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Suicide is a major public health problem and a

Desire death.Pain and disease were wracking their bodies. Every day had become an ordeal. Some felt no purpose for their existence. They echoed these words, It is enough, Lord. Take away my life.

I am not sure what officially qualifies as suicidal ideation. After our third miscarriage, I would sometimes fantasize about steering my car into oncoming traffic. (I found out years later that my wife did the exact same thing.) However, that was fortunately brief, and I have not experienced it aside from that.

Agreed - what should they be doing?And here is a real problem - 2 churches that have led the way in dealing with depression in their members - had pastors that dealt with severe depression. But the pastors still killed themselves.So - who would know the answer

That doesn't mean that what those churches were doing was wrong or ineffective. A world-class cancer treatment center is still going to have patients who die from cancer. And sometimes it will have doctors who die from cancer.Better church care would start with pastors making the effort to learn about and understand mental illness at a basic clinical level. Learning that it is in many cases a chronic condition, that whether chronic or temporary it cannot be willed or believed or prayed away, and that it is a condition as tangible and real as any physical condition. This would be followed by lay leaders and lay folks.Ultimately, the church would make tremendous strides in its care of folks with depression or other mental health issues if it simply treated those people the same way they would treat someone with a non-mental health condition.

I agree with you.But - back to my point - two church pastors recently that lead the way with understanding clinical depression - even wrote books and articles about it - still killed themselves.If the ones doing the best can't prevent it - who can? I think the science regarding this is still in its infancy - where we have tried certain medicines that sometimes make things worse - especially if you try to come off the medicine for whatever reason.I believe it is more like cancer - even when we treat it with everything we know - chances of failure are great.As we are praying - pray for a breakthrough there

What's the point?I don't get it

What's the point?I don't get it.

What's the point?I don't get it. Have you never heard that before? Some say that Jesus committed suicide. No - can't say that I have heard it

That doesn't mean that what those churches were doing was wrong or ineffective. A world-class cancer treatment center is still going to have patients who die from cancer. And sometimes it will have doctors who die from cancer.Better church care would start with pastors making the effort to learn about and understand mental illness at a basic clinical level. Learning that it is in many cases a chronic condition, that whether chronic or temporary it cannot be willed or believed or prayed away, and that it is a condition as tangible and real as any physical condition. This would be followed by lay leaders and lay folks.Ultimately, the church would make tremendous strides in its care of folks with depression or other mental health issues if it simply treated those people the same way they would treat someone with a non-mental health condition.How should a church treat someone with fibromyalgia? That's how they should treat someone with chronic depression. Yes, just because of the failures we NEED more insight. and thanks Dave for that statement about 'Steering into on coming traffic'. I think that is more common than lots of folks think. Thank God, i think it is more just a passing thought, but I am sure some have thought of it. When I thought of it, immediately I thought of the 'other guy' who did not deserve MY Intruding into his life.I wish churches could somehow come up with a winning 'Help' for the problem, because it is a problem. Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/