And we’re off! I’ll be in Boston all weekend, and Monday for an extended weekend. It’ll be a nice little break from the monotony that has become everyday work life. Hopefully I can come back Tuesday and feel somewhat refreshed, and have killed the road trip crave for a little while anyway!
After spending the weekend at the in-laws for the Thanksgiving holiday, we have returned home, and as is our yearly tradition, Angela and I will make a list of the things we are thankful for. This year my list will be topped off by my health, mental and physical. It’s the top because I know…
Now I know what you’re thinking, spending nearly 11 hours driving from Des Moines to Denver is hardly what you would consider a rest day, but I never claimed to be normal. You have to understand, as much as I enjoy meeting people and chatting with people at something like Gnomedex, I’m an introvert, to…
Pin It was the stories. It was all of those people doing this in memory of someone they lost. Or, like me, in memory of the fact that we are still here instead of leaving others to tell our stories. In our day to day lives, it’s too easy to forget how many people are impacted by suicide each and every year across the country, and the world. The further in time I get away from that time in my own life, the easier it can be to put it behind me and forget about it. But, that is something I never want to do. As painful as it is, I want to remember what it was like to no longer want to be alive. When someone is in that place, I want to be able to say, “I’ve been where you are”, to recall all of the details, and be able to sit and understand. Because that is how we save people. Not by talking in hushed tones about depression, or mental illness, but by sharing the stories of people who survived and healed, and of those we’ve lost.
Let’s face it, if you spend much time considering those losses, and listening to those stories, it is impossible to walk away without realizing that we have lost a devastating number of people to this disease. Many more than some of the diseases we all gladly talk openly about every day. Yet somehow, maybe because we don’t understand it, or are afraid of it, we keep silent. After all, it might make someone uncomfortable. Even I have, at times, kept the details to myself in fear of making other people uncomfortable, or risk having them worry about me. The more I read and heard these stories though, the more I realized that I needed to share my story, if only so that anyone who reads it would know, and maybe even understand a little bit, what it’s like to be so far down into the darkness of depression, that you don’t want to live any longer. So, with that said, let me share my experience with you, now that it’s been some 25 years, and maybe now people won’t worry so much about me. (Warning, this is about to get dark, and we will talk a bit about suicide, though I will keep those exact details out)
I was reminded by seeing the throw-away remark by Robert Scoble in a long post about the need to get some excercise to help deal with stress, that I haven’t really discussed our exercise plan here lately. So, by way of an open letter to Scoble, here’s an update:
Last week was a definite reminder that plans can change. What I had thought would be a relatively quiet weekend of catching up with errands and a few tech projects, turned into a trip to Louisiana for my wife’s grandfather’s funeral. Amid all the running around and all the family time, I was reminded of…
Sorry I’ve been out of touch, life’s been a bit of a whirlwind thanks to getting sick, and then having a death in my wife’s family. Many things, let alone blogging, have had to be pushed aside due to those circumstances, but I did want to make a note. Normally this time of year I…
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