Is the common denominator experienced by those who finally take their life the fact that, in each day's view, they no longer felt useful, productive and like they belonged?
Was their experience in Camp Defeat (see Days 1-3) so bleak that a vacuum was created, into which poured enemy voices who taunted and tempted and isolated, screaming "It's hopeless!"
Imagine tidal waves of emotional pain so great and so continual that taking your life--in all of its final moment horror--seems a more viable option than facing yet another wave.
The waves are voices...voices that gather steam over time and overcome the weapons of strength that God lays before us. Time becomes a torrent of defeat rather than a gentle rain of hope. Those in Camp Defeat look ahead through a lens that sees more of the same rather than a chance that something may change for the better.
Hope is palpable. It is so real that you can almost touch it. Where does it come from? If you lose it--all of it--how do you get it back?
If we understand and talk openly that Camp Defeat is the experience of enemy voices moving us away from life, then, like our prescription for Camp Slide, we would be helping each other disassemble the voices.
Until we treat these voices as real and disastrous, as God teaches us to do, we cannot turn the tide of suicide. Those under the torrent of voices are like the person caught in the ocean at the exact point where repeated waves dislodge their footing and there is no gain, no rescue in sight. Exhaustion whispers, "Give up."
Those of us in Camp Strong, where hope is a readily available commodity, must expend energy (time) and wisdom (prayer) to bring the idea of these voices out into open conversation. As we noted in Day 3, these voices of defeat want to stay hidden in the crevasses of our minds.
Perhaps the voices know that if they are successful, the volume and torrent of pain at the moment of suicide will not dissipate--it will transform into a tidal spray that covers all those left behind. The danger is that this spray of earthly defeat of hope will take root in yet another of those who remain immersed in shock and grief.
It is all about recognizing and helping others to acknowledge the voices. Then we can remember our weapons that God has provided. Life is a war--our minds are the battleground of God's voice against enemy voices. We can lead each other back to the bunker, treating our wounds with care and encouragement, and retrain our strength to face the days of voices that will always be.
Above all, we must honor the fallen. They fought bravely to the end.
