"I would hate to have to take the loss beads."

Yesterday my girls and I volunteered at the Out of the Darkness walk in Leesburg, VA. It was cold and windy and overcast and blah out, but wouldn't have stayed home even if it had been pouring. The reason we were there was too important. It is too important. It is the reason we are going to another walk next weekend. We must do everything we can to try to help the fight against suicide.

Being a part of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is a huge mix of emotions for me. On the one hand, it makes me feel powerful. I am actually doing something about a problem instead of just sitting on my couch feeling bad about it. On the other, it drags up a lot of emotions, especially when I listen to the stories of people who have lost someone to suicide.

When I was a little girl, I battled depression. Bad depression. I was suicidal by the time I was in fourth grade (nine years old). I was hospitalized because of my suicidal ideations in fifth grade and again my sophomore year of high school. It was a very long, very hard battle to come out of that darkness and become the person I am today. There were times I took one step forward, two steps back, but there were also times I took two steps forward and only one step back. Eventually, with a lot of help and support, I learned life skills to keep my head above water. I learned how to recognize when I was slipping back into depression and what I could do to stop that slide. I eventually was able to manage my life without the assistance of antidepressants (one common concern I hear is that people think they have to take them for life, but that isn't always the case). The girl I was, the one who didn't plan on living past high school, grew up to be a wife and mother.

Yesterday, one of the people being remembered was a teenage girl named Emma. As her family got up and spoke about her, and then as a long line of her family and friends filed off for their walk each saying her name into the microphone, my stomach twisted up in knots and I fought back tears. That really could have been me. That really could have been my family and friends saying Emma into the microphone to remember me. It really was that close. I had to shake off the What-Ifs and turn my attention to my daughters, though. I did survive and have them now. Instead of a memory, I am a mom. And I am so grateful.

That gratitude and my understanding of just how hard the fight is - not only to survive being suicidal but also to survive the stigma of mental illnesss - is what drives me now to support AFSP. At their walks, I am not the only person who nearly lost her life to suicide. I am not the only person who went to funerals for people who died by suicide. I am not the only person who wants more "struggled but lived" beads handed out instead of "loss of loved one" beads. Together we are stronger and we can change the discussion. We can support better research to identify what is causing suicide and how to help people before they die. We can get the word out about that research and break down the stigma. Nothing damages stigma like the truth. We can say SUICIDE over and over until others are willing to talk about it, too, without lowering their voices. We can support each other as we struggle.

My daughters are involved because they owe their lives to suicide prevention. They are involved because I want them to grow up knowing that mental illness is just like physical illness and should be addressed not hidden. They are involved, too, because on their own they care about people. Just as Yasya didn't want families broken by childhood cancer, the girls don't want families broken by suicide loss.

Next week they are walking in the DC walk and are fundraising to help support the life saving work AFSP does. If you would like to support them and help them be Super Heroes, please click their links.

Donate HERE

Donate HERE

“Are you having fun, Mom? Are the people being nice?”

I love when the tables turn and my girls pat my hand and ask me how my day was. They are so fascinated that I have a life sometimes. Since we moved states, that table turning has been spinning so much we have equalized a bit which is nice. It gives me some credibility when I tell them to get out there and make friends if they see that I have to do the same. For them, getting out there means school and sports. For me, it means chatting with the other parents at their schools and sports. And volunteering.

I was raised to see volunteering as something we just do. Like eating or sleeping or brushing our teeth. If I can help, I should simply because that is the decent human thing to do. All of the grown-ups I knew, whether they were working full-time jobs or not, whether they got recognition for their service or not, simply volunteered when they could. It was never a big deal, never about pressure or for show. As a mom, though, I see that not everyone else views it that way. And it is a bit of a crazy world.

When I was a working mom, I felt a TON of pressure to volunteer more. I felt I had to prove I was still an involved parent. Who I thought I had to prove this to, I’m not sure. Maybe the random haters who would talk loudly at the other tables in the lunch room about “the trouble with parents these days is that they work too much and leave their kids to be raised by strangers” (even though it was my father who was doing the bulk of the daycare, so I really should have shrugged that off)? Maybe it was the other parents at the preschool who would brag about knowing all the teachers on a first name basis (even though my mom was a teacher there so technically I knew them all, too, and should have shrugged that one off as well)? Who knows. But I felt like I had to be doing more. Which was dumb. All I had to be doing was loving my kids and taking care of them. Screw what the other parents thought about me.

As a SAHM, I know I could feel pressure to out perform the other SAHMs, but I’m not going to. I’ve grown-up a bit. Sure, I still care what people think of me. I just don’t let it totally rule me (and never totally did . . . I did say no to a lot of volunteering even as a working mom – I just felt bad about it then and don’t feel bad about it now). I am meeting new groups of moms these days and keep getting the same advice: don’t over-volunteer. Great advice. But my mom already gave me that advice many years ago which is why even when I did feel pressured to do so, I didn’t give in. My mom said pick one or two areas to volunteer in and stick to those. Being helpful means not being exhausted or resentful. It means not burning the candle at both ends. 

my mom's advice, but in Ron Swanson's words (from here)

And when I feel I have too much on my plate or my health is bad or my back hurts too much, IT IS OK TO SAY NO. Taking care of my health and my family comes first. If I don’t do that, then someone else would have to. I smile at the moms who tell me not to over-volunteer, then listen to them tell me how over-involved they are. I know they are talking more to themselves than to me. They don’t know me, so they don’t know that I will certainly NOT be leading a garden club ever nor will I ever take over as treasurer of anything simply because I feel like I ought to. I don’t think I owe it to the working mothers to “pick up their slack” by volunteering twice as much (that just insults working mothers who I really don’t think need extra insults). I don’t think I need to have something scheduled for every day. I don’t think it is my duty to put in community service hours because I am not bringing in a paycheck. Nope.

my NO face....it gets used plenty

I volunteer when an opportunity comes up that I think fits me. Something I think I can do well. Like teaching catechism classes. Or working at the book fair. Or being a hall monitor. And recently I have been volunteering to meet new people and make new friends here in our new state.  If they are going to use my volunteerism as a yardstick, however, for my goodness as a mom, I’ll pass. I think we should all be old enough now to stop judging each other like that and just be moms together, regardless of how many volunteer hours we’re logging. Can’t we just focus on what really matters? Who’s bringing the coffee to the next meeting?!?!?!