Tuesday, November 28, 2017

This Is Why I Write




Talk about your experiences with suicide. 
Talk about your experiences with mental illness. 
Talk about being a survivor. 

For those who have won the battle with addiction, being sober gets counted in days and years and being sober gets 'awarded' with kudos and supported for doing the work necessary to stay drug or alcohol free.
For those of us with mental illness, we have not yet been given permission to own our survival or to claim our days, weeks or years that we have been symptom-free because we too are working our recovery.
Simply put:
Silence contributes to stigma. 
Stigma contributes to a lack of understanding. 
A lack of understanding contributes to a lack of funding, 
A lack of funding contributes to a lack of resources, a lack of treatment, and a lack of research prioritization. 
And research has the potential to improve all of the above.
There should be no shame in dealing with mental illness. There should be no shame in being the survivor of a suicide attempt. There should be no shame in being the survivor of a suicide loss.
Shame and stigma stop the people who need help from reaching out.
Combating stigma saves lives.
This is why I write.