This Easter, I was struck with the weird realization that the true meaning of the holiday is the reason being suicidal is easier for me than it would be if I weren't a Christian.
I'm a Christian (as I may have mentioned in previous blog posts). I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose on the third day so I'll go to Heaven when I die, all that stuff. All the stuff they talk about in church and especially during the Easter service, such as the one I went to this morning.
However, I'm also depressed and suicidal for reasons that mostly translate to "I don't really think life is very enjoyable and there's not too much I want to do, and even the things I appear to like are just distractions from the fact that my experience in life is monotonous at best and painful at worst".
This has led to the interesting situation where I wouldn't actually kill myself (1. because I'm supposed to live on this Earth to do stuff for God, and it wouldn't be very nice to Him if I quit my job before he wanted me to, so to speak, and 2. I don't really have the guts to go through something like that), but I'm still not very keen on life, and dying doesn't bother me because I know I'm going to go to Heaven when I die. Which, if you think about it, almost gives me yet another reason to not want to live. I'm too keenly aware of the fact that, for me as a Christian, I'm going to get something much better after life when I die. I'm keenly aware that the monotony of life is going to be followed by something better than the best Earthly life imaginable. Knowing that gives one hope in the face of death but it does not necessarily do a lot in the face of life.
Easter is the celebration of the day Jesus rose from the dead, conquered sin and death, and made it so that his followers don't have to fear dying. Easter is the celebration of the event that removed any kind of fear of death itself that might keep me from killing myself.
It's also why it's difficult for me to find a lot of anti-suicide arguments that help me. People say that, if you're trying to find relief from your life and you therefore want to commit suicide, you shouldn't do that because you can't find relief when you're dead. But that's not true. Well. At least it's not true for me and other Christians. I mean, when I die, my spirit will go on and I'll be in Heaven, where none of the bad things about the world will follow me, and...to be honest, thinking about what happens after death makes suicide seem even more appealing. Not like I'd actually do it. But it certainly blows giant holes in a particular argument against the act.
(Also, for those who are curious - I don't believe that committing suicide automatically bars one from going to Heaven, provided one had accepted Jesus into one's heart previously. Different people believe different things, but what I believe and what seems most Biblically-correct to me is that, when you're a Christian, God forgives you for every sin you committed previously and will forgive you for every sin committed afterward as soon as it is committed. Actually, it's more like what Jesus did on the Cross cancels out what you did in the past as well as what you'll do in the future, so you don't even need to be forgiven when you sin, because it's already been forgiven in advance. The argument that suicide automatically sends one to Hell hinges upon the correct assumption that murder is a sin but the less-sound arguments that 1. one isn't forgiven by God for a sin until one asks for forgiveness (you can't ask for forgiveness in your life if you're already dead), and/or 2. there exist certain sins for which God will not forgive you, ever. I don't believe either of these two things and I don't believe the Bible supports them, so I don't think suicide would automatically send you to Hell. Again. Not like I'm saying you should commit suicide if you're a Christian, but I'm just saying that certain arguments against suicide in Christians are inaccurate.)
I sat through the entire Easter service thinking about this and it gave me a kind of nervous freakout that I don't think anyone around me caught onto but that only subsided when I got home and took some of my anti-anxiety medication.
Everyone wants to celebrate today as a day about life, and I know that's true, but I can't think about it without thinking about death and wishing I were there.
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