Article March 30, 2020 Issue

Overcoming suicidal thoughts

Ali Ziesler

I’ve felt drawn to suicide more than once in my life, but I didn’t really rebel against it until just over three years ago, when the intensity of the pull felt overwhelming. According to a website, I had 11 of the 12 “qualifications” for someone who is suicidal. The only one I lacked was the ability to physically go through with it.

I briefly saw a counselor, who told me I needed to build a bigger support network. My response was that if I knew how to do that, I would have already done it. When I called the suicide crisis hotline one day, the person on the other end agreed that I had much potential and a need for fuller expression. This was helpful to hear, but hanging up, I wept, still feeling like a failure.

The desire to die was persistent, at times aggressive, and I realized I had to figure out what was going on. I turned mainly to Christian Science for guidance, reading and studying passages in the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science. In her Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, she addresses a question about suicide, saying: “Mortals have the sum of being to work out, and up, to its spiritual standpoint. They must work out of this dream or false claim of sensation and life in matter, and up to the spiritual realities of existence, before this false claim can be wholly dispelled. Committing suicide to dodge the question is not working it out” (pp. 52–53).

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