YOU are the help!
I've been tempted all week to do this massive throw up on Facebook, but I've held back. So I'm taking my thoughts to this blog for the few who dare to read it. In the wake of the tragic loss of Robin Williams there have been many posts pleading for people in a dark place to get help, posting the suicide hotline, etc. etc. etc. Frankly I find this offensive and completely missing what we, as a community of people need to walk through dark times.
I have walked a perilously dark road, not just these months since I lost my husband, but pretty much since childhood I have wrestled with depression. I have spent more days than I care to count on the precipice of diving into the deep dark abyss. I have lived and walked a slippery slope almost my entire life. When I experimented with anti-depressants in my twenties I didn't like how they made me feel so I went to a psychiatrist to get help getting off of them. He diagnosed me as being borderline bipolar and prescribed three new drugs. I refused the diagnosis and got off all the drugs. It was a choice that my husband and I made together. He liked me better without the drugs even though it was the wildest roller coaster ever. He chose to ride the emotional roller coaster with me with all the ups and the downs. And honestly, he taught me how to live with it, even though he didn't have the same struggle. He entered into my struggle and gave me the gift of fresh perspective. It was always painfully difficult for both of us during the downs, but the struggle, the wrestling at the bottom is what made the top of the roller coaster so amazing and thrilling to behold.
So all this to say, never once, have I ever felt supported when someone has pointed me to a suicide hotline or told me to go get counseling. When someone tells me that I think they are just too wimpy to hear my pain. The problem with counseling is most people aren't able to save up for their emotional crisis for their regularly scheduled 2 o'clock appointment on Friday so what they really need is friends; people they can call in the darkest of times who will listen, listen, listen and then when the right moment arrives offer the gift of perspective. YOU are the help they need. I plead with any who will listen to enter into the lives of the people that cross your path and when they are hurting, just enter in. All you have to do is listen. I have found again and again that there is something cathartic about telling your story. Often in the process of telling it you can hear the lie, and come to an awareness of fresh perspective on your own. The times I have spent at the bottom of the deep dark abyss thinking the only option is suicide, it was always me backing myself into a corner and there was some piece of the picture I just could not see. Perspective changes everything. And there are a million ways to look at everything. When you can get a person outside of themself looking at the situation differently there's the way back. This doesn't come from counseling and drugs; it comes from real people entering into real peoples lives and loving on them. So I ask of you to be the help and stop recommending counseling, drugs and suicide hotlines. Yes there is a place for these resources, but don't forsake the amazing gift that you have as a human being to love another. What else are we here for anyway?
Please note, this post is in no way a comment on the personal life of Robin, I am not privy to his personal life or relationships. I am only commenting on the backlash of comments in the wake of his loss.
I have walked a perilously dark road, not just these months since I lost my husband, but pretty much since childhood I have wrestled with depression. I have spent more days than I care to count on the precipice of diving into the deep dark abyss. I have lived and walked a slippery slope almost my entire life. When I experimented with anti-depressants in my twenties I didn't like how they made me feel so I went to a psychiatrist to get help getting off of them. He diagnosed me as being borderline bipolar and prescribed three new drugs. I refused the diagnosis and got off all the drugs. It was a choice that my husband and I made together. He liked me better without the drugs even though it was the wildest roller coaster ever. He chose to ride the emotional roller coaster with me with all the ups and the downs. And honestly, he taught me how to live with it, even though he didn't have the same struggle. He entered into my struggle and gave me the gift of fresh perspective. It was always painfully difficult for both of us during the downs, but the struggle, the wrestling at the bottom is what made the top of the roller coaster so amazing and thrilling to behold.
So all this to say, never once, have I ever felt supported when someone has pointed me to a suicide hotline or told me to go get counseling. When someone tells me that I think they are just too wimpy to hear my pain. The problem with counseling is most people aren't able to save up for their emotional crisis for their regularly scheduled 2 o'clock appointment on Friday so what they really need is friends; people they can call in the darkest of times who will listen, listen, listen and then when the right moment arrives offer the gift of perspective. YOU are the help they need. I plead with any who will listen to enter into the lives of the people that cross your path and when they are hurting, just enter in. All you have to do is listen. I have found again and again that there is something cathartic about telling your story. Often in the process of telling it you can hear the lie, and come to an awareness of fresh perspective on your own. The times I have spent at the bottom of the deep dark abyss thinking the only option is suicide, it was always me backing myself into a corner and there was some piece of the picture I just could not see. Perspective changes everything. And there are a million ways to look at everything. When you can get a person outside of themself looking at the situation differently there's the way back. This doesn't come from counseling and drugs; it comes from real people entering into real peoples lives and loving on them. So I ask of you to be the help and stop recommending counseling, drugs and suicide hotlines. Yes there is a place for these resources, but don't forsake the amazing gift that you have as a human being to love another. What else are we here for anyway?
Please note, this post is in no way a comment on the personal life of Robin, I am not privy to his personal life or relationships. I am only commenting on the backlash of comments in the wake of his loss.
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