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To Write Love on Her Arms

I have been blessed in my life with an amazing family and amazing friends and those two things combined have helped me through many dark times, but not everyone has such a solid network to lean upon and when they look for that support only to find empty stares and muted voices, they sometimes turn towards desperate ends. I’ve met and been introduced to a growing number of people who have attempted suicide, many in completely different manners, but the one thing which connects them all is they are still here to talk about it and for that I am extremely grateful.

Too many people in this world look down on people with suicidal tendencies as weak and think they need to buck up and learn to deal like the rest of us, but what those people never choose to learn is what would drive someone to make such a terrible and final decision. The sceptics might be surprised how strong these so-called ‘weak people’ are for just enduring what they have up to that point and many times there are factors which were never in their control, like chemical imbalances and hereditary conditions.

So, for those people in need, the ones I have met and the ones I hope to meet someday in their hopefully happy futures, I am thrilled there are groups out there like this one. To Write Love on Her Arms is a suicide prevention group which states their mission as:

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.  TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

Even if you have never known anyone who has attempted or succeeded at suicide, trust that there are many out there and they could all use a helping hand, or sometimes just a working ear and an open heart. Please click through, find out more about them and support them if you can.

p.s. Also, it doesn’t hurt that their online store has some really cool shirts. I rock mine whenever it’s clean.

One Day for Another: It’s Never to Late

I don’t know the words to express how I feel right now, but as a writer words are all I have, so I’m going to  do my best to find some of the right ones. A dear, close friend of mine was already going through a tough time in her life when things drastically went from bad to worse to unimaginable. The horrors she was put through are nothing short of inhuman and the pressure of dealing with them felt insurmountable. There is no way for me to look through her eyes in this situation, no way for me to even begin to empathize, no way to know how hard it was to reach out and ask for help.

There are things in this life that no one is meant to deal with. Pressures and emotions heightened to such extents leaving normal human capabilities far behind. So what are people supposed to do then? Do they have to become superhuman? Do they have to make themselves more than everyone else just to stay afloat in a life proving once and again to be unfair towards them? I wish I could say no, I wish I could say that people could just take a deep breath and things will suddenly be alright, but ignoring that type of pain is comparable to standing on train tracks and ignoring the rumbling getting louder beneath your feet. We all need to step up in those moments and do anything we can to help deal with this unequal reality, not just the victims, but those people close to them as well. The hands of the victim need to unwrap from around themselves, where they desperately try to hold themselves together, and reach out for the arms, hands, shoulders and chests all ready and willing to share in whatever small piece of the burden available to them. I’ve spent my share of time locked up in my room, hiding from the light, hiding from the outside world, only in the hopes that someone would come looking for me, but the responsibility is on both sides. We need to learn to reach out so we can in turn teach others how to reach back.

I realize that this might seem a tad vague, which is intentional because those details are her story to tell or not tell, not mine. What I hope for, what I wrote this entry for is to remind everyone out there to take a moment today, tomorrow, every day to think about those close to you. Think about someone you haven’t spoken to in a while and drop them a line, just remind them you’re out there and that you care. Just that small offering of an ear to listen or a shoulder to lean on can mean the difference between seeing the light and walking towards it. And for those people who might be reading this and are on the other side of the equation, don’t wait one more second to reach out and ask for help. There are people who care about you, people who know and love you, even people who have never met you, they are all ready and willing to drop it all to be there for you when you need it. If you find your circle of friends and family not as strong or responsive as you hoped, don’t despair, there are so many others on call at that very moment. Please follow this link to the Find Help section of To Write Love on Her Arms. This list is only the tip of the iceberg of support services and hotlines. These people are here for you. You are never alone and it is never, ever too late.