Walking Tomorrow
Tomorrow morning is the “Out of the Darkness” suicide prevention walk. I’m anticipating it with a very heavy heart. How can a mother or a friend even prevent someone they love from committing suicide.
Answer – they can’t.
Suicidal thoughts – hopelessness, despair… the feeling of being backed into a corner. One person doesn’t cause it… and one person cannot prevent it. Even as I type these words my heart aches.
As survivors we are faced with the questions – what did we do, what didn’t we do, what should we have done, what could we have done. We try to explain, understand and even justify. But always we are left in the same place. And we try to explain it to ourselves over and over again. And to feel ok, we need to constantly remind ourselves that this is so much bigger than us. We couldn’t cause it and we couldn’t stop it.
Being involved in this walk has helped me alot. I’ve had the chance to feel like something I do can make a difference, and I believe that the research that the AFSP is doing is powerful. There are some important studies being conducted. One that grabbed my interest was “how to treat the adolescent who has had an attempt ” – going forward, to ensure that they don’t repeat. Adam had a suicide attempt when he was 17. He ultimately took his life at 23. It is a critically important study.
Thank you to everyone who supported this walk. Between the walk in Siesta Key and the walk in Manchester CT – we will have raised about $5,000 to fund studies like these.
