UNITED APPEAL
“Dying to talk about it” Paul Jamieson highlights the work of Fresh Light, PCI’s counselling service.
H
elen was deeply depressed; her confidence, self-esteem and sense of significance had been beaten out of her. With tears running down her face she spoke softly, “Will you pray with me? I am struggling with forgiveness and the stigma of divorce. Alcohol is my only comfort. I’m in a dark place; I am anxious, afraid, but dying to talk about it!” She told me her story, of years of domestic violence, emotional and financial abuse. The final straw was a physical assault that landed Helen in hospital with severe injuries for a week. Helen began to slowly rebuild her life with much help, counselling and support. What a privilege in ministry to be part of a person’s story and to remind them of God’s bigger story of grace and forgiveness. I listened, read and prayed with her. I exercised all my pastoral
18
Herald February 2020
skills as a minister but realised that this broken woman needed the expertise of a counsellor. Helen’s life was transformed by both pastoral care and professional counselling, distinctively different but both essential to her situation. She found her way out of that dark place into the light. She ditched the bottle and reconnected with church. She rediscovered joy and fulfilment. She relinquished the burden of guilt and went on to live a purpose-driven life.
Some of us still think that Christians should never get depressed or feel suicidal and if we are, we are letting God down in some way.
Mental health is a taboo subject, as Meriel Pinkerton (a counselling supervisor for Fresh Light and auxiliary minister in First Bangor Presbyterian) reflects: “There is still a stigma around talking about subjects such as depression, suicide and self-harm. However, we must take a hard look at the evidence and the consequences of not talking.” The NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) states that there were 307 recorded deaths by suicide in 2018, of which 228 were male and 79 female. Men in Northern Ireland are almost three times as likely to take their own lives as women. It is more probable that men aged 20-49 die of suicide than anything else. In the UK, every two minutes a man takes his life. In Ireland, provisional figures by the Central Statistics Office show there were 352 suicide deaths in 2018 – 282 were male and 70 were female. Across
