The news of Andrew Stoecklein’s recent suicide has shattered me. I started looking into the story and as I read the words of his wife, Kayla, and it took the breath right out of my lungs. It pains me to think about someone being in that level of hopelessness and to think about the road ahead that his family will have to navigate.
I texted my friend, Mary-Michael, to ask her if she had heard of this story. Mary-Michael has had her own struggles with mental health. I knew that this was probably arising thoughts in her and taking her back to those days in her own journey. She beautifully wrote about her story with mental health. You can read her post here.
She sent me the post before she put it up for me to look it over. I was incredibly proud of her honesty and vulnerability. As proud as I was, it took me back a little. To those days. To the text I would get. To the phone conversations we would have. To the late nights I would stay awake worrying about her.
I haven’t thought about those days in a long time. Not until now. Not until the reality of mental health is in a place where no one can deny its existence. The suicide of a young pastor has forced us to accept that this is very much a thing. It is sickening to me that it had to take something of this severity for us to wake up.
From Mary-Michael posting the blog has come conversations. People reaching out to her. Asking more questions. After having dinner with a younger girl, who had a friend in a very similar place she was in – she asked me if I remember anything I would do intentionally with her during that time.
I reflected on that year and responded to her with some things she could pass along to this girl. Through that texting conversation, we both realized that walking through that kind of darkness with someone gives you insight that people are desperate to have.
It is this idea of – the ones walking with you.
The ones walking with you: They are the ones who aren’t fighting the battle but are standing next to you in it. They are the ones who see you laying down the weapons as the enemy draws near. They bend down to tell you to pick back up the sword and fight. They are the ones who often question what they can do to help. They are the ones who hurt because you hurt. They are the ones who want to fix it for you, yet can’t. They are the ones who often don’t understand but wish they did. They are the ones who say, “I want to go with you.”
We hope to be those kinds of people. Yet, often we reach a dead end road with the hovering question of, “what do I do?”
That is why we both knew this post was needed. In our friendship, on both sides, there has been the learning process of how to walk through heavy things. We need you to know that there is no magic equation for walking through the valley with someone. We are not here to tell you that we have the answers to all of your questions. We are only here to share some of the things we have learned along the way.
The ones walking with you.
We often don’t think about it. Do we? It is easy to find the words people have wrapped around what it is like to be the one walking through a certain struggle/hardship. We are quick to focus all of our energy on that. I believe it is important that we see all the people in the story.
So to you, to the person is one of the ones. One of the ones walking with someone, know that we see you. Know that we have been where you have been and understand that you too are carrying a weight. Know that this is for you because sometimes you also need to be reminded that you can do this.
We are going to break this up into a 3-part series – this being part 1
Part 2 will be me sharing what it looks like to walk really closely with someone through the struggles of mental health and sharing some practical things that I did during the thick of it with her.
Part 3 will be when you get the chance to hear from Mary-Michael as she writes about what it looked/looks like to walk through the aftermath of loss with someone; that someone being me.
People need people to walk with them through it, whatever it is. We hope that these posts put new wind in your sails and you travel through waters that can be unknown.
To be continued….
