*Trigger warning: This post discusses suicide, depression, and substance abuse. Please proceed with caution*
I’ve been gone from this world for what seems like millennia
Crown the Empire, “Milennia,” Track #3 from The Resistance: Rise of the Runaways, Rise Records, 2014.
Looking for nothing short of a miracle
I only ever wanted to come home, please won’t you let me go?
When I have nowhere left, I can run away
Will you lie to me, tell me I’ll be okay?
It is that time of the year again. Eggs are being stuffed or painted. Churches are preparing for resurrection messages. Mother Nature is awakening in her brilliant spring attire. And yet, lately, I have struggled to find the happiness everyone else enjoys this time of the year. I prepared to write a post on my skepticism of Christianity’s fascination with Jesus’ death, yet the cogs in my theological mind are not turning.
Instead, my mind continues to pull me in another direction. It appears to focus more eagerly on my personal story of resurrection. One that, unlike the Easter narrative, is fraught with pain, shame, and grief. I cannot help but dwell on the fact that one year ago, I was entering the darkest stage of my life. I fear that if I do not tell it, it will continue to control and devastate me. And why should I give so much power to a force I have defeated?
As if I am somehow psychologically deceiving myself, I continue to focus on the trauma that I endured rather than the resurrection that I gracefully received. I believe that, by the end of this post, I will be able to connect the dots of parallelism between Christianity’s views of Christ’s death and the death of my own self. It is not the direction I intended to follow, but it is one I will pursue for the sake of closure. It is my utmost hope that in writing about my story I can provide hope to at least one person facing present darkness.
January 2023
Personally, 2023 was a terrible year from the very start. On January 12th, a colossal tornado devastated the small town I currently reside in. I was working from home that day. I worked as a remote customer service agent for a Christian health-sharing organization; on the weekends, I worked for the Southern Baptist Church. On that day, everything suddenly became dark. We lost power. And then it was as if I entered a world-altering whirlwind. As I have described the moment to others, it seemed like for several minutes, everything was just underwater.
After the storm had cleared, I learned that one of four tornadoes touched down less than a mile from my residence. The next day, I drove to the grocery store. Riding around town, it seemed like we had survived some apocalyptic holocaust. The entire landscape was altered. Roads were closed; businesses were closed if not destroyed; the streets were eerily quiet. The atmosphere felt cold and empty.
On a more personal note, I was struggling. I was working every day for organizations that demanded I be someone I was not. The fabric of my identity was being torn apart. I was in a relationship that meant the entire world to me; and yet, it was failing. My partner had grown cold to me and started to pull away. I began to grow cold as well. In hindsight, it seems that I had no grasp of who I am; and if I were so unaware of my identity, how could I salvage what I thought to be the only thing that mattered?
February 3, 2023
On February 3rd, I initiated my downfall. After a horrible day at my work-from-home job, I made a trip somewhere I should have never gone, my old liquor store. A few bad phone calls pushed me over my tipping point. Nineteen months ago, to the date, I decided to quit drinking. Now, I was back. I polished off an entire bottle of Jim Beam Honey that night. And though I could not see it then in my drunken state, I was about to ruin my life.
I sent a text to my partner, breaking up with her. A drawing I had done of her I tore to shreds. The next morning, I woke up with a migraine from hell. For a brief moment, reality set in. I had ended my recovery. Drunk Luke had returned. I felt ashamed, but not ashamed enough apparently. Although I did not drink that following day, my gluttonous rampage had only just begun.
I tried, and somewhat succeeded, at repairing the damage I caused in my relationship. She had already grown cold to me, but I figured my honesty would save what we had. And it did serve as a Band-Aid. After a lengthy conversation on the phone, we made amends and committed to sticking together. I only wish that had lasted, but I had more damage to inflict upon myself.
A few days later, I went to see my physician. She had prescribed me Prozac and trazodone three years prior. This was one year after my mother’s death; I was finally diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and prescribed medication without any education on its effects. When I went for my appointment last February, I had already decided to stop taking my medications. They were no longer working. If anything, they only numbed the pain I was experiencing.
I sat in the office waiting for my physician. Then, to my surprise, her husband walked in. Her husband was not on staff at the time of my appointment, but he was a licensed doctor. He told me he was filling in for her. I did not care; I only came in for one purpose. I told him that I wanted to stop taking my medicine and he agreed to put me on a taper plan. For both medications, this taper plan read: “Take one capsule by mouth once a week, then 1 capsule every other day for one week, then 1 every third week, and then stop.”
For those who, like me in this scenario, do not have a great understanding of medicine; this taper “plan” is absolutely terrible. Every psychiatrist, provider, therapist, nurse, etc. who I have told has looked at me with shock. Psychiatric meds are not a joke. They can have crippling effects on a person. They are literally drugs. And my ignorance of psychiatry taught me this lesson in the hardest way possible.
April 2023
I started my taper plan and noticed no drastic results. I assumed I would become slightly irritable, maybe even a little sick. But as I endured the process, I lost something invaluable of mine, my mind. My drinking escalated. I began to question whether my partner genuinely loved me. We began to argue more. I began to feel ashamed of every breath I had ever taken. My depression, which had been in a coma for three years, awakened. And this time, it was far more monstrous.
In the week leading up to my birthday, April 24th, I completely snapped. I had entered a state of severe psychosis. And I had no idea. I was not about to find out either. My hell had awakened. My passion had begun. And little did I know that I would never again be the same.
My partner became sick that week. She believed it was COVID-19; I instantly believed it would end in a worst-case scenario. She lived far away, and I could not simply go see her. One day that week, she texted me from a hospital. She was on a respirator. She sent a voice message that sounded like she was dying. I was reliving my worst trauma. Once again, the woman I loved most was terminally ill in a hospital far away and there was nothing I could do.
I panicked. I cannot remember much of this time, but I do remember feeling the same feeling I felt when Mom was sick with cancer. I became utterly hopeless. It was as if I was in a constant, never-ending panic attack. Suddenly, after Wednesday, I stopped hearing from her. I became paranoid. I could not imagine life without her. She made me feel like a normal person. She made me feel like my failures made me who I am. She is only one of two people who have ever made me feel loved. And then, I lost her. It seemed she was dead.
April 22-23, 2023
On April 22nd, I spent the entire day in a state of extreme fear and dread. Another friend from far away tried to encourage me and support me, but I would not listen. I went to my liquor store and bought a few cases of beer. I tried to drink my pain away, but it would not go. Somewhere late in the afternoon, I decided that I could not live with the pain. I needed to escape. I did not want to live another day like this. My heart was shattered; my soul was crushed; my mind ceased to exist. I accepted that I was dead.
With what I had left of my medication, which was a lot, I decided I would end my life. I sent my partner one final text, apologizing for worrying about her so much. Apologizing for being myself. Stating that my life could not go on without her. Once the clock struck midnight, I emptied both pill bottles into my mouth and chased the poison with a beer. I said my goodbyes to this cruel world and cried myself to sleep.
Exactly forty minutes later, I woke up. I staggered to my bathroom where I nearly vomited my organs out. I collapsed on the floor, feeling defeated. Once again, my attempt had failed. But did it? Would it still work? I cried out to God. My soul left my body. Eventually, I made it back to my bed. It was as though my soul detached from my body and simply levitated over it. I heard voices and saw shadows. All night I laid there, not sleeping, just wishing, and waiting to finally knock out.
I frequently checked the time, and every time I looked at the clock, I noticed a similarity. 12:40. 1:40. 2:40. 3:40. 4:40. 5:40. I thought nothing of it at the moment; I exclusively wished my plan would work. But eventually, the sun broke through. And I lay in bed, a broken and empty man. I turned on my phone and looked through my messages. They had all been delivered and read, and I had been blocked. Everywhere.
Sadly, I was not resurrected that night. The phase of lonely isolation and severe psychosis only continued to worsen. My life was over—so why did my attempt not work? What was the point? The ideations became too much to manage. All I could think about was ways to end my life. I wanted to so badly. All I could do was drink in misery every day. Finally, one day in May, I drunkenly started searching for ways to buy a gun. And for whatever reason, that rattled my soul. I broke down and called 988. And although the journey out of the darkness was far longer than in, my resurrection began at that moment. I soon walked into a crisis stabilization unit, and my life changed forever.
Now
It was a drawn-out battle. If I were to explain my re-sobriety, stabilization, and eventual return to normalcy, I would need to draft a book. Some stories are best kept short. The condensed version of it is I recovered from alcoholism again and got stabilized on meds again. My partner and I reconnected in June. Unfortunately, things did not work out there. I got my heart stabbed again at the beginning of the year. But I found my calling. I found that, in addition to Living by the Logos, I can help people who are suffering through what I have survived. I have a renewed sense of purpose.
Is my life perfect? Absolutely not. And it never will be. But thank God (or gods) that I made it out of my toughest season alive. I have learned to accept life on life’s terms. And I am satisfied with that. Yet here I am, one year later. I cannot seem to shake the guilt of my actions, even if these actions did not come from my true self. Why is it that I cannot control my fixation on these events?
The weather is changing. The flowers are blooming. The trees and grass are returning to their true green. The last time this happened, I was losing my mind. If we are talking about triggers, then everything triggers me right now. It is healthy to reminisce. It is perfectly normal to never go back to where I was one year ago right now.
Conclusion
But here is the catch; I am focusing on my death, not my resurrection. It has always appalled me that Christians are so fascinated by the death of Jesus. Churches are adorned with crucifixes. We always hear about “Jesus dying for our sins.” To modern Christianity, the empty tomb seems second to the barbaric death on the cross.
It is Good Friday. Last year, even while losing my mind, I wrote one of my most popular posts on Living by the Logos. I touched on Christianity’s strange preoccupation with Jesus’ grizzly death. And now here I am. I have survived a total tragedy. Yet my mind seems to only focus on the tragedy, not the survival? Make it make sense.
My cross did not have the final word, and neither did Yeshua’s. I sought to end my life, and I succeeded. I escaped from rock bottom. And I lived to tell my story. And my hope is that whatever you are going through, you will be inspired to persevere. I lost my life of wandering in darkness, unaware of who I truly am. Now, I do not know for sure, but I have a greater idea. And with that, I am satisfied. Life does get better—and it becomes a life much worth living.