Warning(might be heavy for some readers)
To Write Love On Her Arms
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won’t see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she’d say if her story had an audience. She smiles. “Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars.”
I would rather write her a song, because songs don’t wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.
Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn’t slept in 36 hours and she won’t for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she’ll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn’t ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.
She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of “friends” offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write “**** up” large across her left forearm.
The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life.
I have to take a deep breath to keep myself from weeping every time I read it. TWOLHA is an organization that is dear to my heart. That short story was written by Jamie. The founder of the non profit organization called TWOLHA. They started because of Renee,but it didn’t stop with her. What an awesome impact they have made since they started.(info here)
I love statistics. Why? I have no idea. Even when I question the numbers. “where did you get those numbers”? : ) (I didn’t get these off wikipedia)
Untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers!
Princess Diana used to struggle was self mutilation-so did johnny depp,drew barrymoreand angelina jolie.
Depression does not discriminate across age, race, gender, or class.
In the US a person dies from suicide every 16 minutes. Every 17 a loved one is left to make sense of it.
Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants.(I read that today, I didn’t even know Dr’s could put toddlers on antidepressants)
54% of people believe depression is a personal weakness.(that number seems high,but If never taken a poll)
Today is Write Love On Her Arms Day! So how can you raise awareness? Check out their facebook page here. Take a big fat sharpie and write the word love on your arm. It doesn’t matter if your 15 or 50. I would love to see more people in their 50′s participating. Maybe someone will ask you why you have love written on your arm and you can start a conversation. You never know who you could be helping.
Since we are on the topic…
November 1stmy husband and I walked the 3.8 mile Out of the Darkness Walk. A walk benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I walked with Mothers,Fathers,Brothers,Sisters…all of them strangers to me.I didn’t know any of them personally. They all lost a loved one to suicide. I wanted to be there to show support. My husband and I walked the long row of memorial posters. Their loved ones surrounded the photos in half circles. Many carried signs.”we miss you” “In memory of” Hundreds of people carried balloons. They wrote messages on the balloons and released them as they crossed the finish line. I chose not to take my camera, but I did take one with my phone.I’m glad that I was able to be a part of it. If you would like more information-click here.
I remember the 1st time I ever heard of someone taking their own life. I was a freshman in highschool. Lets call him jay. He was 2 years older than I. I didn’t know jay, but I remember someone coming in to talk to us. “If you need someone to talk to” is the only thing I recall her saying. Like I said I didn’t know jay. I had no idea what color his eyes were,if he played sports,how tall he was… I do remember teachers whispering in the hallways and one girl crying outside of her locker. They said that he parked his car inside of his parents garage. That he shut the garage door and left his car on with the windows down. I don’t know if that’s what really happened. I knew of kids that took the free school day off for his funeral. They didn’t go and just took the day off. I remember thinking that was so disrespectful. When the obituaries came that week I went through the paper to find jay. He and I had the same birthday. I cut it out and put it on my bulletin board. His photo hung in my room for years. I still have it to this day. I never met Jay, but I’ll never forget him.
