To Write Love on Her Arms

Today I went to an event for suicide prevention. I didn't know that topic was going to be involved at all, I thought it was just a free concert. However, nothing adds more fun to a night than an open conversation about depression and suicide.

The whole thing was sponsored by The Buried Life, a MTV show that travels around helping people with various things they want to do. In this case, the woman who they were helping was a cutter, a person who relieves their stress and anxiety by using various implements to cut their skin open. What she wanted was to help support To Write Love on Her Arms, a non-profit that provides assistance to people struggling with depression and other issues.

A large part of why people with depression struggle so much is that it isn't acceptable to talk about. People will go on for hours talking about their surgeries, heart problems, diabetes, and other physical problems, but when mental health issues come on to the stage everyone becomes uncomfortable and quiet. I'm not sure what the best way is to deal with this. Everyone has their own struggles and hurdles to get through, but it's extremely hard to get people to ask for help. Maybe if it was more acceptable to talk about depression there wouldn't be such a huge market for antidepressants-if people got help and talked through their problems earlier then maybe full major depressive disorders would be less likely to occur.

However, this is much easier said than done. It just seems like there is still a huge stigma against admitting you have any sort of mental health problem. At the hospital you get referred to as a psych patient and most of the nursing staff would prefer not to deal with you. I'm sure it closes a lot of doors for employment purposes too, no one wants to hire someone with an extensive psychiatric history. That would need to change as well for people to feel comfortable with admitting they need help.

Anis Mojgani, a national poetry champion came and and gave two inspiring poems. They were the sort of thing I usually snort at, that everyone faces their own challenges and yet all have something unique to offer to the world. Somehow, I didn't end up feeling that way today. I thought about it and he has a point. I'm a fairly boring person in most respects, yet I have worked for Gamereplays.org as a discussion moderator, senior discussion moderator, moderation administrator, and editor. During that time I had several articles published on the site. When I was in high school I got another article published on a now defunct website about how to win FFA games in Warcraft 3. I did a lot of things for the first time this summer in Rochester. I went tubing down a river and I can't even swim. I did chest tube and PICC line site care. A patient said that I looked like I enjoyed my job. I actually believed Anis a bit when he said that his poems came from the people he meets, not from himself.