Self Image

I started wondering how much easier would life be if it were over or if anyone would really miss me?

Story Tags

image, approval, suicide, depression

Explore the Story

• Craving Acceptance
• Twists and Turns
• The Hole in Our Heart
• Finding True Love
• Where's God in suffering?
• Identity Crisis

As a freshman in college if anyone asked me how I was, I could quickly answer with a response of 'feeling blessed' or 'doing great.' It was easy enough to keep an outward appearence of happiness and joy, but inside I was falling apart. My struggles with the image of who I was and depression had followed me from high school to college. These feelings lead me to using people to judge my worthiness. I would let them dictate my feelings, and if I was not invited to social events or if people were hanging out without me, I would take it as a personal offense. As the pain grew within I would focus more and more on the negative incidents, so therefore I would fall deeper into the hurt I was feeding off of.

Because of this, I would often find confort by escaping reality through video games, the internet, or even my work. These temporary comforts, were just that - temporary, and they often left me feeling guilty and still in anguish. Many nights I would retreat back to my room to pity for myself and reflect on my insignificance. I was longing for someone to tell, but I couldn't. I could barely look at myself without disgust because a man doesn't deal with this. A 'real' man shakes it off, and if I felt this way about me, then why would anyone care.

The worst part was when images of suicide started occuring in my thoughts. I started wondering how much easier would life be if it were over or if anyone would really miss me? This seriously frightened me, because all throughout middle school I went through a similar expierence, except it was on a daily basis. It climaxed at age 14 when I failed to take my life with a kitchen knife. This fear was only equaled by my feeling of worthlessness. I was thinking, "I'm a Christian. I'm a man. I should not have these thoughts," and I started doubting my faith. Had I really given my life over to Christ? If so, then I must be a horrible Christian. God could never really want me.

If I kept the path I was going, it definitely would have lead into serious depression, and I probably would have started looking to other things to find worth. My college years would have had me compromising my values and morals in order to even temporairly cover the pain. If all the pressures of school, my self-image, and depression were allowed to build up I sometimes wonder if I would have taken my own life.

I started to see God working in the situation when I started attending a new small group called 'Authentic Manhood'. The material was about how God defined manhood through the bible and compared it with how society viewed it. After a few weeks I started to deal with some of the issues in my heart, and it was not so much the material, but the brotherhood. I was in a group with three guys who were completely open and honest about themselves, and what I found there was invaluable. Real relationships with guys whom I could open up to, and not feel judged. These guys shared their imperfections as well, and I realized I was not the only one with problems. Over the next few weeks, we would talk for a hour or so during every meeting and there was the oppertunity to have people actually listen and give sound advice.

What started happening is now that I could be real with people, I could start to be real with God and let him into the closed-off places of my heart. For so long I had lived my life behind a mask, I forgot what it was to be true. I realized what I needed was real relationships where I could share my struggles, fears, joys, and victories. What I found was what it meant to be real, and started to experience a new part of my relationship with God I never knew. Soon after I finished my sophomore year, I continued to grow in relationships with others while spending the summer in New Hampshire with 70 incredible christians in one house. It was not until that October that I started to recognize the change, and now my focus was shifting off of appeasing everyone else, and onto Christ.

Since then I kept those relationships from the A.M. program and meet weekly with two guys from it. Though sometimes I still struggle with acceptence from people and loneliness, now there are guys who will pray for me and show the things in my life that need to change. Also I have become one who pours into others. I lead a study of three awesome guys and have the privilage to pour into two of them on a weekly basis. God has blessed me so much through His spirit, whom is currently shaping me into the form of His son, Jesus. Paul tells us to rejoice in our sufferings because it's those sufferings that God can use to mold us into the person we are meant to be, and give us the hope that will last for eternity.