Suicide on the rise for middle-aged Americans

Do you remember I posted a thread last week concerning suicides and the holidays? I posted it from a mortician's perspective, and it's funny that this subject came up again, because we had our first "Christmas suicide" two days ago. I tell you, Satan is very busy this time of the year.

A middle-aged woman swallowed an entire bottle of her husband's sleeping pills. It was an eerie thing to call her house yesterday and get the voice mail. What I heard was obviously a recently recorded greeting: her voice was very cheerful, Christmas music was tinkling in the backround, saying she was sorry that "Robert and I can't get to the phone...we're out Christmas shopping! Please leave a message and we'll call you back!"

Her voice was all sunshine and rainbows. You would think everything was just great, the typical North American, middle-income, two-car garage, white-picket fence housewife. Her husband comfortably employed, her grown children coming in from out of town to spend Christmas with mom and dad...and mom suddenly and unexpectedly commits suicide.

People do strange things this time of the year. People are more depressed around late December, I think, then they are at any other time during the year. We see more deaths, more suicides, more drug-related fatalities around Christmas than the 4th of July and Halloween put together. I have stories you brethren wouldn't believe...stories about receiving death calls on Christmas Eve around midnight...

Sorry about bringing in the sobriety, but reality is reality.

Brother Paul

Christmas is still the most grieving time of the year for me. I stay to myself, alone. It's just to painful.

I'm so sorry to hear this, brother. Unfortunately, you prove my point - this is a very depressing time of the year for many, many people. There's just so much involved...so much baggage that goes way, way back. Stemming from early childhood. Satan picks up on this, the strongholds, and flares them. The whole 'spirit' surrounding Christmas is quite evocative, more than any other time of the year. If you've experienced deaths of children, Christmas can be very hard. You become paralyzed with bittersweet memories, filling in all the torturous "what if's", and a time of the year that is one man's pleasure suddenly becomes another man's prison.

There's alot of spirtual warfare going on, lots of emotion and pent-up skeletons scratching on closet doors. I am always extra careful to be on my guard this time of the year, keeping close watch over my heart.

Brother Paul

What a tragedy it is - that our Christmas traditions turn into such a curse for many. Of course, Christmas (as described in a recent thread) is rooted in pagan custom, and only in the fourth century were those customs adopted by the church. (as a compromise by the Roman Church – to get pagans to convert) In many ways our society pays a price by insisting on maintaining these customs.

Christmas is still the most grieving time of the year for me. I stay to myself, alone. It's just to painful.

I’m just wondering: What is it about Christmas that induces deeper suffering for those like you who struggle with depression? Would you value the company of those Christians who do not follow the traditions?

Diane

It almost makes the mantra: [i]"'Tis the season to be jolly"[/i] perverse and a mockery. When we think of this imbedded mantra around Christmas, and if we are honest with ourselves, it is not Jesus Christ that comes to mind.

Instead, what comes to mind are the big-booted, blustery, rosy-cheecked Santa Clauses, the mistletoe and holly, the twinkling, multi-colored lights, flying reindeer and sleighbells. This is what we've been programmed to invision at the sounding of this seasonal mantra.

The "jolly season" thing absolutely permeates all the stores, beginning even a week before Thanksgiving. This is for a reason. I believe (and everyone is welcome to debate me on this) there is a spiritual psychology behind it all. And this "spirit" driving the jovial decorum is not of the God of Israel, but of a familiar spirit that exploits the supposed birthdate of our Saviour as a means to enslave, numb, imprison, whitewash. On the outside we see the twinkiling lights of green, red and blue and glass ornaments - on the inside of many a person this year, however, there is alot of hurt. As long as the carols are sung, and bells rung, and "It's a Wonderful Life" aired on TV, all is calm and all is bright.

But strip away all the candy canes and fruit cakes and gingerbread houses and what do you have? Tonight, if you have an adorned Christmas tree already in your home (as I do), see how quickly your festive mindset can be altered in one moment by simply unplugging your tree. Try turning off all the lights in your house, except for the tree, and sit and gaze at its beauty a moment or so. Soak in what this beautiful thing represents and how it is able to so effortlessly bring back things from your childhood like nothing else can.

Then, reach for the switch and turn it off.

You're in a dark house now. The Christmas spirit (embodied in the tree) is suddenly gone, and you're uneasy. Cold. I'm showing you this to demonstrate the transitory nature of the "jolly" season spirit. It's all in the plastic. The painted bulb. The fragrances. The chimes. And on December 26th, the crow will once again fly and people will be left even emptier than they were the Christmas before.

Now, please understand me; I have a Christmas tree, I drink eggnog (not spiked, thank you) and we open presents on the 25th. But as I open my presents, I can't help but think of those who have no presents, who, like Brother Julian, are alone and depressed, buckling under strongholds that flare up this time of the year, every year. When I was a child (and a babe in Christ), I was blissfully innocent to all this. As an adult, however, I cannot ignore the bald-faced truth of reality, of what really drives this "holyday", and of the spiritual and economical repurcussions it brings, of the bittersweet memories and impulses it evokes in so many hurting people. In fact, the feelings can be so intense that I have come to almost dread the approaching of Christmas. (gasp!)

As with anything in life, the cheap, worthless stuff sits on the surface for all to see, but the real life and truth is beneath the surface. If you dig down deep enough through a person's flowery tattoo, you'll soon stain you fingers with their blood; you dig down deep enough through the tattoos of pretty trees and Santas and mistletoes, you'll also discover the blood of the power behind this "jolly season."

Brother Paul

This time of year should be when Christians put on that extra push to Evangelism and The Message that "He came and why" and not spent fighting with each other over it. What sort of witness is that to a world that is already fighting and depressed? Or even to Christians who have been depressed for other reasons.

Amen, this is what I am saying in other posts as well. I think it's important to be apprised of the situation at hand. This is a great time to go out and spead gospel seed, but we must take heed as to what we major on. Satan would love to keep Jesus in the manger, all swaddled up with porcelain wise men and donkey figurines. This is not an evangelistic picture - and the enemy knows it - which is why you can buy plastic mangers at Wal-Mart that play "Come All Ye Faithful" on two double A batteries.

Personally, I like the hymns "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" because both contain powerful sections where it's explained [i]why[/i] Jesus came to Earth. And even then, we never sing all the verses. In the former, Charles Wesley writes, "God and [i]sinners[/i] reconciled," and in the latter we sing "To save us all from Satan's power where we were gone astray." Christmas to the unsaved without the explanation of [i]why[/i] God came down into Bethlehem is like gospel preaching without a cross. There is a very active effort in the world to evade this. Most carols sung nowadys do not mention why Jesus came; they only express joy for His birth.

I think we need more Christmas carols that mention words like "sin" and "death" and "making atonement." As it is, the average person celebrates 70-80 Christmases and then dies unsaved and goes to hell. Obviously, the traditional celebration of Christmas is not very efficacious in bringing conviction and repentance.

We really need to knock off the negatives and start exalting Him, because some of us need it too.

We need to understand that there [i]are[/i] negatives, and perhaps see that a mere [i]seasonal[/i] exhaltation is just not going to cut it. If exalting Jesus daily in your life is absent, the exhaltation at Christmas will be ineffective. This is why we have so many depressed and damaged souls around this season...and many of them are from within our own ranks and files!

I believe that if we lived January thru Novemeber as Jesus-exalting and joyous as we did during the last week of December, we would have something of worth to give to the unsaved. Because then they would know that we're not faking it, we're not just putting on our Christmas masks. But as it stands, many of us can only present the world with a plastic manger and songs.

Brother Paul

(edit) Hey guys, I'm re-reading my posts and they sure look depressing. I'm sorry about this. But this is, after all, a holiday suicide thread. What a topic to discuss! We're getting somewhere with all this, I promise. Just give it some time...