Words Do Matter

“Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how could I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering – to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice. ” - Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

A friend shared this passage with me when things were at there lowest, when I was in the psychiatric hospital. In my few days there, these were the most important, helpful words I heard. My friend helped me see  my suffering had meaning, that I needed to make it through for my son. She helped me see what I couldn’t. She gave me the perfect words. 

Giving words of comfort to a depressed/suicidal person is not an easy task. Like trying to impart wisdom to a teenager you are bound to be met with an angry “Nobody get’s me.” or a “Why can’t the people in my life talk to me like the characters on My So Called Life or Samantha’s dad in Sixteen Candles?”

So to hear the perfect words at a desperate moment, that is a gift like no other. Words aren’t everything but they are a very important thing, especially when those words give you another day.