought I was making a good choice, a wise choice, a rational choice. I know now my brain wasn't functioning correctly. I can see how irrational I was, but then I couldn't. There was a point when I was no longer capable of thinking rationally, and exactly what made that different than other times I'd thought about it is hard to say. But, it was different. It was the most irrational thing I've done in my life and yet at the time it felt very rational, very "right," very sensible. People don't go to hell because of an illness. If you had walked through that valley, you would know that there comes a point where everything you know, even things you know about God, get so turned around that you aren't responsible in the same way. There may be a time before that when one could pick up on warning signs and do something to stop themselves or to get help, but then the craziness takes over. I felt so in control and I was so nuts at the time.

I have to go. I have crises to deal with today and work to do as well. I hope my comments have helped some of you. I do believe that God welcomes someone who committs suicide with open arms and heals their brokenness and covers them with Grace.

I have to disagree with most of you on this topic...It probably has mostly to do with the way that i was raised, that being by and Assembly of God minister. I was raised on the King James version bible and beleive the Ten Commandments, one of which is 'Thou Shalt not Kill'. I've often questioned whether God makes exceptions for people who have mental illness and so forth and so on , but if we beleive the bible then we believe that if you break a commandment and stand before God not having asked forgiveness for what you have done, then you are not forgiven..Therefore it is my way of thinking that suicides do not make it into the kingdom of Heaven which is sad to me because i have survived family members who have committed suicide...But God said "Thou shalt keep my commandments". I have to beleive that..So in my opinion if someone takes their own life they have broken that commandment of 'thou shalt not kill' therefore not being able to enter into Gods Kingdom.

I too am a "survivor" of suicide... and a Christian...but am still in a depressed state. It is not easy to describe why a Christian would have such thoughts... The most probable reason is because we are a more tempting treat for satan. Speaking for myself, my thoughts are constantly troubled not only by past regrets but future realism. It not only slows me down but keeps me from moving ahead. This is where satan gets his jollies and does what he is best at doing which is confusion and deception. It's a daily struggle, a battle so to speak called spiritual warfare. The evil part parades through minds like a cancer making one think that shame, guilt, depression, the feeling of being forgiven will never come, can't cope anymore, hopelessness, fear, extreme and soul crushing anxiety, etc. etc. It's something that sometimes becomes so overwhelming that one starts believing there is nothing that can help them bear the pain anymore. Even the Lord seems too far away and distant and one may start to feel that they have been abandoned even by Him because they are not good enough... more of satan's special "handiwork". I don't know if God forgives Christians who commit suicide because they couldn't bear the struggle with satan anymore and fell to be massacred by his evil temptations. All I know that going through it is extremely hard and exhausting, more than words can describe... But then again, I am still alive and living to fight another day. But I can certainly sympathize with others going through the same battle. It is not easy.