You have seen my troubles, and you care about the anguish of my soul. Psalm 31:7 (NLT)
by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
If you have kids at home, they likely know someone who has at least thought about suicide. The idea of suicide as a consideration for coping with anxiety and stress is running wild throughout the adolescent and pre-adolescent culture in this unpredictable and socially fragile time they are living in. And for the most part, they’re not talking to you about it. But more often than not, they are talking to each other. Some are supportive in helping their friends to seek help, and others are feeding into each other’s misery; perhaps unwittingly cheering each other on to self-harm. And it’s all over social media.
I am a counselor in a hospital psychiatric ward (child and adolescent youth). I work with psychologically wounded kids. I have the opportunity to speak truth and life into the minds of my teenage and preteen patients who consider suicide as a means to a remedy for a burden so overwhelming they feel they’re being crushed under its weight. Call it the temple of failure and fear.
My mission when counseling these kids is to help them to filter what they feel emotionally through what they know logically makes more sense to them in the rational thinking regions of their brains. They just don’t know that they know. As these kids allow this rational intellectual truth to sink in they can begin to discern the difference between giving up when they are feeling hopeless, and giving up with the intellectual (rational) understanding that they are helpless… helpless to resolve their conflicts on their own. This is huge! Feeling hopeless leads to despair as though help is not at all possible. Rationally understanding that they are helpless affords these kids the opportunity to seek needed help for that which is beyond their ability to manage. There is hope in that. If only there are willing, which usually they are when they sense that help is realistic.
The same, of course, is true for people of all ages experiencing feelings of hopeless despair, so overwhelmed by the burden they carry that they may consider terminating their own life as the most effective way out from under it. If allowed to go rogue, the emotional brain within all human beings tends to run roughshod over the rational sensibility of intellectually sound reason.
The only thing the emotional brain really cares about is relieving the discomfort of the moment. Suicide will do that. But what these young people are not thinking about is how suicide is a ripoff. To reduce the pain of their present circumstance is to lose out on future experiences these kids haven’t even thought of yet. It’s important that they be informed of the good in their lives that is coming if they can endure their teenage circumstances.
Just like teenagers ten years ago never would have imagined what they value and love today, they have no idea that ten years from now they will experience—and may have by then already experienced—things in their lives that are so very special and important to them. If only they could see it. Of course, there are no guarantees, but it is entirely possibly that they will experience the love of someone they haven’t even met yet. Maybe it’s an enduring romance. Maybe it’s the birth and life of a child. Maybe it’s a dream opportunity. But they have to prevail through the mess they’re in today to get there.
Something I have realized working with these kids is that they are trusting solely with their emotional brain while so overwhelmed they feel hopeless, and that giving into their sense of despair means that suicide is the best remedy to unload the burden they carry. Many of them are unbelievers; skeptics cynical of dysfunctional (and perhaps abusive) parents professing religious beliefs. These kids trend toward wanting nothing to do with faith in the God of the parents many of them believe to be hypocrites.
It’s popular for these young people to say they don’t believe in God. Some of them did believe, and perhaps even want to believe still, but they are hurting inside and those who’ve been hurting them say that they believe in God… even attend church. How do kids believe in the same God that those hurting them say they believe in? So these wounded kids choose to not believe in the God they cannot see. What appears to be going on here is that they choose not to believe in the God whose good they cannot see. I want to help them see the evidence of God’s goodness in their experience.
I hope to challenge my patients with this question: If God didn’t always exist, what did? Something did. Was it a living, intelligent, loving God that invented life and love, or was it something not alive, without love in it, that always existed and somehow, through random process, accidentally evolved into the complexities of everything that lives, and reasons, and loves? Many of my patients pretend not to care about these questions but with some prompting and persuasion, engage in the discussion.
I had a chance recently to get into it with a couple of recovering suicidal teenagers who insisted they believed in science, and that something of the universe was always out there. I asked them, “Even if it was, how did the universe originate life without some divine direction unless it was already alive? How did the evolutionary process occur through random, accidental mutations and occurrences? I asked them, “If the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle you’re playing were scattered a across the floor, 
and then just laid there a few billion years, would the puzzle put itself together and create a picture that made any sense? Would something like a strong wind come through and blow the pieces over time to eventually fit them all together just so? Would the building deteriorate and over time the pieces would find each other? Or would the pieces deteriorate as well? How would the pieces of this puzzle come to life, and then reproduce to make more puzzles, each with their own unique pictures, that with some built-in mechanism, put themselves together?”
They agreed that the puzzle would not solve itself or be solved without help.. Someone had to do something with it. I then asked them, if they were to accept that they were made by a Creator, if everything after that is possible (including the resurrection of the son of God)? The response? “That’s a good point. I have to really think about that now.”
These two teenagers, a boy and a girl, both made the point that they were against religion. So I made sure they understood that I was not all talking about religion. I was talking to them about what made the most sense in regards to the origins of it all. Their initial reaction was an emotional one against religion. Don’t even get them started about religion. But once the emotional opposition to religion was taken from the equation, we were able to have a reasonable discussion on what made the most sense to them on an intellectual plane. All of sudden they were open-minded about a lot more after that; certainly willing to listen and ponder likelihoods and probabilities, according to their own understanding, rather than being limited by preconceived notions and misguided conclusions.
These kids I get to work with say they don’t believe in Santa Claus either, so I’ll ask them, “If Santa landed on your roof, again and again, Christmas after Christmas, and blessed you, would you then believe in Santa Claus?” They respond almost every time that they most certainly would believe. Once these kids see the goodness of God that is evident in the circumstances of their lives, I believe that they would find relationship with God irresistible. They need to make up their own minds and reach their own thought-out conclusions, rather than sucking on someone else’s made for them.
What God has allowed me to do is use whatever talent and skill he has afforded me to break through the barriers erected by religious dogma and emotional resistance to faith by targeting the rational sensibilities in the frontal regions of their brains. I often see the light flickering in the eyes of my patients when their argument for science becomes more tenuous to wrap their heads around than the sensibility of faith in a creator who made them and loves them like his son or daughter.
Children and teenagers, desperate to feel loved, are encouraged. It’s pretty cool seeing the light in their eyes begin to flicker. When the light comes on and shines brightly it is awesome to experience with them. It then makes the most sense to take suicide off the table as the lone intervention for their pain and consider more rational strategies to manage their anxiety and depression, empowered by the renewing of their minds… a transformative change in their rational thinking. If only they believed in the Creator who made their minds in the first place.
Alright, so let’s get into it
Of course, the matter of hopeless despair and suicide as a seemingly reasonable antidote for severe discomfort is not exclusive to young people. Victims of trauma often find living to be an endeavor of futility.
Veterans of our military in this country are typically subject to the most unimaginable trauma and are left feeling it is all just too much to bear (20 suicides each day). Cancer victims in pain and struggling to deal with harsh inevitabilities may feel that they are in way over their heads when nothing will cure what ails them. Those burdened with trauma, drug addiction, chronic unemployment, personal loss and failure, profound shame and regret, death and divorce, abandonment, poverty, heartache, getting old, and those afflicted with disability and mental illness (such as psychosis and depression), are particularly vulnerable and at risk for self-termination.
Another source of trauma for our young people today—even though it’s not at all exclusive to them—is the matter of gender and sexual identity. Gay or straight? Male or female… or a combination of both male and female… or neither male or female? These are serious issues that have various degrees of trauma built in as kids living out this experience struggle with feeling confused, bullied, betrayed, rejected, and in so many cases, abandoned by those they trust and love most. To resist it, reject it, or altogether ignore it, could literally be a matter of life or death as today’s youth wrestle with the dysphoric effects of what it all means for them, and all that they consider to be at stake.
Another trigger at the pulse of anxiety, stress, and depression is a preoccupation with an overwhelming sense of injustice and feeling victimized. There is this asphyxiating battle of attrition regarding demands and expectations, and the inability of so many to meet those demands; never living up to expectations. It has led to problems of intense stress in families and communities, evoking acute anxiety and deepening depression. This prevailing sense of injustice on so many plains has fostered the erosion of confidence in individuals and families to ever measure up. How can I ever be content enough to experience joy if the deck is always stacked against me? As values continue to be shaped by diminished self-esteem, the notion that happiness is possible is crippled, increasing feelings of hopeless despair.
It is the burden of unmet expectation that becomes so heavy that it can no longer be ferried on the backs of the injured and oppressed. Suicide, unfortunately, then feels like the only route of escape into relief; a desperate act to get out from under the weight of the burden. When suffocating, they will do anything to catch their breath.
Where then lies our hope?
The Lord longs to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him! Isaiah 30:18 (NIV)
Depression and despair is not partial to any particular age group. Statistically, studies indicate that suicide rates increase with age. Younger population groups have had consistently lower suicide rates than middle-aged and older adults. However, there is a major spike in suicide rates during the adolescent and young adult years.
I am working primarily with kids younger than eighteen years of age, so that is my emphasis and priority with what I have written here. However, the findings and applications throughout this piece are inclusive to anyone and everyone in the battle to experience freedom and peace. What I believe is critical to young people considering suicide as an escape route is that they have yet to develop adequate comprehension to measure their concerns against their capacity to manage what they are feeling once they have sufficient support and the tools to survive, cope, and thrive.
What I have found (and continue to find) working with young people is that what gets twisted is that real helplessness from overwhelming stress becomes distorted emotionally, to the point that folks feel hopeless; sucked into the vacuum of despair. When that happens, these individuals do not feel like giving up and crying out for help. They feel that there is no help. Therefore, happy is not possible… not gonna happen. So they feel like giving up and ending what they believe is the futility of their lives. There is no point. It’s not a cliche. It’s not melodramatic. It is truly what they believe is their reality.
The reality is that, according to the Center for Disease Control, suicide has been the second leading cause of death (2011-2014) in the United States for young people, age 10 through 34. That suicide is documented as the second-leading cause of death for fifth through eighth grade children is particularly alarming. I will go in depth into this most tragic of crises among our youth.
Young people, having attempted suicide, usually report to me a feeling of panic and change of mind due to a profound sense of the unknown outcome once “crossing over” to the “other side.” Almost every time, these kids tell me that they don’t know they would just cease to exist… no more than a pile of bones in a box that doesn’t feel anything anymore. They become frightened they might be wrong about that. It’s not necessairly a religious thing. It’s far deeper than that. It isn’t something they typically comprehend. But its reality scares them to death (pun intended). And in that moment they’re not sure that dying is the solution for remedying their pain.
Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:12-13 (NLT)
The most famous person to ever walk on planet earth said…
“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow—crushed with grief—to the point of death.” —Jesus of Nazareth
The way we view self is through the lens of our life experiences. When the lens is fogged up by our experiences, we’ll struggle to see things clearly, which in turn impacts beliefs that distort our values and self-esteem. Distorted beliefs and twisted values fuel feelings and thoughts that drive choices and behavior; even though we may know better on a reasonable, intellectual level.
When emotion betrays reasonable sensibility, that’s when the problems get bigger, conflicts intensify, and confrontations lapse into hostility. When emotion betrays reasonable sensibility, healthy guilt, instead of being a platform for motivating constructive change and growth, morphs into that bottomless pit of shame, and profound feelings of disappointment and failure. When emotion betrays reasonable sensibility, relationships are perceived as a threat, rather than an opportunity to experience love.
The emotional mind of a person has been and continues to be a killer when betraying the rational sensibilities of the intellectual mind. Feelings will commit treason against rational thought and emote hopelessness and the notion of giving up. What is warranted here is the conversion from an emotionally fed hopeless state to a rationally sound helpless state (meaning what, exactly?). This will make complete sense if you’re willing to go on a little journey to learn about how the brain works and what that it means for anyone considering doing something radical to escape the pain and struggle of lost hope.
For those experiencing sadness and depression, the notion of contentment and happiness is a conditional (what has become) reality.
“I will be happy if…”
“I will be happy when…”
“If only…”
Assessment and judgment about life experiences going forward is so clouded by life experiences looking backward that it’s as though one is blind to the possibility that life can truly be good. The stress of expectation takes its toll to the point that even positive experiences are flawed and tainted. A good thing to anyone else is a burden to the one whose moments of delight are reasons to worry. It won’t last… it never does… therefore, anything good is only a set up for adversity and misery. Happiness is stressful. Therefore, true happiness is not possible in the minds of those battling anxiety and depression.
Add to perceived failure, rejection and disappointment, actual failure, rejection and disappointment, and you have a confused, complicated mind. Throw in some trauma and betrayal and you have a disturbed mind. Pile on with some loneliness and isolation and you’re looking at someone in despair. The straw that breaks the camel’s back may be the onset of mental illness with all of its neurobiological factors.
“I cannot continue to live this way… It’s too overwhelming… The burden is way too heavy and it’s crushing me…”
“I am a burden to everyone around me… If I can’t take care of myself, how can I take care of anyone else? Who’s taking care of me?”
“Why do my parents hit each other? Why do they hit me? Why do my parents call me names?”
“Why don’t my parents care about me? Why don’t they love me? Come to think of it, I’m not sure what love is…”
“I don’t have any friends… The only attention I get from other kids is when they bully me.”
“I’m so ugly… No one loves me… I’m worthless… I hate myself.”
“What I’ve done is unforgivable! How can anyone love me?”
“What am I missing that my wife found in someone else?”
“Why does my husband hate me so much?”
“Why do my children despise me?”
“I am a failure as a parent.”
“I’m no good to anyone… I feel like such a failure.”
“Everyone I know hurts me or I hurt them. I’m no good to anyone! You would all be better off without me.”
“Why am I here? What is there in my life to live for? I have no purpose.”
“What’s the point, anymore? I can never be happy. I feel so hopeless. I give up.”
Scars are, in actuality, healed wounds that have left their mark as evidence of harm done. Scars tend to fade over time. Scabs, on the other hand, are wounds in the process of healing. It may not require a whole lot of stress or conflict against the healing wound to rip wide open the scab and there is once again and open wound ripe for contamination and infection.
Emotional wounds are very much like that. Until they are completely healed, which can take more than a lifetime, they are easily reopened, gagging the healing process. Defenses go up, walls are erected, feelings are repressed, and the search is on for an effective remedy. What will it take to escape the pain? What will it take to finally be free?
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2
The human brain has so many facets in how it works. The limbic system is an operating system generally seen as the emotional center within the systemic perplexities of one’s process of what to do with experiences. The brain also has within the cerebral cortex it’s more intellectual processors along a region known as the frontal lobes. It is there where most rational thought occurs regarding decisions, problem solving, judgment, planning and other higher forms of intellectual process.
Messages are relayed throughout the activity of the brain through a vast network of neurons relaying messages via neurotransmitters. Neurons are the messengers in the brain transmitting electrical impulses (nuerotransmissions) from neuron (nerve cell) to neuron—some trillion of them—throughout the central nervous system. When neurotransmitters are in balance, intellectual and emotional processes in the brain are operating well together.
The limbic system (emotional mind) involves neurotransmitters associated with the emotional part of the brain having to do with regulating mood and energy, pleasure and reward, anger management, pain modulation, relief and relaxation, contentment and satisfaction, excitement, and so on. It is a critical region of the human anatomy sensitive to trauma and stress; and in particular, sudden stress.
The cerebral frontal cortex (rational mind) involves neurotransmitters relaying signals having to do with thoughtful concern and caution, intellectual (cognitive) function, processing information, memory and recall for learning. When the neurotransmissions from these frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex are in balance with the neurotransmissions from the limbic system, motivation is healthiest and energy is most congruent with temperate emotional health (psychiatric stability).
“The frontal lobes are particularly important in our sense of willfulness and have even been attributed as the seat of the will. And the limbic system is typically regarded as the emotional value areas of the brain.” —Dr. Andrew Newberg, Neuroscientist
So when you hear talk of someone not being wired right or getting their wires crossed, it sound be facetious, but it’s actually the case. People are not electronic machines or robots. We are wonderfully and fearfully (carefully) made by God. God created the science of the human make up and the systemic process within the human brain and central nervous system. He created us to be special beings in the universe.
We were made to live in this world free of disturbance and distortion. But since neither you or I are God, we’ve taken this amazing instrument of his creation and made some choices that the intentional glitch of free will allow us to make. These choices are independent from the way the system is intended to operate. The result of these flaws written into the program, made by human error, have resulted in the network crashing, leading to disorder and imbalance.
Imbalance in these transmissions between neurons contribute to the experience of anxiety, unmanaged anger and stress, depression, and an overall sense of psychological disarray. Disappointment can decline into a sense of inadequacy and sadness. Sadness can sink into a deeper sense of worthlessness and sorrow. Worthlessness and sorrow can drown into an irrational sense of failure and hopelessness. What can be mystifying is when someone experiencing symptoms of neurochemical imbalance cannot identify stressors that are triggering symptoms.
These two systems of brain functioning need to work really well together in a symbiotic relationship. It needs to be a collaborative effort for healthy daily living for quality of life to be enjoyed. Unfortunately, the accumulation of life experiences can really do damage to the relationship between what is often referred to as the rational mind and that of the emotional mind, resulting in irrational behavioral decisions.
Abuse, neglect, and trauma on any level, within any range of acuity and intensity, can have debilitating impact on the cerebral functioning of anyone, but especially young people; most specifically, children. Those children grow up to be emotionally vulnerable and susceptible to cerebral effects. Each and every experience of a person’s life is processed into the accumulation of stored information. Everything that is seen, heard, and felt is considered automatically as it comes to each and every behavioral decision; whether it be spontaneous or thought out over time.
Add to that the reality that the human brain may have clinical breakdowns within its ability to process information within one’s experience. Behavioral health issues and mental illness add significantly to the overall scope of the breaking down of rational process and impulse control.
What’s wrong with my kid?
I work primarily with children—teens and preteens—as a mental health counselor in the behavioral health wing of a Chicago-area hospital; what some might consider to be the psychiatric ward.
Most of these kids deal with the issue of suicide or have been escalating in their aggressive behavior to the point where their parents and/or social authority types have run out of viable options other than to get them necessary help, including hospitalization.
Some of these kids have attempted suicide. While most may overdose on pills, others have tried to hang themselves or cut themselves. Some have walked into busy streets, and others have have walked along a bridge. Most of our patients have told someone they feel suicidal since losing hope that life can ever be better than what it is.
I mentioned the matter of abuse, neglect, and trauma. These conditions are most prevalent in the cases of the individuals I work with, including the adults and substance abusers I work with from time to time.
(Notice I did not mention that anyone I have worked with has jumped off a bridge or a roof, since those who have attempted suicide that way are generally successful.)
Children who have been bullied can be traumatized emotionally from those experiences. As soon as I use the term “bully,” does your mind go to children’s experiences with other children… particularly at school? What about the bullying that happens in the homes of these kids? More specifically than that, what about children being bullied by their parents? What about children seeing one parent bullying another parent? Bullying can occur between siblings. Bullying is more than physical. Bullying can be verbal. The outcome of bullying is emotional and can be debilitating.
Bullying is abusive and potentially traumatizing to these children; children that are growing up, like it or not.
Regardless of how subtle or intense these experiences are, the minds of children are processing all of it into the accumulation of information that is stored as the brains of these kids are programmed over time. The outcome lies in thinking and behavioral choices that render a verdict for what happens today and into their future.
There lies the problem. As children accumulate information from each and every experience, their minds are labeling those experiences, according to feelings they readily understand that translate into boundless insecurities. The most meaningful include feeling betrayed, rejected, unforgiven, unloved, and unwanted. While they might not have any idea what a giving, loving relationship looks like or feels like, something from within the core of their rational sensibilities has an idea of what they are supposed to look like and feel like.
Many of these young people may not have experienced something in their most important and meaningful relationships they know as unconditional love and support, but they do have an idea of what they are missing. They have innate expectations for those who are supposed to love and care for them, and when those expectations are not met, there is a void; a vacuum left that will absorb whatever it can from wherever it can get it.
For the sake of this discussion, I would like to suggest that as a lifetime’s worth of experiences have impacted and infected the way we see ourselves, how we see the world, and how we see ourselves in the world, distorting values and twisting beliefs, the entangled chaos in our network of emotional development and process becomes ’emotional dysfunction.’
What’s wrong with my kid, my spouse, my friend, or perhaps with me, is that the emotional process within the systemic networks of the brain is led to believe what our feelings tell us, according to the collected information from our experiences. So then everything to be experienced from that point forward is through the lens of our emotional dysfunction.
In other words, there is what I know in my deepest intellectual sensibilities to be rational. Then, according to my experiences, there is how what I know to be rational is altered by how I feel about it. How I feel about it can be intense; even extreme. My response to a new experience can be an immediate reaction before I ever deliberately process the thought. It’s what the cognitive-behavioral experts refer to as automatic thinking.
The emotional center of the brain—the limbic system—translates experiences into sudden responses without having filtered the experience through the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex. When feelings are filtered through rational thinking—judgement—we have more opportunity to actually think before we react. When the emotional systems go rogue and take over, we’ll have the tendency to lose control of our impulses, leading to automatic thinking and behavioral choices, followed by their logical/natural consequences.
When driving an automobile, most of us drive with one foot, switching between the accelerator and the brake. If we still had the foot on the accelerator while simultaneously applying the break, it would be very difficult for the vehicle to discontinue moving forward at the pace it was moving. There is definite potential for disaster and tragedy.
This limbic system of the brain’s process acts like an accelerator when it comes to driving behavior. The frontal cerebral cortex serves as the brake pedal for the purpose governing behavior. However, this function of this accelerator escalating one’s emotional temperature can make it especially difficult for the brake to be applied in time or to have the desired cautionary response.
It would be like driving a hundred miles an hour on a road with a fifty mile an hour speed limit full of twists and turns. You come around the turn at excessive speeds and there a cars in front of you. You see their tail lights and attempt to slow down. But when your escalated feelings affect your judgment, you come up on the traffic in front of you at too high a speed and do not realize that what appeared to be tail lights are not that at all. They are brake lights and you are driving so fast that a high-speed collision is inevitable.
The frontal lobes of the brain, where logic and rational thought occur acts as the brake pedal, execute caution through inhibitory transmissions to form rational resistance against a careless emotional reaction to something. When these two systems of the brain that drive behavioral choices are functioning in harmony, the rational brain serves as protector and defender, able to present willful resistance against potential harm. The more someone is harmed and beaten down through the accumulation of negative experience, the more the rational function of the brain is weakened and vulnerable to further harm. Then, more emotional defenses are built up not in tandem with sound intellectual recognition since rational thinking has been tricked by emotion. Walls are erected and barriers emboldened, resulting in increased fear.
Love inspires confidence and healthy motivation. The opposite or absence of love begets fear and gives it life. Fear can be rational and healthy, enabling thoughtful objection; and fear can be irrational, disabling thoughtful objection while subject to unfounded defenses not in one’s best interest. I have the following acronym for irrational fear.
Failed
Expectations
Affecting/altering
Reality
The opposite of love is fear. Increased fear can affect the fight or flight response of the brain (the amygdala) resulting in an intense or extreme response to something because fear is present and driving the impulsive response. The amygdala in the lower region of the brain, you might say, offers a logically emotional response in the heat of the moment.
“Love generally activates the positive emotional and social areas of the brain. The primary area involved in fear is the amygdala. This area lights up in our brain when we are afraid. Other areas of the brain such as the frontal lobe helps to regulate the fear response. So your quote is probably fairly accurate as far as the brain goes. When we focus on love, the activity in the frontal lobe actually can suppress the fear responses in the amygdala. So the more we focus on love and compassion, the less fear we will feel.” —Dr. Newberg
This is the case when any of us make behavioral choices in the heat of the moment, or on impulse. It is an emotional reaction to an experiential event that precedes rational thought. The ensuing behavior is then followed by a logical outcome that bears personal responsibility and is so often painful. What is meant by logical outcome, or consequence, is the event or feeling that is most likely to follow as if this thing and the next thing are connected. Two plus two adds up to four every single time, without exception. So often, behavior works that way. This plus this adds up to that every time with little exception. And that may very well be an outcome that weighs huge on the course of someone’s life.
Experiences of trauma will heighten the acuity of this kind of emotionally reactive response that may come off as extreme when recipients on the other end happen to get in the way, unaware of the places the behavior is emanating from. The dam collapses under the weight of insurmountable force and those hit by the surge are then hurt; perhaps severely, and the logical outcome is experienced trauma.
When we interpret events through the emotional lens of our cumulative experience, our behavior tends to respond according to what we believe about those events. We then behave according to what we believe. The behavior is followed by logical outcomes that trigger emotional consequences in response to the logical outcomes.
For awhile, the logical outcome might be something that we feel good about, which reinforces the behavior. So we continue to engage in the behavior. But when the cumulative effects of the behavior build up to the point that is causes discomfort and pain, (at least theoretically) the same behavior is extinguished.
So what happens when behavior that leads to increasing discomfort and pain is not extinguished (or is reinforced, for that matter) and continues?
That’s often the case when it pertains to addiction and other patterns of behavior that persist, despite being painful. Behavior that has been so normalized is hardest to change.
“Even though you’ve discovered false beliefs, uncovered the lies and know a new truth, there is a time lag between what your limbic system believes and what your neocortex has learned… It will get shorter as you continue to challenge the false beliefs (traumatic memories) and risk trusting people… You will be able to make a good choice rather than overreacting with a “fight or flight” response.
Old automatic habits aren’t changed quickly or easily, and are stronger when we’re tired… Change happens one decision at a time. No matter what your emotions tell you would feel good to do (drugs, alcohol, sex, food), listen to what your mind knows, and do what is best or right.” —Michael Dye and Patricia Fancher, Relapse and the Brain
Hopeless or Helpless?
I will explain why the answer to this matter of feeling hopeless is so influenced by the emotional realities of how the brain works at the expense of rational thought (rational thought being that which is persuaded my intellectual sensibility). Then I will tell you my anecdotal treadmill story to illustrate the point.
There are all of these life experiences and memories that have generated feelings of the highest impact over time. The way the brain works is that present experiences are viewed through the lens of those emotional memories. Feelings about present experiences and circumstances are then filtered through our emotional lens. Expectations are deliberated through our emotional lens. Self-esteem is mitigated through our emotional lens. Hope and fear are litigated through our emotional lens. Strength and confidence are validated through our emotional lens.
As dramatic and traumatic experiences take their toll, the impressions of these experiences have their way of fogging up someone’s emotional lens and most experiences are falsely interpreted. So judgment rendered is, “GUILTY!” Guilt is then internalized until shame defines a person as bad, unworthy, and therefore, unlovable. Regret is an awful burden left untreated. The result is that rational thoughts are apprehended by feelings of disappointment, failure, rejection, worthlessness, insecurity, fear and doubt. Believing one is hopeless and stuck then sinks into a dark place of despair. Hopeless feelings of giving up are very real by this point and must be taken seriously; exactly for what they are. It does not matter how accomplished someone may appear to be, hopeless despair is a killer if permitted to fester while continually evolving into something of a monster from the inside. The monster’s name is suicide.
The first intervention is the conversion from hopeless to helpless. How does that make sense? How is helpless that much of a leap from hopeless? Hopeless is oblivious to the help that is on it’s way. Hopeless doesn’t believe it will ever be better. Hopeless is blind to potential and opportunity.
I often ask my teenage patients to think about what they wanted ten years ago, between the ages three and seven? What did they want for their lives at that age? How has what they value and want changed? But when things and relationships do not go according to plan, these kids come to believe that it’s over. If they cannot come into the experience of what they want and wish for in this moment, they will never arrive into the experience of what they want and believe they need right now. They are no more than a slug that can no longer move, and they hate that condition so much, something’s got to give.
“Caterpillars are easy to catch because of their slow movement and attractive, bright colors.” —Reference.com
People are like caterpillars, in a way. Colorful in who they are but so limited in what they can do because of the burden they’re lugging around. It stifles their movement. They feel stuck in their tracks. Even though they need nourishment, they’re so bloated and miserable in their circumstances, they don’t have an appetite for the things they enjoy that are good for them. Instead, they settle for junk food to gratify the hunger because of the mess that has settled into their system; walking away from their favorite meal.
Escalating, even overwhelming, distress is a burden so heavy that it fosters an intensely helpless reality. The weight is crushing and demands the need for help. The pursuit of needed support is a rational choice that is breeds hope once help is anticipated. Therefore, the conversion from hopeless to helpless is the difference between losing the will to try anything anymore—settling to give up and die—and recognition that help is needed to do more with support than one can do on his or her own.
Feeling helpless does not believe the irrational conclusion that life is no longer worth living, no matter how awful it feels. Feeling helpless is not blind to possibility, potential, and opportunity.
There is still hope. The rational, thoughtful conclusion is that with sufficient help and support, there is still a chance. This realization is the first step of empowerment toward a realistic solution in the hope of lifting the burden; even if it’s easing the burden just enough.
Hopeless despair is driven by the emotional center of the brain, while helpless distress is realized in the rational thought component of how the brain relates to circumstances through the lens of life experiences. When rational thought can be persuaded intellectually to sensibly contextualize life experiences, it is an opportunity to employ present circumstances as a motivation to seek out help.
What does it mean to contextualize life experiences? Anger, for example, isn’t always a negative feeling. Anger can be a motivator to construct a solution. Resentment on the other hand can feel inescapable and be a far more arduous path toward destruction. Desperation can be a motivator toward a productive response, or in a darker context can sink into feelings of despair until drowning in hopelessness. The right kind of help and support allows for the opportunity to reframe the context of collective experiences.
Just as the fifteen year-old doesn’t want the same thing he or she did at five, by the time these teenagers turn twenty and twenty-five years old, what they want and value will likely be very different… better… healthier… wiser. Their brains will be far more developed, and as they mature, what they want and value should begin to align more with what they rationally understand to be sensible about what they need. As these kids mature and develop intellectually, they can be helped to identify more easily what they know makes the most sense, and therefore trust in their feelings less, and have more confidence in what they know.
How do we help them get there? How do we best support the maturing process so that they will not give up when it feels that all is lost at this time when a romance crashes, or they fail classes, or they’re bullied, or their parents split up, or someone they love died? How do we help to keep them afloat long enough to grow up into the best version of themselves? How do we help them to adjust their focus and perspective? How do we help them to clear the lens of their experience enough that what they see is not ugly and worthless, but beautiful and priceless?
We must help these kids to make the clear distinction between a life worth living, and the reality that giving up on life still does not get them any closer to what they want. We must help them to see that they have to care enough about themselves to want to end their suffering, one way or the other. If they didn’t love themselves, they would be indifferent to their wants and needs and would not need a remedy since they’re indifferent to pain. If they care enough to end their misery through the act of suicide, why not care enough to get the help they need to experience relief and lighten their load, moving instead into something more productive and satisfying?
It is recognizing the stark contrast between hopeless despair and helpless distress that will change the tide for these kids. It’s understanding that what they want is not termination, but rather restoration into hope for what they come to believe is realistic possibilities into the kind of change in their approach to managing real-life circumstances, and how they feel about it all.
He reached down from heaven and rescued me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemies,
from those who hated me and were too strong for me.
They attacked me at a moment when I was in distress,
but the Lord supported me.
He led me to a place of safety;
he rescued me because he delights in me. Psalms 18:16-19 (NLT)
The Treadmill Story
I have told the treadmill story to adults, to teenagers, and to children as young as eight years old. It is the story of an experience I had around 2010 that illustrates quite effectively the difference between hopeless and helpless. The objective when sharing this experience I had is to help those I counsel to reconsider whether or not they are feeling hopeless or helpless.
Alright, so here it is…
For nine hours it felt as if something was squeezing my heart. I went to work and went through the entire day with chest pains and tight pressure in my chest. My wife, a nurse, was working the second shift until almost midnight so I chose not to bother her with it. I didn’t tell anybody.
My wife has often warned me that lack of exercise and not the healthiest of diets could do me in. She would remind me that God’s calling is on my life for my sons, my grandsons, and the hundreds of patients with whom I have influence.
After self-diagnosing online, I concluded it was time to venture on over to the emergency room at the local hospital. Once getting attention at the ER, I was given a three-part medication, what the doctor called a drug cocktail. The tightness and pain in my chest went away in right around ten minutes or so. It turns out is was a gastrointestinal thing; Something I was told was due to stress my body was experiencing that mimicked a heart attack. I didn’t at the time recall feeling overly stressed but I was going through some things that were definitely stressful. I just thought I was handling it well.
However, I had another problem. When initially interviewed by medical personnel, I disclosed that my father died from an apparent heart attack several years ago. This meant that they would have to stress my heart enough to diagnose it is as healthy enough to release me.
The clinical staff told me that, per protocol, they needed to get my heart beating at or above 160 beats per minute. So they put me through some exercises to get my heart to race a bit and then put me on the treadmill. As they gradually sped up the treadmill to the point where I was running at a pretty brisk pace, my heart was beating in the neighborhood of 110-120 beats per minute. Not even close to the criteria that needed to be met. So they set the treadmill at a faster pace, and when that only brought my heart rate up slightly, they set the treadmill on an incline so that I was now galloping uphill.
After a couple of minutes of this, I began to really labor. My feet were flopping and felt quite heavy. The temperature in the room was chilly, yet I was sweating buckets. Sweat was dripping from everywhere and I had soaked through my scrubs. I felt my heart beating through my chest. I was to the point where I was completely drained of energy. I could not continue to do this. I was so gassed that I felt I was going to collapse. I kept telling them, “I’m not kidding; I am going to fall.”
Can you remember riding your bicycle up a hill until you couldn’t pedal anymore, having lost the energy to keep pedaling. What did you do? Did you give up and fall to the ground? Or, did you get off your bike and walk it the rest of the way up the hill? Falling would be painful. I would probably fall on my face; the treadmill ripping against my flesh.
By now, I no longer had the energy to even hold onto the handles anymore. I could also see the monitor that indicated my heart rate ranging from 150-155 beats per minute. I could no longer stand it and I called out again, “I’m gonna fall!”
No response.
I screamed at them, “Turn it off!”
Good thing they slowed it down by gradually or I would have run through the wall in front of me. I slumped helplessly over the handles.
The treadmill was off and the staff helped me to a chair where I felt a tremendous sense of relief. My heart was still stressed and beating out of my chest but the worst of it was over.
I had felt absolutely overwhelmed and consumed by the stress of that experience, which lasted only a few minutes but felt like an eternity. I was utterly helpless and overcome to the point that I would have given up by what felt like was no choice of my own. I may have like I was dying but I did not want to die, and remained hopeful that if someone turned the treadmill off, I stood a chance. My life would be better.
I called out for help and received the help that I needed to manage what was clearly unmanageable.
I have shared this story with almost all of my teenage patients and many of the preteen children I have worked with. I then ask the following question.
“When you you’re feeling overwhelmed and considering suicide (and in many cases have attempted suicide), did you want to die, or did you need for someone to turn off the treadmill?”
Hopeful
I have shared this story with almost all of my teenage patients and many of the preteen children I have worked with. I then ask the following question.
“When you you’re feeling overwhelmed and considering suicide (and in many cases have attempted suicide), did you want to die, or did you need for someone to turn off the treadmill?”
Of the hundreds of adolescents, and in some cases adult patients, only one person said that he wanted to die. In virtually every case, these kids say that they need the treadmill turned off. Through this story, these people recognize that when they feel they are drained of energy and feel they have no choice but to give up, they are helpless, not hopeless. But the emotional course of cognitive processing suggests otherwise and convinces them that they are hopeless and buried under the weight of their stress.
I shared that story with a young girl whose age was a single digit who told me she felt helpless and knew that she didn’t want to die as she gestured something to her mother and father that appeared clearly suicidal to them. When I asked her what her action communicated to her parents about what she was feeling, this very young girl correctly indicated, “Hopeless.” When asked what she was truly feeling, she responded, “Helpless.” She wasn’t coached to answer like that. The girl understood her experience and drew that conclusion.
So many of these girls and boys that self-harm, do so, not because they are suicidal as much as it appears that way, but to manage stress. However, what they communicate to loved ones and others paying attention (including psychiatrists), is that they are in a place of hopeless despair, which is typically not the case (even though it could be). They are feeling desperately helpless but don’t know how to express that. They themselves are deceived (betrayed) by their own feelings that they are hopeless, to the point they feel they have no options left but to give up and die to experience the relief they so desperately need.
So it is essential to educate these kids concerning the fragile and unpredictable nature of brain chemistry. It is paramount that they discover how to filter raging, desperate emotions through rational, intellectual reasoning, according to what they already know makes the most sense, no matter the intensity of their real-life day-to-day circumstances.
The reality for the teenagers and children, and that of anyone overwhelmed by anxiety and stress or battling depression, is that their circumstances may not change that much except for the change they themselves are willing to make. Anxiety and stress is the result of the absence of control. It’s challenging enough to manage their own feelings of what’s happening, they certainly have no control over anyone else’s feelings and behavior; nor is there any control of natural happening and world events.
At the hospital you could say that we have serial patients who have developed this pattern of desperate behavior that involves suicidal talk, gestures and attempts. Here they are again and it’s reported that it’s the the second, third or fourth hospitalization. What they again communicated that got them admitted was interpreted as hopeless despair. If I can help it, these patients will be sure to hear the treadmill story and tell me or the group that they are—and were—in a helpless place; not hopeless. However, in the moment of desperation when emotion goes rogue and runs roughshod over rational thoughtful, 
the prevailing feeling of hopelessness is a betrayal against what makes the most sense.
Almost all suicidal patients I’ve worked with were “happy” to get another chance. I have worked with those who dialed 9-1-1 or called someone after slitting their wrists with deadly technique. I have worked with those who attempted to hang themselves until someone found them, or a cord or belt broke. I have worked with those who woke up or were found unconscious after ingesting a lethal dose of pills. Almost all of them were relieved to be alive. I talked to someone the week of me writing this, who claims not to believe in God and believes she would cease to exist if her suicide attempt was successful. She admitted that something inside of her panicked concerning her mortality. She is now wondering what that is and is curious about it from a spiritual perspective.
The conversion from hopeless to helpless is a big deal for the person able to apply it in his or her experience. It can take suicide off the table. Suicide is no longer considered a viable option.
Perhaps it’s a coincidence that so many repeat patients who have heard the treadmill story haven’t been seen at the hospital again since their discharge. Or, I suppose it might just be possible that discerning that they are helpless when feeling burdened and overwhelmed, helps them to feel hopeful enough that they are willing to reach out for outpatient help in the middle of the storm.
The seminal moment is when mindful clarity is activated and those feeling their circumstances are dire—that there is no escape—are hopeful having been empowered from within to find a way because they believe that help is on the way. They are helpless to overcome on their own, while hopeful that the right support is the bridge to living another day.
Who Better?
Something I have written about in recent years is a crisis I experienced that at the time was a burden so heavy it dominated my thought life. As I went through my days, as I totally preoccupied with my hardship that terribly grieved my spirit. I felt a sense of doom and was emotionally exhausted. I was a man of unwavering faith as I never… never… doubted that God loved me. I never doubted what God could do in my time of peril. My agonizing doubt was in what God would do. Why would he? I felt unworthy of the miracle I needed, which only intensified my anxiety and stress.
I thought, my God, there has to be a way out. I was not interested in what might be the way through. What I understand now that I didn’t then was that God can and will lead me through if I am willing to trust him.
There was someone awhile back in history whose life was in peril as he carried what to him felt like the weight of the world. He found himself questioning his circumstances in life; even questioning God. He wondered aloud to God if there was another path than the one he was on. According to the historical record of this man’s life, at the time when he may have had doubt about what God will do in the midst of his crisis, he never doubted what God can do.
He talked of how trying to carry the burden on his own was overwhelming. It was too much bear alone. So he sought help. He networked with some other people he could trust for needed support. Most of all, the man called on God to help him to make better decisions that would be right and best for what he needed.
He said to his friends about his reliance on God:
“I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.” John 5:30 (NLT)
This is also insight into the first three of the twelve steps relating to being powerless to control what isn’t yours to control; and to give in to the illusion of control leads to an unmanageable, if not unstable, life. It speaks to the essence of belief and faith as essential to restoration, and surrendering willfully to God as the most sensible approach to authentic recovery into a better way of living.
If it made the most sense to the son of God, why wouldn’t it be the most rational approach for me as I struggled mightily through my conflict?
The man never did get to choose another path than the one he was on. As arduous and painful as it was, he stayed the course as he suffered through it. Just because God didn’t answer his pray the way would have hoped, he did not turn his back on God because he never doubted that God still had his back. He continue to trust God to help him beyond his ability to help himself. He trusted God to give him the courage and strength that would carry him through. What he went through literally destroyed him; taking from him everything he had, including his life. Through all of it, utterly helpless as he was, he never lost hope. The man was always willing to rely on God. It took serious faith.
The man would be rewarded for being faithful. He got his life back and made the best of what was given to him. He is alive today. He wants to bless you in the very same way he has always been a blessing to everyone over the years who have leaned on him. Whatever you are experiencing in your life, you can know that this person is equipped to help you.
“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.” —C.S. Lewis
Something I talk about with people who are struggling with anxiety, stress, and depression is the need to seek someone out who has been down the road they are traveling. Too many people seek help from folks who have never been down that road out of misery. So they take pity together, but that is the extent of it; each lost and confused, wasting away together. In seeking help and support, it is imperative that they seek direction from someone who has been there and has already navigated the terrain and made their way through into somewhere better.
So who better to get to somewhere better than the one who has been there and made it through; and now is able and willing to empower us to make it through?
So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:14-16 (NLT)
I talk to kids every day that are experiencing a myriad of what to them are issues that altogether are so burdensome they feel crushed beneath them. They permit the emotional center of their brains to give in to their fear until they are imprisoned by it. There is no way out. It feels as though the only option is to end their suffering by ending their lives.
This one, Jesus, has been there. He too was disappointed time and time again. He was bullied by people who really thought highly of themselves. He was misunderstood and then discarded by those who didn’t see the world the way he saw it. He was even betrayed by his best friends, rejected by most of society, and really did for awhile feel abandoned by God.
He knows.
He has compassion for these kids.
Prayer
It’s not a religious thing. All who are willing to accept the sensibility of a creator, having been made by God, with the unconditional love of a father without flaw, can experience connection with him who is already connected to them.
Prayer was never intended to be a religious experience. Prayer is meant to be a relational experience with the One who made us. Working at a Catholic-affiliated hospital does afford me the opportunity to broach the subject of spiritual opportunity to relate to God, so long as I don’t impose my values onto the patients I work with. It can be delicate at times, but for the most part, the people I am trying to help are open to new possibilities.
We talk a great deal about the need to develop coping strategies with more proven results than the coping strategies they’ve been applying that have resulted in being hospitalized at a psychiatric facility. Prayer just might be the ideal coping mechanism for those wanting to try something that they already know works, or to at least try something they have not yet tried when nothing else works.
Here is where it gets interesting.
Often times, as soon as prayer is mentioned or the question is asked, “Do you pray?” the initial response is, “I’m not religious.”
The irony, according to Jesus himself, is that prayer isn’t meant to be religious.
5 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. Matthew 6:5-7 (NLT)
Jesus suggests that those who are about the theater that public religion can offer are not sincere, saying that the validation that they get from attention is the only reward they’ll experience.
“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Matthew 6:7-8 (NLT)
Jesus suggests that those who are about the ritual and tradition of religion do not impress God with their words; that they are only exhausting themselves. Jesus is saying that God already knows your heart and what you need even before you pray.
Alright, so the images provided here show people folding their hands. I suppose that’s for the purpose of illustrating that these people are praying, but it isn’t necessary. The folding of hands for some might be a bit ritualistic, but so what. The position the girl is in at the top of this page contemplating taking those pills is in “prayer formation” as well. If you choose not to you don’t have to fold your hands or close your eyes either, for that matter, unless it helps you to be less distracted.
If God knows what I need before I tell him about it, then why pray at all?
To God, prayer is about connection in relationship. God wants to interact with us in the same way parents want to interact with their children. Like a father wants to express and exchange love with the children made through his seed, God wants to love on the children he has made.
For those I help that are interested—and so many are by this point in the conversation—I explain this spiritual connection they can have with God, who made them. I do this effectively by cutting right through the resistance from their emotionally-motivated objection by addressing and challenging their rational sensibilities in the frontal regions of the cerebral cortex. This allows teenagers, and even children, to see why their creator, the God of all of the universe, is not preoccupied with everything else going on and is paying attention to the children he has made and loves; just like a busy father would be who is committed to his children.
These kids really do seem to get that.
Rewired
So how does prayer actually help?
I am not at all suggesting, as some might think, that prayer is merely some psychological ploy to trick the emotional brain into feeling more hopeful. Prayer isn’t a magic pill. It’s not a drug. (By the way, getting high might soothe the senses for a bit but it doesn’t solve anything.) Prayer isn’t merely some phenomenon. Prayer is the real deal.
Dr. Andrew Newberg is a neuroscientist, Professor and Director of Research Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Newberg is the pioneer and leader in the field of something referred to as neurotheology, having written The New Science of Transformation and How God Changes Your Brain, among many other writings on the matter of the effect of spiritual faith and the intricate workings of the human brain. He has been featured on an episode of Morgan Freeman’s National Geographic television program, The Story of God.
“It is really a two way street. Your brain changes your thoughts and your thoughts change your brain. The more you focus on a particular belief or belief system, the stronger those connections become. If you focus on God being loving and compassionate, you increase the amount of love and compassion in your brain, and your outward behaviors. If you focus on God being vengeful and hateful, you increase the amount of hate and anger in your brain, and your outward behaviors. As the saying goes, neurons that fire together wire together, and this is true no matter what our beliefs are. The more we focus on something, the more it becomes a part of how our brain functions.” —Dr. Andrew Newberg
In his research, Dr. Newberg has advanced the conversation regarding the experiential effect prayer has on reducing anxiety and stress. These studies reveal scientific evidence through brain imaging the effects prayer and meditation has on strengthening the make up and function on the areas of the brain related to anxiety and stress, love and fear. More specifically, certain elements of prayer with an emphasis on quiet meditation, relying less on words and more on resting in the experience of relationship with God, actually enhanced frontal lobe activity while lowering brain activity associated with anxiety and stress. The noticeable change in blood flow is detected in color changes from these brain scans.
This is incredible research is intended to quantify scientifically the measurable value of prayer.
“Other practices such as conversational prayer activate social areas of the brain and, when combined with feelings of love and compassion, likely reduce stress and anxiety, as well as spill over to enhancing a person’s social interactions.” —Dr. Andrew Newberg
Dr. Newberg speaks of the brain’s read on God as both conceptual and experiential. He explains how the binary process of the brain is affected according to how one’s concept of God affects both the rational and emotional responses in the make up of the brain, while experiencing connection (relationship) with God. He sited the effects on the brain between those who see God as loving and compassionate versus those viewing God as judgmental and punishing.
Listen to what Dr. Newberg has to say about this:
“The brain has a propensity for setting up opposites as a way of understanding the world around us. The binary process helps us to distinguish good from bad or right from wrong. In religion, one of the most fundamental opposites is the difference between human beings and God. How can human beings who are finite, mortal, and limited have any ability to form a relationship with an infinite, omniscient, and all-powerful being? In particular, we rely on the holistic function of the brain to bridge the enormous gap between God and human beings. The binary process is bridged so that human beings can find a relationship with God…
“The long term studies of spiritual practices such as meditation and prayer have increasingly shown that the brain does change over time. Individuals who practice prayer and meditation over many years have been found to have thicker and more active frontal lobes than nonpractitioners…
“Since the brain functions are changing, the person’s beliefs and behaviors are also changing. The brain changes reported to be associated with religious and spiritual practices hint at how they also reduce anxiety and depression while enhancing compassion and love. Most individuals also relate religious beliefs and practices to better coping during stressful life events, and improved relationships.”
God made our brains. He wired them in the first place. How the wires end up getting crossed through the accumulation of life experiences is a mystery. Why can’t the brain remain true to its original make up? Why does it break down to the point that the binary relationship between the limbic system overrides the frontal lobes, leading to emotionally-driven irrational thinking and misguided behavior.
Scientific studies now reveal that it is entirely possible that there is a spiritual process through connection with God that bridges the binary relationship between rational thought and the powerful force of emotion in the cognitive-behavioral process. In rewiring the brain, God is holistic in his approach to reconciling the conflict between factions in how the brain functions. This is huge.
Why is it so easy for children to embrace faith in God?
“I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom.” Matthew 18:3 (The Message)
Because they haven’t been so jaded yet by the accumulation of life experiences, children don’t usually have an agenda that is objectionable to faith in their creator. These may be the same children that for a time believed in Santa Claus. But they grew out of that. But when they have connected with God beyond just believing in what they heard and read about, it sticks with them since the seed of faith took root deep into the soil of what they know, and from there it grows. When children believe in something real, it’s a done deal. There is an assurance about it. There is real relationship. It has taken hold.
Statistics tell us that a vast majority of people who espouse to belief in God do so at an early age. So those who didn’t as a child are not as likely to come along to faith in God unless something happens that takes them back to that place of need. Children are dependent on grownups, namely parents, for most of what matters until they have progressed enough in their lives to think for themselves and take care of themselves.
It is when we return to that place of reckoning when we didn’t quite get it, recognizing our need for love and support from someone who can provide it, that we give faith a chance once again. Jesus was saying that real faith is childlike faith rooted in need. This is the transformative moment when realized faith is experienced in such a way as to renew hope and revitalize meaningful living.
Children are helpless. It is in this conversion to helplessness that faith is the answer to the need for better. I think that is what Jesus meant when he said that unless we come to God with the faith of a child we won’t experience the life that is intended for us. It is faith that is raw and unadulterated.
I had a patient a while back who was completely oppositional to anything remotely spiritual or religious. If there was anything on television at the Catholic hospital or anybody was saying anything that even bordered on spirituality or faith, she would literally cover her ears.
She and I talked for a bit about her circumstances with family and such. She was so depressed about her life that she wanted to die as her way out of her pain. She realized that she really didn’t want to die in that she was not hopeless so much as she understood she was helpless. She acknowledged that she was severely distressed an desperately in need of help. The more I listened to her, the more I had this increasing sense of anxiety that I could not help her.
I looked at her, smiled in a sheepish sort of way, and let out a sigh.
She looked at me inquisitively and said, “What?”
I said, “I have something for you that’s really big but I don’t think you want it.”
We had developed some strong rapport in a therapeutic relationship, so she would not allow me to dismiss what I had for her and asked me to share it with her. I told her that it involved God, but not the “God” of judgment her parents crammed down her throat. I shared with her how the God of mercy and compassion had changed my life; disclosing just enough of what I’d experienced. She believed me. It was making sense to her. Before our conversation was over, she asked me to pray with her as we sat at a table while more than a dozen other kids along with unit staff were in the room doing their thing. She closed her eyes and I kept mine open as I prayed with her. When she opened them, her tears spilled out. It was beautiful. I wish you could have seen it.
Amidst all of the noise in the room, she invited me to invite her into something new. Transformation was evident all over her face as her countenance glowed from angry skeptic to more optimism and enthusiasm I’d had ever seen in the face of a teenager. I wonder what the before and after of those brain scans would look like once God rewired the circuitry of her brain, metaphorically speaking.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
Essentially, this means that the circuitry of the brain has wires crossed and moved every which way, entangled by experiences of reward and consequence, affecting how we see ourselves and the world, and how we see ourselves in the world. Once these circuits have been scrambled, correction is way beyond any control we might think we have. God does the rest.
Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
The word ‘be’ in “be transformed” is a verb, but a passive verb. This means that this so-called transformation is not something we can do. All we do is act on resisting temptation by offering ourselves to God, and no longer conforming behaviorally to what people in the world are doing independent from the plan of God that is in our best interest. Imagine the hope in that.
Freedom
Of primary importance for each an every one of us is the value of freedom. Think about it. Everything we do, whether we do it for ourselves or someone else, freedom is the goal.
We want to be free from conflict and tension. When you are the most free it benefits me, and when I am most free it benefits you. We want to be free from anxiety and stress, discomfort and pain, in every facet of living. Whether it involves our relationships, our health, our finances, our expectations, the expectations of others; the chief motivator is realizing a genuine sense of freedom of each and every experience.
When active and mobile for too long, we need to rest and relax to settle the discomfort of fatigue and exhaustion. When inactive and immobile for too long, we need to alleviate the anxiety of boredom and restlessness. As the stress builds and escalates over time becoming increasingly painful, it becomes cumbersome and burdensome requiring relief and escape. There is the inherent need to apply a remedy for discomfort; to be set free from pain and struggle.
Living is the exercise of pursuing freedom. Freedom is satisfying. Freedom is comfortable. Freedom is contentment. Freedom is loving. Freedom without love isn’t free. And love that isn’t free isn’t love, which begs the question…
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18 (NKJV)
Love appears to be the classic double-edged sword. Love at its best is exchanged and experienced freely. How often does that actually happen? How common is that kind of love?
As amazing as the experience of the best love is, love is also torment for most of us at one time or another. Flawed love is selfish and is contentious in one way or another; to one extent or another.
Even love of self is contentious and tormenting. It is love of self that seeks relief in the form of some kind of remedy, even if that remedy proves destructive and oppositional to that which is healthy, constructive, promising, and productive. Even what appears to be self-loathing is rooted in an unhealthy love of self since self-loathing behavior is initially an effort to experiencing relief, to feeling better than whatever it is that emotes heartache. If self-abusers had no love of self, they would be indifferent to their own needs and wouldn’t care enough to generate the effort to be self-destructive.
The mantra of human love can be described something like, “I love me and I love you for what you do for me.” Most of us have difficulty admitting that our love is flawed… selfish. It’s not easy admitting the truth about love that isn’t perfect. It is this selfish love of self that breeds contempt, jealousy, resentment, greed, lust, and even a “survival of the fittest” approach to living in the insecurity of lost and broken love. Flawed love leads to failed expectations, rejection, betrayal, abandonment, guilt, broken trust, and everything else related to brokenness and loss.
For everything gained in the experience of love, there is no doubt everything to lose. The outcome of lost love is a broken and anguished heart. Enough of that and we can feel unloved and worthless. The absence of love is fear. There is nothing free about fear. The opposite of free is fear. When freedom is lost, it is replaced by fear. Fear is the cornerstone of hopeless despair.
People, young and old, contemplating suicide are in the most immediate pursuit of recovering lost freedom. It is paramount then to help them to think it through now to achieve their objective in support of recovering lost freedom. To recover lost freedom is to overcome the fear embedded in their discomfort.
People having considered or attempted suicide are desperate for relief from prevailing discomfort. Whatever it is that is so heavy and overwhelming has to stop… end… right this moment. They are only considering the need to be free from dot-dot-dot. They are not considering what free from dot-dot-dot is free into.
I wrote a little bit ago about those who have attempted suicide but then changed their minds, and panicked having done it. Could they get to a phone? Would someone find them before it’s too late? For some of the ones that I didn’t get to convene with, it may have been, “How do I stop falling before I hit the ground?”
Something happens deep down inside that might be keenly aware of that something spiritual that wants connection with the creator before hitting the ground… before suffocating… before losing consciousness for the last time. What exactly is it that is on the other side of the curtain of mortality? Not sure? Is it an escape? Is it deliverance? Is it freedom? Or, is it more pain and discomfort all alone? Or, is it debilitating captivity… hell?
Which area of the brain panics? Is it the emotion-driven area of how the brain works? Or, is it the rational thinking area of the brain’s function?
When there is acute crisis of this magnitude, you would think that it is an emotional reaction. I challenge that. I believe there is something innate found in the depths of conscience and sensibility that recognizes and realizes the finality inherent in this “shock” to the entire system. I believe it is there, in that moment of finality, when we hear from the soul. I submit that it is the soul of a person that serves to bridge the binary process between the rational and the emotional; the meeting of the minds, if you will, within the mind.
This is where it gets really interesting… fascinating.
Is anything worth more than your soul? Mark 10:37 (NLT)
Have you ever considered the definition of the word ‘soul’? (per Merriam-Webster)
- the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
- the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings
- a person’s total self
- an active or essential part
- a moving spirit
- the moral and emotional nature of human beings
- the quality that arouses emotion and sentiment
- spiritual or moral force
When speaking of the mind, the inference is typically having to do with intellectual thought and logic. When speaking of the heart, the inference is typically having to do with emotion and intention. When speaking of the soul… Where is the soul? Is it in the brain somewhere, or is it anywhere else for that matter?
The notion of the soul seems to infer something spiritual… something transcendent.
It seems that it is the soul—the spirit within every one of us—that leads the way in our connection with God. Is it possible then that the soul within us is even bigger than we are? Does the soul connect with God, whether we believe in God or not? Is that why that girl I mentioned earlier, that said she doesn’t believe in God, panicked when taking those pills and thought she might die; because her soul, connected to her creator, spoke from within all at once to the entire cerebral network, “Don’t do this!”?
I search my soul and ponder the difference now. Psalm 77:6 (NLT)
Is this really what Dr. Andrew Newberg is wanting to discover and prove with measurable data leading to verifiable proof? Is the soul more than a transcendent phenomenon of human life; an attempt to explain the innermost regions of how we apprehend, comprehend, and then process everything?
I believe that it is the soul within that can truly be free to experience the spectacle of life’s promise through a spotless lens. The purity and beauty of God’s grace is made manifest in a life surrendered to the transformative reality of who and what God is in relation to who and what I am not.
HALT!
We are riddled with imperfection; flawed by both is our undoing into what ulimately appears to be the collapse of an entitled civilization. As we continue to hurt each other, the entire interactive process is under siege and consumed by the stress of what burdens it as the collective experience of toiling hardship piles up over time.
For some, the pain and struggle is more swift and severe than others. People are hungry, angry, lonely, and they are tired; desperate for change. The kids I have the privilege of working with are right in the thick of it, and they’ve had enough. They cannot take it anymore. They want out.
There are professional people, including therapists, psychiatric physicians, clergy and other pastoral types, who will not be judgmental and will express genuine empathy in their effort to help. Just having compassion for someone who is hurting and in trouble can help others to transition emotionally from feeling hopeless to realizing they are helpless. That conversion from hopeless to helpless is often the first step to taking suicide off the table as a viable option to remedy intense and immediate discomfort.
There are children and young adults who have experienced a lifetime of rejection, betrayal, abuse, and neglect who feel unloved and worthless who are in that dark, perhaps even scary, place. They may not reach out because it’s so dark they can’t see that anyone is there. They may feel as though death is the only way to be free… finally free.
Feelings from that emotional place in their cognitive process will lie to them. Feelings of shame and worthlessness are killing people every day. Even people that believe in God do not believe that even God—or especially God—cannot forgive them or love them. They have judged themselves as doomed. Happy is not for them. They are completed depleted of joy. They are miserable.
Hopeless is the belief that help will not ever come because it cannot be for them. No doubt, the experience of betrayal and abandonment in their circumstances and relationships is real. The anxiety and stress is surely the real deal. So, they need help to recognize and accept that their feelings have also betrayed them. Not at all an easy task.
When it’s been years and years of piling on until the burden is so heavy it’s impact is crushing, it becomes normal to them to be so consumed by distress that has evolved into the sense of despair that all is lost.
The time for change is now. Better is way overdue. There is hope in realizing helplessness. The rational cognitive process figures that out and is more able to filter the fallout from experiences for the purpose of advancing authentic change.
When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. Psalm 94:19 (NKJV)
Reaching out to God to comfort the soul strengthens the bridge between what we feel and what we know. It is God that repairs what feels terminally damaged and transforms it into something new.
Willing
All we do is offer ourselves to him. It requires sacrifice. We need to be willing to let go of what has seemingly felt comfortable as we attempt again to remedy pain. All we did was relieve the immediate discomfort while deepening the wound. If our attempts to resolve our struggle have failed repeatedly, then why would we not lay our struggle down at the feet of the only one who can restore what’s been broken? It’s a no-brainer.
God is merciful, and should we let him, is able and willing—and wanting—to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. What we do is offer ourselves to God from the outside in. What God does is transforms our being by first renewing our minds; changing us from the inside out. What follows is a new perspective on how we see ourselves and our world, and a new approach to living in it. It is a life restored. It’s God doing something awesome within and throughout, according to his love and generosity.
The literature on this assures us that through this transformative maturation, it is proven in our experience to be what is right and clearly in our best interest.
In view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
Please, pardon me for quoting the same passage for the third time, here. It’s been my pleasure to bring it to you in this context. The word ‘holy’ means to be separate and unique in this case. You are special to God and uniquely you. As you approach God, confident or not, know this: God has confidence in you. He doesn’t see you the way you see you. God sees you as seeing himself already involved in the restoration process, and already sees the finished product. The transformed you is holy and pleasing and, yes… WORTHY of his favor and generosity.
Please read the following passages together.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 (NIV)
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6 (NIV)
Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in (relationship with) Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 (NLT)
How ’bout them apples?
Something I mentioned earlier was the need to ask for direction to find your way. When you’re feeling lost, inquire from those who have been where you are and then themselves found their way. If you’re not sure how to pray, or you’re still not comfortable about the whole God thing, I suggest you find those who do pray that have experienced what the passage above is talking about. Like me, they will tell you about how prayer really works for them.
They will be happy tell you about their experience. They will tell you about relief from their anxiety and stress; comfort when they were struggling; remedy for their pain. They will be happy to share with you the experience of finding calm in the midst of their storm. They will want you to know how it is that they experienced forgiveness from consuming guilt and shame; and how from there, they were able to find themselves able to forgive and experience release from jealousy and resentment. They want to tell you how they overcame their fear of failure and disappointment.
They have experienced the promise of God and will tell you that no one can take that away from them, or persuade them otherwise with clever explanations contrary to their experience. They will insist that what God did for them was renew their hope, revive their soul, and restore their way of life.
Remember your promise to me;
it is my only hope.
Your promise revives me;
it comforts me in all my troubles. Psalm 119:49-50 (NLT)
Maybe you are thinking about people right now you know have been where you are and made it through. Notice the peace in their eyes and the joy on their face.
Don’t you want that?
If you are someone already reveling in the peace and joy of God’s generous favor, you know what it is for your soul to dance in the experience of God’s best in your life. Who do you know that is missing what you have? How might you extend the blessing of contentment to others you know who are mired in disappointment?
My hope is that having read this, you have grown in your understanding and that you will get the help you need, and/or be the source of strength and support to others who need someone like you to help lift them up.
When you were stuck in your tracks and needed a bridge to cross to get to the other side, remember what it was like. There are so many that need for God to build for them the bridge from pain into peace. But they cannot find God. Maybe for some we are the bridge to God. All we need to do, really, is listen and then point them in the right direction.
Someone who has lost hope and given up, feels perilously alone as if nobody anywhere cares. Just by caring and expressing empathy through honest compassion, we can also serve as the bridge from hopeless to helpless on the road to new hope and needed help.
We might need to pay better attention and be prepared to help, unless we are the ones in need of help. Then, we need to be willing to reach out for help. Either way, it’s important that we be willing to extend our hand; whether it’s to be of help to someone in need or to reach out for help when we’re in need.
To surrender to the process of change requires one thing, regardless of our position in the process. We must be willing to participate in the process of change from pain to peace.
Where are you in the process? Are you the one feeling hopeless, feeling like the only thing left is to give up and check out? Or, is there someone you know who is in that dark place of despair?
Remember, hopeless is not okay. Helpless is okay. Yes, there is hope when feeling helpless since, then, change is possible. We need only to be willing to seek help from someone capable of helping us to find our way.
Strength in Weakness
“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow—crushed with grief—to the point of death.”
I began this article with a quote from the most famous person to ever walk planet earth. Jesus Christ, the son of God, was a human being about to take on an insurmountable challenge that any person of flesh and blood could never be prepared for.
Jesus felt lost. We know he felt abandoned since, while in the midst of the most severe of his trauma (and what Jesus experienced was nothing short of trauma), he cried out to God, “My God, my God, WHY have you forsaken me.” Just prior to that, Jesus had been betrayed by one of his beloved friends who gave him up. In between those two incidents, all within a matter of a few hours, another of his best friends disavowed even knowing him. Jesus knew what it was to experience rejection by those he loved.
In fact, he was so messed about it all that in his torment three times begged God to remove from him from this massive undertaking. It was too much.There had to be another way. What Jesus experienced was that God would help him through the unbearable stress and excessive pain. With God’s help, Jesus, not only made it through, but experienced God’s best as he committed himself to getting through it with God’s help, God’s way.
One of the great writers of the first century, also was dealing with adversity that offered up overwhelming stress; something that had become such a heavy burden that he too begged God to take it from him.
Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (NLT)
No matter what it is you are taking on and going through in your experience, God wants to do for you what he did for his servant the apostle Paul, and what he did for his son, and in your weakness, afford you the strength and the courage to get through. Scripture informs us that to God we are sons and daughters. So again, just as loving parents wants to express love and blessing to the children they made, God wants to express his love through compassion and blessing according to your need.
Tell God about you’re experiencing. Tell God what you need. Tell God what you want. Ask God to show up. Dare God to be real to you; to prove himself to you that he is involved and engaged.
There are some that will say I am taking the following passage out of context, but I believe that as you give your full attention to the one who made you that God says to you…
“If you do… I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!” Malachi 3:10 (NLT)
And if that didn’t do it, then listen to this…
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Romans 8:31-32 (NLT)
God is great! He is more than capable. He loves you and can’t wait to show you how much.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)
Resources
If we’ve been there and found our way from pain into peace, then we need to be sensitive and compassionate enough to notice when someone we know is needing our attention.
Should you know someone who’s been quite sad for prolonged periods of time, there could be more to it. Should you know someone who has experienced trauma or loss and appears indifferent and disinterested in things they once took delight in, there could be more to it. If there is someone in your world feeling hopeless, whether they have expressed it or not, they may not reach out before it’s too late. Someone with an intentional bent toward suicide might not say a word about it because they are committed to the task and do not want for anyone to get in the way.
Pay attention to the following indicators, according to the National Institute of Mental Health:
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions
- Fatigue and decreased energy
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and/or helplessness
- Feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism
- Insomnia, early-morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping
- Irritability, restlessness
- Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex
- Overeating or appetite loss
- Persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment
- Persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” feelings
- Thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts
Consider where you are at in this process, whether you recognize feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, or whether you may know someone in a dark and mysterious place who hasn’t been themselves lately, or for while. Either way, call someone. If you already know and trust someone helpful that you trust call that person first.
The following are PHONE NUMBERS of people and places with access to real help:
- 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433)
- 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
- Deaf hotline at 1-800-799-4TTY (1-800-799-4889)
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255 (Press 1 for Veterans line)
- NSPL deaf lifeline at 1-800-799-4889
- Crisis Text Line: TEXT “GO” TO 741741
Mostly Christian Resources
Christian Counseling Services-General
New Life Clinics 1-800-NEW-LIFE
National Prayer Line 1-800-4-PRAYER
Bethany Lifeline Pregnancy Hotline 1-800-BETHANY
Liberty Godparent Ministry 1-800-368-3336
Grace Help Line 24 Hour Christian service 1-800-982-8032
The 700 Club Hotline 1-800-759-0700
Want to know Jesus? 1-800-NEED-HIM
Biblical help for youth in crisis 1-800-HIT-HOME
Rapha National Network 1-800-383-HOPE
Emerge Ministries 1-330-867-5603
Meier Clinics 1-888-7-CLINIC or 1-888-725-4642
Association of Christian Counselors 1-800-526-8673
Minirth Clinic 1-888-MINIRTH (646-4784)
National Christian Counselors Association 1-941-388-6868
Pine Rest 1-800-678-5500
Timberline Knolls 1-877-257-9611
Abortion
Post Abortion Counseling 1-800-228-0332
Post Abortion Project Rachel 1-800-5WE-CARE
National Abortion Federation Hotline 1-800-772-9100
National Office of Post Abortion Trauma 1-800-593-2273
Abuse
National Sexual Assault Hotline 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
Stop it Now! 1-888-PREVENT
United States Elder Abuse Hotline 1-866-363-4276
National Child Abuse Hotline 1-800-4-A-CHILD (422-4453)
Child Abuse Hotline / Dept of Social Services 1-800-342-3720
Child Abuse National Hotline 1-800-25ABUSE
Children in immediate danger 1-800-THE-LOST
Exploitation of Children 1-800-843-5678
Missing Children Help Center 1-800-872-5437
Addiction
Marijuana Anonymous 1-800-766-6779
Alcohol Treatment Referral Hotline (24 hours) 1-800-252-6465
Families Anonymous 1-800-736-9805
Cocaine Hotline (24 hours) 1-800-262-2463
Drug Abuse National Helpline 1-800-662-4357
National Association for Children of Alcoholics 1-888-554-2627
Ecstasy Addiction 1-800-468-6933
Alcoholics for Christ 1-800-441-7877
Cancer
American Cancer Society 1-800-227-2345
National Cancer institute 1-800-422-6237
Caregivers
Elder Care Locator 1-800-677-1116
Well Spouse Foundation 1-800-838-0879
Chronic Illness/Chronic Pain
Rest Ministries 1-888-751-REST (7378)
Crisis Numbers for Teens (Under 18)
Girls and Boys town 1-800-448-3000
Hearing Impaired 1-800-448-1833
Youth Crisis Hotline 1-800-448-4663
Teen Hope Line 1-800-394-HOPE
Covenant House Nineline 1-800-999-9999
Crisis Numbers for Help (Any age)
United Way Crisis Helpline 1-800-233-HELP
Christian Oriented Hotline 1-877-949-HELP
Social Security Administration 1-800-772-1213
Crisis Pregnancy Helpline
Crisis Pregnancy Hotline Number 1-800-67-BABY-6
Liberty Godparent Ministry 1-800-368-3336
Cult Information
Cult Hotline (Mercy House) 606-748-9961
Domestic Violence
National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE
National Domestic Violence Hotline Spanish 1-800-942-6908
Battered Women and their Children 1-800=603-HELP
Elder Abuse Hotline 1-800-252-8966
RAINN 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
Eating Disorders
Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention 1-800-931-2237
Eating Disorders Center 1-888-236-1188
National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders 1-847-831-3438
Overcomers Outreach, Inc. 1-800-310-3001
Remuda Ranch 1-800-445-1900
Family Violence
Family Violence Prevention Center 1-800-313-1310
Gambling
Compulsive Gambling Hotline 410-332-0402
Grief/Loss
GriefShare 1-800-395-5755
Homeless/Shelters
Homeless 1-800-231-6946
American Family Housing 1-888-600-4357
Homosexual/Lesbian
Recovery: Exodus International 1-888-264-0877
Helpline: 1-800-398-GAYS
Gay and Lesbian National Hotline 1-888-843-4564
Trevor Hotline (Suicide) 1-866-4-U-TREVOR
Parents
Hotline for parents considering abducting their children 1-800-A-WAY-OUT
United States Missing Children Hotline 1-800-235-3535
Poison
Poison Control 1-800-942-5969
Runaways
Boystown National Hotline 1-800-448-3000
Covenant House Nineline 1-800-999-9999
Laurel House 1-714-832-0207
National Runaway Switchboard 1-800-621-4000
Teenline 1-888-747-TEEN
Youth Crisis Hotline 1-800-448-4663
Salvation
Grace Help Line 24 Hour Christian Service 1-800-982-8032
Want to know Jesus? 1-888-NEED-HIM
Self-Injury, “Cutting”
S.A.F.E. (Self Abuse Finally Ends) 1-800-DONT-CUT
Sexual Addiction
Focus on the Family 1-800-A-FAMILY
Suicide
Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Suicide Prevention Hotline 1-800-827-7571
Deaf Hotline 1-800-799-4TTY
NineLine 1-800-999-9999
Holy Spirit Teenline 1-800-722-5385
Crisis Intervention 1- 888- 596-4447
Crisis Intervention 1-800-673-2496
More Resources
- Boys Town
- 1-800-448-3000 (24/7)
- Live Chat with Boys Town (Monday-Thursday, 9pm-12pm EST)
- Email Boys Town
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
- 1-800-273-8255 (24/7) Press 1 for Veterans line
- Disaster Distress Helpline
- 1-800-985-5990
- Text TalkWithUs to 66746
- TTY for Deaf/Hearing Impaired: 1-800-846-8517
DATING ABUSE & DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
- loveisrespect
- 1-866-331-9474/tty: 1-866-331-8453 (24/7)
- Live Chat with loveisrespect (7 days/week, 5pm-3am EST)
- National Domestic Violence Hotline
- 1-800-799-7233 (24/7)
- Email the National Domestic Violence Hotline (24/7)
- RAINN: Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network
- 1-800-656-4673 (24/7)
- Live Chat with RAINN (24/7)
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
- National Human Trafficking Resource Center
- 1-888-373-7888
- Text BeFree (233733)
CHILD ABUSE
- USA National Child Abuse Hotline
- 1-800-422-4453 (24/7)
RUNAWAYS
- National Runaway Safeline
- 1-800-786-2929 (24/7)
- Live Chat with National Runaway Safeline (5:30pm – 12:30am EST)
EATING DISORDERS
- National Eating Disorders Association
- 1-800-931-2237 (Monday-Friday, 11:30 am-7:30 pm EST)
- ANAD: National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders
- 630-577-1330 (Monday-Friday,12 pm-8 pm EST)
- Email ANAD
CUTTING/SELF INJURY
- Safe Alternatives
- Call 800-366-8288 for information on seeking help
SUPPORT FOR GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER (GLBT) YOUTH
- GLBT National Youth Talk
- Call 1-800-246-7743 (Monday-Friday, 4pm-12 am EST/Saturday, 12pm-5pm EST)
- Email the GLBT National Youth Talk
- The Trevor Project
- Call 866-488-7386 (24/7)
- Live Chat with the Trevor Project (Daily 3pm- 9pm EST)
VETERANS
- Veterans Crisis Line
- Call 1-800-273-8255 (24/7)
- Live Chat with the Veterans Crisis Line (24/7)
