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Nov. 24, 2005
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Healing process continues for parish
after pastor's suicide |
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Grief program could lead to more discussions
about mental health |
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What is clinical depression?
A diagnosis of clinical depression is made when at least five of the following symptoms are present most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks, and cause significant disruption in everyday life:
— Feeling sad, depressed, empty, hopeless, irritable or angry
— Little interest or pleasure in activities that used to be enjoyable
— Poor appetite, or overeating
— Trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or sleeping too much
— Feeling tired
— Feeling like a failure
— Excessive, inappropriate guilt
— Trouble concentrating, remembering or making decisions
— Low energy, fatigue
— Frequent thoughts of death
NOTE: Up to 50 percent of people who suffer with depression are unaware of their illness, because of the gradual onset of their symptoms.
— Karen Girard
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SHEBOYGAN — Reading words from Henri Nouwen’s “Bread for the Journey,” which described deep loneliness, painful isolation, real depression, and much emotional suffering at the top of the church, Joe Zenk, pastoral associate at St. Dominic Parish, set the tone for the Nov. 10, evening “Shadows and Light” presentation held in the church’s vestibule.
This session was part of an ongoing response to the trauma the parish experienced when learning of the July 30, 2005, suicide of its much-loved pastor, Fr. Jim Jarumbo, according to parish nurse Maureen Lacey. She said the parish’s health ministry has been working to create good out of the pain surrounding Fr. Jarumbo’s death, using it as a springboard to look deeper into mental health issues.
Parish member Dr. Brian Lukach, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and practices out of St. Nicholas Hospital and Lakeshore Mental Health, discussed the what’s and why’s of depression and suicide.
“I want to highlight — depression is a medical problem,” said Lukach. “It’s a complicated disorder with multiple variables.” Yet, he said, three-fourths of the population suffering from this disorder is not adequately treated. One reason, he said, is the stigma still attached to the diagnosis of depression. People mistakenly assume it is merely a character weakness, and not a disease. Another is the parity issue — insurance companies balking at providing the same coverage for mental illnesses as they do for physical illnesses.
The effects of untreated depression are devastating, he said.
“The major, life-threatening complication of depression is suicide. Two-thirds of suicide victims were clinically depressed at the time of their death,” said Lukach. “Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. In the year 2002, 31,655 people died from suicide. That’s 87 people a day, or one every 17 minutes.”
“More than 15 percent of all traffic accidents may actually be suicides, so those numbers may be even higher,” Lukach went on. Firearms are the number one method of choice for most suicide victims. Suffocation is second.
“Seven out of every 100 men and one out of every 100 women diagnosed with depression at some time in their lifetime go on to commit suicide,” according to Lukach.
“Suicide is rarely a spur of the moment thing,” explained Lukach. He said he believes Fr. Jarumbo had planned his suicide carefully — when he did it, where he did it, and by what means he did it.
“Suicide is the result of a long, debilitating breakdown of a person’s emotional health,” Lukach stressed. “It’s a fruitless pursuit to try to determine an isolated event that may have been the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back.’”
Even if one could have prevented that one event for the person, he said, another would come along, then another…. “If someone is intent on committing suicide, (he or she) will, regardless of how much others try to intervene.”
The primary motivation for suicide, said Lukach, is not to end life, but to end the pain. It’s a pain that’s unremitting, overshadowing everything in the person’s life, leaving them with a deep loneliness that comes from trudging alone in their darkness while others dance together in the light.
“Unless you experience it yourself, you can’t imagine what it’s like,” said Lukach. “Dying becomes less objectionable to living.”
Lukach stressed that suicide is a result of disordered thinking. The person has “a flaw in their thought processes, which a person with a healthy, rational mind cannot understand,” he said, and which leaves them perceiving suicide as a reasonable choice.
Guilt is the most common reaction to a loved one’s suicide, said Lukach, and the greatest barrier on the path to healthy coping.
“You are not responsible in any way, shape or form for another’s suicide,” he emphasized. “Even if (his or her) thinking is flawed, (he or she is) responsible for (their suicide).” Although, he added, how much control a suicidal person has over his or her actions is unclear.
Fr. Guy Gurath, pastor of Newburg’s Holy Trinity Parish and active in grief ministry, echoed those thoughts.
“Suicide is an act of desperation,” he said. “We as believers ultimately have to trust the mercy of God.”
He told a story in which a mother was filled with grief over the loss of her son who had flung himself off a bridge. She could accept his death, she told a priest, but not the thought he’d be in hell for his action. The priest, consoling the mother, told her: between the bridge and the water, your son prayed ‘God have mercy,’ and God did.
“All of us stand in need of the mercy of God,” Gurath said. |
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