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

Masks......

When we were kids, we couldn’t wait to see the stores line their shelves with boxes filled with Halloween costumes.  It was the 70’s, and they were nasty plastic/fabric wonders – think “hospital gown with two ties in the back to hold it all together.  Yeah, those…..  But the best part of it was the mask.  You weren’t that character until you put on the mask.  You couldn’t see, and the elastic band was totally too tight, but you could be anyone you wanted.  Whether it be Superman, Wonder Woman, The Lone Ranger or Princess Leia……. It was so exciting.  Do you remember that feeling?  You could BE an entirely different person.  The power, joy, FREEDOM coursing through your veins…….

It’s all still there as an adult…. But we probably don’t enjoy putting on those masks anymore.  We do it because we “have to” or we need to be someone that we are not.  We might have to use them to empower ourselves, because we really don’t have it inside of ourselves to do what needs to be done.  Or maybe we are hiding something about us that we don’t want people to see.  Possibly we are putting on that brave face that everyone has come to expect from us.  There are so many reasons.  But I have found that as adults, we simply can’t remove the mask.  We tend to just put another one on top of it to hide the first one.  Over and over this happens.  We could barely see through the first one, but the layers are making our sight of those around us and ourselves more obscure.  We come to a point where we finally forget who we are deep down inside, before we started wearing the masks.  I,  for one, would love if we all just dropped them to the ground, but know that is easier said than done.  I’ve created that façade that is hard to break and the emotional insecurities are just too much to handle. 

Wouldn’t it be nice and refreshing though if we all COULD do that? 

I'm hiding now

How come we as women can remember……….and then dwell on every single stupid, maybe douche-baggy stuff that was done to us – or maybe a word that we said wrong to someone and then felt bad, then that person didn’t talk to us – either intentionally or for other reasons (heck, they might have not even been bothered), but we keep it all in – boiling and festering until we just blow up.  It rots us to the core, we think about it non-stop – wishing we had done things differently, said something better, not said something at all!

But you do worry – what if you hurt their feelings, what if they think you are just stupid and not worth their time, what if…………

And then, maybe you tried to apologize and got tongue tied, or it came out wrong…..or you’re just awkward……… and now it’s even worse!

That’s when I just want to push my head in the sand and never come up………..

Friendship....I just don't fit in....

I have a problem that has to do with myself & LM in the future. I am actually fearful to ask this, but can’t get it out of my head. I have come to the realization that I don’t fit in anywhere. I never have – not in school, not in church, not in the workplace. No group really wanted me or included me. From time to time in my life I had some fringe invitations or relationships, but was never fully embraced.

My very few friends have other best friends, leaving me without one of my own. (I’m truly happy for them, don’t get me wrong, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t envious.) I am almost 39 years old, and have yet to have a relationship where I wasn’t the “odd man out”. I’m “friends” with a few people, but all in all, they are “friends” of other “friends”. Not that I don’t cherish them (which I do and am grateful for them) or that type of relationship, but it’s just not the same.
I don’t know what I do / have done that has left me this way. I’m not sure how to change things for the future. I have been told to not let it bother me, but I crave friendship. I’ve been hurt so many times in the past, that I am a little gun shy, but I still want a friend(s). I need a friend(s) to do things with, talk to, go out and have fun with. I just don’t know how to get that.

Most importantly, if I can’t figure this out, how am I supposed to teach my son - who has high-functioning autism - that already struggles with social issues - how to make friends??? How am I supposed to help him navigate waters that I can’t figure out myself? How do I show him the cues from others to form true friendships when apparently I can’t see them myself? I am at a total loss.