Stuck in a Moment...

Content Warning: Discussion about suicide and mental illness

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Oh love, look at you now
You've got yourself stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
-U2 “Stuck in a Moment, You Can’t Get Out of.”

In a 2005 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine Bono explained that the suicide of his good friend and front man for the band INXS, Michael Hutchence, served as the inspiration for the song, “Stuck in a Moment, You Can’t Get Out of.” Bono stated: “He (Hutchence) got himself into a terrible hole. If he’d just hung on ten minutes more . . .”

In other interviews, he stated: “That song is an argument. It's a row between mates. Your kind of trying to slap somebody around the face, trying to wake them up out of an idea. In my case it's a row that I didn't have while he was alive.

The reasons why someone dies by suicide are complex. Very rarely is there one specific factor, although recent events may serve as a trigger. I cannot speak for why Michael Hutchence or anyone else dies by suicide.

The song, however, struck a chord with me. I have noticed that two emotions have driven my previous bouts of depression: regret over the past and fear about the future. In the moments where I struggle with suicidal ideation both those emotions feel all-encompassing and as if they will last forever.

When I focus on the past and all of my many mistakes-opportunities wasted because of my mental health struggles and relationships destroyed because of my selfishness, I am unable to imagine how the future could be any different. “Of course, I wasted this opportunity. Not a surprise. I have done this before.” Or, “of course, I drove this person away with my hurtful words. I always do this. I take a potential friendship and destroy it before it has time to grow and take root. Then I have the audacity to complain about depression and isolation?”

In addition to the negative self-talk, I replay my mistakes over and over again. I can’t remember what I wore to the store a few days ago but I can remember in agonizing detail cruel words I have uttered that have shattered relationships and opportunities that I have allowed to slip through my fingers.

Those mistakes go from being just one part of my life to becoming my life’s defining narrative. I am frozen in place as I relive in my head all those instances where I failed and hurt other people. Moving on becomes impossible.

Tied with regret over the past is fear of the future. I view those past moments where I was cruel, inconsiderate, or just inadequate as blue prints for my future. “Nothing will get better. I will always hurt those who care about me.” Or, “I will never have stable relationships because I am unstable, flawed, and broken.”

The fear of the future keeps me rooted in the past. With no clear path forward, suicide not only becomes logical but it feels like the only step forward. If looking back through all my negative experiences I find that I’m the common denominator, then it only means that for things to get better I need to cease to exist.

I’m sure family, friends, and even strangers can find the flaw in my thinking. But when I am trapped by my regrets over the past and my fear that the future will always be the same it becomes impossible to ever imagine that I am anything more than a disappointment and a failure.

For those of us old enough to have bought or rented movies on VHS tapes, do you remember hitting the rewind button and immediately hitting the fast forward button and laughing at the funny expressions and actions people made? I remember laughing watching someone run forward and then immediately backward, then forward again etc., not allowing them or the movie to advance forward.

When I am depressed, it often feels as if someone else has decided to play that game with me. Forcing me to relive the same moment again and again, as if my life were some cosmic joke.

It doesn’t help that growing up, I was exposed to a theology that claimed that after I died, God would play a movie showing me my whole life-all the good and bad things I had done (with an emphasis on the bad). And while Jesus’ death was presented as a sort of “get out of jail/aka hell free” card, I was constantly reminded that I was a failure and a sinner. I was told that each sin I committed was like driving a new nail into the body of Christ. I’ve long left evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity and with it the penal substitution theory of atonement behind, but I still find it difficult to move on when I fail or make a mistake

The kicker is that this obsession with my past failures almost always leads to me making the same mistakes in the future creating a feedback loop where the years go by, but I am not moving forward.

After a failed suicide attempt, I was once again left to re-evaluate my life and how I ended up in such a dark place. This time however, I am trying to learn from my past without being stuck in it. Therapy helps. And re-evaluating my theology helps.

And if, and if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along the stony pass
It's just a moment, this time will pass

Most Christians, regardless of where they fall on the theological spectrum, preach a God that loves, forgives, and most importantly promises that tomorrow need not be like the yesterday. I don’t need to keep living the same moment over and over again.

Now to be clear, this is not to ignore the very real pain I have caused in the past. This isn’t to abdicate responsibility for my actions and say, “oh well. It’s all good. God forgives me.” No, I need to acknowledge that my actions have hurt people and no one that I have hurt in the past needs to forgive me or give me a second chance.

But living in the past and repeating the same mistakes over and over again, does nothing to make amends for my prior mistakes and failures and only serves to lead me to believe that the only way change will happen is if I’m no longer around to hurt other people.

Believing in a God that forgives, loves, and offers me opportunities to start again is not an attempt to deny the harm I’ve caused, but it is an acknowledgement that getting “stuck in a moment” will only lead to more death-whether it be the death of relationships that I continue to sabotage, opportunities I waste, or my own literal death when I am overwhelmed by depression.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

I am holding on to the belief that nothing can separate me-or you-from the love of God. Our mistakes. Our failures. Our selfishness. Our greed. Our depression. We will keep making mistakes. That is the nature of being human. We can learn from our mistakes, try to do better, but that’s only possible if we do not allow regret over the past and fear of the future, keep us trapped and “stuck in a moment.”