This news story punched me in the gut. Noa Pothoven, a seventeen-year-old Dutch girl, a rape victim, ended her own life on June 2nd after battling PTSD, depression, and eating disorders for years. Her request to be considered for euthanasia was turned down by the government; she was too young and considered curable. Noa had already been treated in multiple institutions for severe depression and anorexia. She found the involuntary procedures she underwent, among them being put in a coma and force-fed, degrading and humiliating.
Finally, she persuaded her parents not to force feed her and starved herself to death.
Now, this young woman who her mother described as “sweet, beautiful, smart, social and always cheerful,” is gone forever. So, too, is her chance for finding a cure or realizing the potential her life held.
Her story has sparked a debate in this news cycle about euthanasia.
But a different question haunts me: Could Noa Pothoven have been saved?
The shame of the sexual assaults compelled her to keep them secret. That shame, along with the fear born of being violated, were like poison to her soul. The sexual assaults were not single-events, but the incipience of what would become a slow murder.
Noa wrote on her Instagram page, “…my suffering is unbearable. Out of fear and shame, I relive the fear, that pain every day. Always scared, always on my guard. And to this day my body still feels dirty. My house has been broken into, my body, that can never be undone.”
Her torment is palpable.
When her request for euthanasia was turned down by the Dutch government, she was told that her brain would be considered fully grown until her 21st birthday. She wrote, “It’s broken me, because I can’t wait that long.”
I understand Noa because I, too, have longed for the relief that only death could promise.
I lay awake night after night, wondering why I was still on this earth.
I questioned the value of my existence.
I pleaded with God to take me home to Heaven—a place where there is no pain, no suffering, no tears.
The pit I was in was so dark and so deep that I could not climb out. I couldn’t even see the sunlight at the top.
I knew that Jesus should be enough to lift me out and that I should be able to find joy again. Yet, I could not. I felt shame about that.
The world was going on without me. I was not needed. Nor would I be missed.
Yet, I felt shame for even thinking such things. ‘Self-pity’ some would call it.
I needed to talk to someone, but who? I dreaded hearing Christian platitudes or admonitions.
Going to a therapist would be an admission of failure. I feared being diagnosed with something humiliating. What would they put on my health record? Would they prescribe medications? The thought of not being ‘strong’ enough or ‘spiritual’ enough to pull up without drugs brought shame. What would people think of me?
It was all too much. I felt like a burden, like even drawing a breath was a waste of air.
So, with no other clear way to end the pain, I contemplated ending my life. I was clinically depressed.
My own vision had become so dark that I could no longer imagine a future for myself and saw no purpose in my own continued existence.
I needed someone to come alongside me—counseling professionals, a doctor, but also church friends, even strangers. But that was a foregone possibility as long as I guarded my shameful secrets, both the roots of the depression and the suicidal thoughts themselves.
Secrets isolate people. So does shame.
One secret shame is particularly poisonous: the kind children experience after sexual abuse.
They feel dirty. Their developing minds make most children incapable of concluding that the abuse was not their fault and means nothing about them. Their limited life experience renders them unable to evaluate the credibility of abuser’s intimidation or threats to keep the abuse secret. Nor can they accurately anticipate how others will react to the news. They fear they will be in trouble, as if they are somehow to blame.
The sexual abuse of a child is so wicked because it violates their innocence and steals their sense of safety. The abuse haunts their thoughts and makes the world a dark and dangerous place. The shame over the incident(s) is like a cancer that metastasizes into other forms—shame about who they are, feelings of being ‘dirty’ or ‘bad,’ the resulting emotional responses or self-destructive behaviors, and even future failed relationships. The need for therapy itself can define them as ‘not normal.’
Childhood trauma, including childhood sexual abuse, is also related to inflammation, immune system dysregulation, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6088139/
The sexual abuse of a child is a slow-motion murder.
Even if a victim manages to create a normal life, he or she may still carry the heavy burden of the secret and shame with them for years, even to their graves.
This week, I also learned that over 12,254 Boy Scouts reported being sexually abused between 1944 and 2016. Over 7,800 suspected assailants were named in the Boy Scouts’ so-called ‘Perversion Files.’ “The lawyers who represent the latest men coming forward say that about 90% of the names of their alleged abusers do not appear in the files *(Time, Dockterman, 2019).”
One Boy Scout victim interviewed (Time, 2019) blames the sexual abuse he experienced for his own broken relationships. “I became obsessed with sex and its meaning in my life,” he says. Sexualizing children’s thoughts can incline them toward unhealthy ideas about sex, poison their sexual relationships, and make them prone to addictions.
Keeping shame-inducing secrets can lead to isolation, depression, addiction, and ultimately thoughts of harm or suicide.
This week, I read Luke 11:34-35. “Your eyes are the lamp for your body. When your eyes are good, you have all the light you need. But when your eyes are bad, ever, everything is dark. So be sure that your light isn’t darkness.” Powerful scriptures.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please consider these things:
- You can’t see clearly right now. There is life beyond your depression and suicidal thoughts. Borrow the eyes of someone you trust, someone who loves you and believes in you, by confiding in them.
- There is no shame in seeking help. Really. Anyone, put in the right circumstances, would have the same human response. You don’t have to be the superhuman or the ‘strong one,’ no matter what your job is. Even pastors and missionaries and counselors themselves need help sometimes. This will pass. Just stay alive long enough for it to.
- Put the ‘shoulds’ and spiritual self-judgments out of your mind for now, things people have actually said or that you imagine they would if they were to find out. Even if some Christians might judge you for not being strong enough or joyful enough or spiritual enough to pull up without help, it’s only because they haven’t experienced what you’re going through. Jesus would not and does not. There are many Christians who have been depressed and suicidal and have made it through the other side to tell about it. They will emerge as you find the courage to tell your own story. Right now, you have one job: to stay alive.
- Suicide is an end to the life God gave you and still has a plan for. I say this hesitantly because it sounds moralizing even to my ears. But that belief is the only thing that kept me hanging on to life at times. I didn’t want to arrive in Heaven ashamed that I had cut short the life God had given me. I give this to you not to judge you, but as a life preserver. God specializes in making beauty from ashes. There is a reason you are still here.
- Tell your shameful secret to even one other person who won’t judge you, who will still love you after the revelation. Telling it removes much of the power of shame in it. I recommend telling a therapist to start.
I was ashamed to even be having suicidal thoughts—what kind of World Changer is suicidal?!—so I told no one for a long time. But secrecy just gives those toxic thoughts more power.
Let some light into your mind by telling someone, first about the suicidal thoughts, then about other shameful secrets at the root of them. Knowing you are not alone can change everything.
As for me, God has lifted me out of a dark place. With the Psalmist, I can now say,
I love you, Lord God, and you make me strong. You are my mighty rock, my fortress, my protector, the rock where I am safe, my shield, my powerful weapon, and my place of shelter. I praise you, Lord! I prayed and you rescued me from my enemies. Death had wrapped its ropes around me, and I was almost swallowed by its flooding waters, Ropes of the dead had coiled around me, and death had set a trap for my path. I was in terrible trouble when I called out to you, but from your temple you heard me and answered my prayer. (Psalm 18: 1-6. CEV)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/world/europe/noa-pothoven-instagram-euthanasia.html
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