Break the Silence ... Throw the Lifeline

There are a few new mental health initiatives going around right now – 

The Semi Colon Project,  Always Keep Fighting,  Medicated and Mighty, and a whole slew of others.  I think that’s great – fantastic in fact.  I support every chance in getting the word out there in spreading awareness in understanding mental health and getting help for yourself.

I applaud every opportunity to make sure we are supporting each other.

But as a community, are we doing enough?  I don’t think we are.  I think we have more to do on a one-to-one basis. When we say “hugs, I’m there for you…” are we really?

Case in point… There was one of our own on Facebook who had come to the end of her rope.  She reached out and said that she was done.  She was drowning in all that was going on.  She was emotionally, physically, mentally exhausted. That she wanted to give up, but she knew that she didn’t have any options.  It was hard for her to ask for help, but that she desperately needed help.

After the end of the many comments of “hugs”, “you are not alone”, and “we love you’s”

The silence was deafening.

A week has gone by…..   not one single person has checked up on her.

No emails.  No messages to see if she is doing ok.  No silly memes sent to make her laugh. No texts to see if she needs help.  No phone calls to make sure she’s gotten out of bed. No family, no friends.

Is this how we have personally helped someone in our tight little community?

I know she understands that people have lives and things going on. I know that she gets that others struggle just as much as she does, and that she cares.  I know that she has loved on people during the time she was hurting, because they were hurting too.  I know she realizes that not everyone fully gets that she was at her rock bottom and that if suicide wasn’t against everything she believed in that it might have been an option. I know she is hurt that friends didn’t make the time or effort….. but be damned, if it were them, she would do it for them in a heartbeat – even now, because she loves them. 

 

But, I also know, that she will probably never lay herself out bare again, exposed for the world to see, because asking for help is so hard……… so fucking hard.

And if we can’t ask for help we might truly be lost

If we know better - we can do better.

So, let’s do better.   It just takes a second to send a quick message to say:

 “I’m thinking of you”

“How are you doing”

“ Here’s a funny joke”

Or send a cat picture, the funny photo you got off the internet…. Pretty much anything!

It’s not hard, it doesn’t even have to be “right”, if it breaks the silence – it is a lifeline to the person that is drowning!

We need that life preserver thrown to us.

Because our lives depend on it

Because my life depends on it

Because that person was me