What does suicidal look like?
I don’t think anybody knows.
We are the moms and dads and we certainly didn’t know.
The four hospitals we took Tristan to, and his two counselors a week didn’t know.
You’d think I would’ve had a warning because in a moment of transparency, Tristan said he had tried to die 8 times in a 2 week span. But not anymore, now he wanted to live. You’d think that would have been warning enough. But we actually had NO warning.
What does suicidal look like?
He was doing great, he was seeing his counselor every week, he had a daily check-in with a second counselor, he had been through a full workup with a mental health hospital just two weeks before. He wanted to live now!
Until Feb 8, when he didn’t.
That night he went to a city-wide worship event with his friends, came home and played video games online with his best friend, set the headset down, (with his friend still on the other end), went out to our garage, and then in the time it took to hang himself, he was dead.
So what does suicidal look like? The mental health professionals are no closer to answering that question than they were 50 years ago. The research says there’s as much chance at predicting suicide as there is in tossing a coin.
So, please, never beat yourself up for “not knowing”. Nobody knows what suicidal looks like.
There is One who knows the heart of man, and One alone. God.
…You, You only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind. 1 Kings 8:39b
God knew every thought before our kids thought it, and every breath they would take up until their last one on this earth.
In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind. Job 12
We didn’t know what suicidal looked like, but God knows what everything looks like. Including our child’s heart.
Dear God, how could I not know how badly my boy was hurting? I was his mom! All I can do is trust You. I see in Your scripture that many, many things happened that did not make sense at the time, but from the vantage point of now, they do. Can you hurry and come so we won’t need it to make sense and we can just be together? We are so tired, so tired of the mystery. Help us to trust until we see You face-to-face. In the name of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen!
For more about the New Earth where we will live a real, full, life with our children, see Randy Alcorn’s blog, epm.org. Search for the topic, “New Earth”.
