If you’re in the US, and planning on eating out tomorrow, how about eating at Chilis? They are donating 100% of their profits on Sept. 25th to Saint Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, one of the leading childhood cancer centers in the world.
Thanks to Kevin for the pointer.
Pin So, what do we do? We can definitely take advantage of the suggestions made by Lindsey Holmes in that HuffPost link above. We can also acknowledge that without available therapists, many of us are going to have to do the best we can for ourselves and each other. We are going to have to muddle through this, and the only way to muddle through is by supporting each other. No, we are not therapists and we shouldn’t really try to be. But, we can be human beings who care enough about other humans to offer support. Whether that be in person, through text or calls, on social media, etc. we can all offer something to each other. We can all share our stories and our struggles because right now there’s simply no excuse for anyone to feel like they are struggling alone.
Pin Once again, we have a week dedicated to not just raising awareness of suicide as the epidemic that it has become, but thanks to resources like the ones provided by AFSP, there are things we can do to prevent the death by suicide of someone we know and love. Please, take a moment to become…
Pin It’s enough to make you just give it all up and walk away.
That, to me, is cancel culture. I know there’s a lot of talk about cancel culture and whether it even exists or not, but frankly, to me, the real canceling that goes on online is when the good, thoughtful and caring, people just walk away instead of being here and having their voices matter. Because they’re tired. They’re tired of the constant outrage, the constant anger directed at them for not doing, and believing, everything random people expect them to. The vitriol directed at them in direct messages, comments, and tweets for simply trying to have a conversation, from all sides. For not supporting conspiracy groups, for not using the correct words, for not advocating for exactly the same things, in exactly then same way. Because if you don’t “agree” with them and show your support, in clear, and often financial, ways, you are the enemy.
Seriously, it gets old. It’s toxic. It’s exhausting. It makes you question why you even bother with this at all. I, for one, don’t need this in my life on a regular basis. No one does. So, instead of having real conversations about real issues, and doing real education, we’re walking away and letting the worst kinds of people win the internet.
I’m tired, but I’m not ready to do that. If 19 years of working to educate people, and let anyone know that they are not alone as a survivor, or as a person dealing with mental health issues, isn’t enough for you, and you can’t understand that all of the things I do online to make this happen I do in my spare time, for free, then you can go somewhere else.
Take all of your fake outrage and fake “facts” with you too.
Pin Three years ago, I wrote about how much I appreciated being able to use Facebook to communicate with my far-flung cousins and other family members on the day that my grandmother passed away. How strange it was then to see the last few days play out among my friends and family on that same network…
Pin You could argue that the outcome will be a large number of people with mental health issues crammed into a massively overburdened prison system with almost no hope of ever getting out. (Where would they go? Back to being homeless and thus getting arrested again.)Â
We’ve tried that with serious mental illness, and it doesn’t work. It fixes nothing unless you think lots of people with mental health issues dying in prison is the answer. I prefer that most of us are not that callous and uncaring. But most of us aren’t writing these laws and upholding them. That’s for the elite few with power, and I’m not as convinced they would care about anyone with a mental health struggle because they surely don’t do much to provide resources and assistance to struggling people.Â
Just a response to Brian Kane’s post: I don’t know that I can add anything more to the din, or that I want to. Still, it’s not right to ignore it and go along blithely as though Wednesday were an ordinary day. I also think it’s a little bit disingenuous and quite a bit overdramatic…
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Hey there,
Couldn’t find the contact-me portion of this site, so I thought I’d just write this in as a comment.
In a nutshell — great site! I’m a survivor too, and things have been looking up steadily for the last several years. Like an upward graph, just better and better, with setbacks here and there.
Question for you: in order to sort of immunize myself from being an abusive person (you know that victims often become victimizers — scary but common statistic) what are the best steps?
I had been verbally abusive and nearly physically abusive to my ex-spouse and baby daughter, and even though everything is literally amazing right now with the two of them, I just want to keep taking steps to make sure I’m okay and they’re okay.
I don’t want to “fall asleep on the job” just to have the wrong set of circumstances set me off. What are some links to some preventative medicine against becoming an abuser.
I suppose just being part of a community of people who understand helps. People to talk with who will understand and stand by you. Know of anything like that?
Sorry this was so long. I applaud your site!!
Best,
Michael