How do you start your day? Coffee? Shower? Excercise? Excited to get your day started?Hitting snooze 15 times? Dreading what is ahead? To be perfectly honest (and this makes me cringe to say this) each morning starts with dread; the moment I open my eyes. At least, it has been that way. I would wake up and feel this terrible feeling come over me; a heaviness that I couldn’t explain if I tried. I would drag myself out of bed, only because I had to because of the kids, and that feeling stayed with me; all day. I felt sad and anxious, overwhelmed and tired; SO TIRED. I was walking through my day in an absolute fog. It has been like that longer than I would like to admit.
So, if you can at all relate to what I described, you can understand what it’s like to struggle with grief and/or depression and anxiety. If you can’t relate, I am telling you, you have something to be extremely grateful for! I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Whether what you are feeling is passed down from family, is seasonal, is situational, is complicated grief, PTSD, and so on… It’s a struggle and it is a very real thing that sometimes has a negative sort of stigma attached to it; which is beyond unfortunate.
Thinking on this subject, especially that part about the negative stigma, I started doing research for statistics out of curiosity. I first started looking at numbers surrounding people affected by mental health and they are staggering! I dug a little deeper until I was stopped at the part that just broke my heart. Suicide. This is the reason that the stigma needs to be changed! Mental health is a very important thing and if not taken care of, those with poor mental health could end up in a situation where there is no turning back. Some of the statistics I read about were relating to those with mental health issues that are left untreated. Those numbers were just plain scary to me! Why??? I can only guess that it’s mostly a result of unnecessary embarrassment or shame. And guess what? I realized that I get it!!!
It took me a long time to realize that I needed help for my anxiety and depression. Once I knew I needed help, I still didn’t pursue i. I can’t answer why for everyone else but I can open up and be honest about myself; that will be in my next post.
Some statistics about suicide:
- Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in America
- 44, 965 (Americans) commit suicide each year
- For every one completed suicide, there are 25 attempts
- On average there are 123 suicides each day
- It is expected that the 2017 statistics will show a significant increase
- Children committing suicide is becoming more prevalent
This cannot be okay, it just can’t! This is what I call a crisis. My heart is burdened to get involved somehow but I’m not sure what that will look like. For now, I can openly and without shame, talk about it. We have to talk about this and bring light to those dark places so that more people will feel like they can get the help they need!
All the Things Joni 
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