GothiqueFae’s Weblog

I promised myself that I would write a post about this disease considering it is something I feel strongly about.  My grandmother had Alzheimer’s and it was, in a word, horrible.  To have to watch her go through such a debilitating disease is something I will, however unfortunately, never forget.  I don’t usually take the space to ‘preach’ to people about the causes I think they should support, I have never felt entirely comfortable doing that.  But I am today.  Alzheimer’s and the entailing research does not seem to get as much attention as it should.  I don’t speak from experience here, but I believe that it is as damaging to families as any other disease and should get equal attention and money for research.

If you look on my newly created Causes page you will find a link to the Alzheimer’s Association, it doesn’t take much time and won’t cost you anything to become a champion, if you don’t want to that’s fine, I’m not saying you should.  But while you are there look at some of the stories and if you can find it there is a very powerful (short) video about a little girl caring for her mother who was stricken with Alzheimer’s (it won some sort of award and is on youtube, I believe).

Anyway thank you for taking the time to read my opinion(s).  Have a wonderful day.

So last week during class I overheard a conversation about suicide, I don’t remember it exactly but the gist of it was that these girls looked down on people who had attempted suicide.  They were like laughing about it saying stuff like, “How much of a loser are you if you can’t even kill yourself successfully.”  And “People say that attempted suicide is a cry for help, well why don’t they just ask for help.”  And how someone could make that choice.  And they were laughing the entire time.

And all I wanted to do was walk over and punch these girls.  How dare they?

I mean no wonder people are afraid to come forward about their struggles with suicide with this kind of attitude being flaunted.  I know that if I were friends with one of these girls or if I were their kid and I had overheard this conversation I would sure as hell never go to her if I were struggling with these sorts of thoughts.  And they were laughing about it!  Like yeah suicide is hilarious, I mean I don’t know about you but I just crack up when I hear about someone attempting or succeeding at suicide.  It’s a freaking dance party.  Jerks.  Possibly worse than jerks.

I honestly sat there listening to this not believing my ears.  It’s callousness and total disregard for human life.  And it’s probably coming from a complete misunderstanding of depression and suicidal thoughts - in fact I’d bet cash monies that none of those girls have ever gone through that kind of hell.

And maybe that’s the real problem - they’ve never gone through, they’ve never had someone close to them go through it, so they can’t possibly understand it.

It’s wrong.  There needs to be a greater awareness and comprehension and compassionate handling of depression and suicide.

If anyone wants to check out some great websites for awareness and support for suicide prevention check out these:

http://www.alivecampaign.org/

http://www.twloha.com/index.php