There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self-control I fear is never-ending
Controlling,
I can’t seem…
To find myself again
My walls are closing in
I’ve felt this way before So insecure…
(Linkin Park, ‘Crawling’)
Supporting young people around issues of depression, self-harm and suicide risk has been a consistent theme in my youth work practice during the last 5 years. Australia shares with other Western, industrialised nations the social reality of an alarmingly high number of young people on medication for depressive illness, and the commonality of self-harming behaviours. In the stories of the young people with whom I work I regularly encounter the personalised reality of what the statistics suggest: an experience of youth as a wilderness sojourn in an freakish landscape of rapid emotional mood-swings, daily threats to identity, dignity and personhood, difficult and sometimes insurmountable social obstacles, ambiguous, indistinct and conflicting life-direction markers.
It can be lonely and frightening out there in the world where teenagers actually live. Friendly, supportive and truly helpful voices are experienced as far and few between. Some young people find themselves simply unable to find enough reasons or resources to continue and so resort to their final remaining coping strategy, the termination of their earthly existence.
Our Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that a relatively small number of young people actually make this choice: one in every five thousand young men and one in every twenty-one thousand young women, aged fifteen to twenty-five years, take their own lives.iv However, informed estimates also suggest that for every completed young male suicide, another fifteen young men attempt ‘unsuccessfully’ to take their own lives. The ratio of completed to attempted suicides for young women has been estimated at an alarming ratio of one-to-one-hundred. Add to this the broader incidence of self-harming (cutting, burning) as a non-suicidal expression of intense inner distress and the burgeoning number of Australian young people on anti- depressive medicationvi and you have a portrait of a crisis in Australian (and Western) youth culture.
In my own engagement with this crisis at a pastoral and research level I have become particularly interested in the influence and impact of spirituality in suicide prevention and adolescent well-being. This interest has developed along the following lines:
Noticing the way in which spirituality has emerged as a factor for consideration in the social/medical science and therapeutic dialogue around suicide prevention and the broader concept of resilience.
Considering the unique place of Christian spirituality within this dialogue. • Pastoral theological reflection on aspects of Christian spirituality as factors contributing to young people’s experience of ‘risk’ and ‘resilience’.
In the remainder of this paper I will discuss these points with reference to a suicide prevention conference event and a focus group discussion with four Christian young women.
Download the entire essay: “If it wasn’t for God I wouldn’t be sitting here now …” – The place of Christian spirituality in suicide prevention. By Phil Daughtry (pdf)
About the Author:
Phil’s specialty is the spiritual & professional formation of new youth workers & the dialogue between Christian spirituality & contemporary society and professional life.
Phil can be contacted on pdaughtry@adelaide.tabor.edu.au
About djwright
