Since much of my vacation time was spent traveling to Ireland and Scotland this year, I think you’ll see those photos dominating my favorite shots from this year.
As we approach the end of another year, rather than making resolutions, I am much more prone to looking back and the last year, and measuring the success by comparing where I am in live to this time last year. Wow, the end of 2011 looks very different than then end of 2010 did! First…
You may have noticed things have been a little quiet around here. I’ve been pretty busy with work, which is taking me away from my normal blogging patterns. Given how much travel I’m going to be doing as part of my job, it’s becoming more and more obvious that I’ll need to find some way…
I was reminded of this last week, and this month’s Carnival Against Child Abuse focus on relationships had me thinking even more about it. I think, as survivors, we have a tendency to want to hold on to the people we consider friends, for fear that we’ll be abandoned yet again, or be alone, etc….
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)
Yes it was a lovely, and exhausting, weekend! 🙂 First off was my appointment with my massage therapist Friday evening. Now, since I work with computers, and spend a lot of my free time working with computers, I have certain issues with my neck and shoulders that have, on occasion, led to problems with migraines….
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Thanks for sharing your favorite pictures of 2010. What a great way to end the year. Sending blessings and hugs for a glorious 2011.
Thanks Patricia, I hope you have a great new year!
It’s a tradition so good the Guardian Newspaper copies it in their year-end magazine, though of course those are the news-driven pictures, rather than the more personal selection here. I can see myself looking to the Flickr for a bigger version of the sunset pic!