A conversation with God about self-destructive thinking

Why does my heart feel so bad? 

I do know, Lord. Well, at least I have an idea. But why is this anger that is turned on within me, against me? Like most of my prayers, God, this will have the shape of incoherence about it, but at least I know you’re listening, even if it feels like I’m speaking to myself.

Oh, you do seek an honest prayer… thank you that I can be “me” before you.

Why is it that anger turns to destruction of another or self-destruction? I cannot bear to intentionally harm another person, so I turn all that torrent of self-recrimination on myself. I hate the very idea that I could cause another person harm, and yet that hatred zeroes back in upon me like a heat-seeking missile.

I understand it’s the trauma speaking, God. I hear the Spirit’s gently soothing truth: “Go gently now.” It just doesn’t help instantly, when I’m clamouring for help.

Help me receive the grace that I would feel healed amid this tyranny right now. Cause me and anyone else who is in this state to feel the gentle breeze of your shalom waft in, through and over, to a cellular level. Cool the heat of this inner corrosion in us.

Even in the throes of this inward attack, would you come in and like you do, give calm to the angst our souls bear. Give us the bearings of love that our loved ones feel for us, not least yourself, the God of our creation, who loves us like no other one can.

You get me because you get everyone you made. You know how things shake our entire world and being. In the desperation of the one who feels tormented by a triggering they couldn’t foresee let alone control, give the semblance of control that prevents the spiral into self-destruction.

~

Feeling triggered for trauma or being anxious to the point of being self-destructive, whether it’s what we’re thinking or acting out or both, is a scary place to be. Nothing scarier. We know we’re not alone, but it feels like we’re the only ones on the face of the earth driven to the end of ourselves.

You are not alone. You are not alone.

Being beautifully sensitive and empathic, courageous enough to be vulnerable to trust without doubt, we take opportunities to live our faith—but that leaves us susceptible to provocations and events that shake us down. Then we feel we cannot trust when we know we ought to. Feelings of confusion swarm.

We’re susceptible because of the scope and range of our hearts that were built to love and be loved. Open-hearted, our hearts were pierced. Open handed, our hands were slapped. 

What hurts, hurts. Whatever hurts, if we won’t counterattack, takes us to a place of absorption. We absorb the hurt in the power of God, but inevitably in God’s goodness we cannot contain that which is nasty within. God insists that what’s toxic is bad for us, and that IT must go!

So, in bearing a hurt that cannot be contained, in refusing to attack others, when attacking others helps nobody, we have to find another way to process what will poison us in self-destruction if we’re not careful.

We process that by talking.
We must talk.
We must speak these toxins out into space and time.
Speaking the toxins out saves us and heals us.
Speaking the toxins out saves us hurting others.
Speaking the toxins out takes courage.
Speaking the toxins out honours the Lord.

We talk with God in cries, yelps and screams. Long nights of sobbing. Days waiting for night to come. Waiting for time when we can be alone with God.

We may also talk with a beautifully empathic pastoral carer, too. Someone who big-hearted enough to allow the manifestation of the toxins to pungently flow. We tell our stories in sadness and in repetition as we need to. These are long stories and they’re said more than we thought they would need to be said.

And by that, in the seconds of engagement, God heals us again.

God’s heart is desperate that we would reach up in the wisdom of faith that’s birthed in a poverty of hope.