So here it is.....I'm not walking the Overnight this year. I have plantar fasciitis in both me feets. so I brought No Stigma back to life as a hybrid team. Lizzi and I will be captains of a crew that is both walkers and a pit stop crew w/medical crew too. So if you can, please make a donation to my fund at: My Overnight page But if you want to be more involved, you can join us as a walker, a crew mate or a med crew if you sign up quickly. Walkers can sign up til almost the end, but crew and med crew fills up quickly. There are all KINDS of crew people needed besides our pit stop. Strong able bodied peeps to move stuff, people to bike up and down the paths checking on walkers thru the night, sweep teams driving vans to pick up the weary and the injured walkers. Come join us.There is nothing better than spending the night w/friends, helping those w/the sore feet, cheering them up and on toward the dawn. I know this cause I walked in two Overnights, and the support crew is what made me keep walking, that and my team-mates & friends. And the really cute guy from the staff w/the candy at about 2:00 am calling out to us on the path...I have Chocolate...chocolate, I have chocolate!! Wow that was great!
Something I read in a book over the weekend brought it all home. I quote the author, Lisa Gabrielle, from the book The Almost Archer Sisters page 120:
In talking about her kids Peachy says:
I regretted we ever told him how my mother had died. But Lou insisted we never lie after the legal and emotional debacles that sprung from her suicide. I wanted to tell Sam I would never abandon them like that, because the consequences of a mother killing herself is that she also kills her children's night- and daydreams, their imaginary friends, their favorite foods. She kills their private and public trusts. She takes with her their giggles and dimples and boo-boos. She breaks their hearts in half so that they grow up to become doubly steeled to disaster. And they're meaner than they were ever meant to be. And they can't shake it off. It's a permanent slip of toilet paper stuck to the bottoms of their souls forever. So if not abandoning my sons meant they wouldn't grow up to be assholes like Auntie Beth, and, frankly, me, then I could live with the residual damage my hypervigilance might cause
This really hit home w/me - the toilet paper analogy. Not only did I miss out on an adult relationship with my closest in age full sibling, I have this toilet paper stuck to my soul.
I can't peel it off. and that sucks. You find ways to make a new normal to your life, but it's always there simmering in back. I'm a Suicide Survivor. A Club I didn't want to join, but had to pay dues anyhow. A big club. Every 16 mins someone is lost to suicide in the U.S. and with his leaving us, he took a big chunk of my memories, and back then, there was not as much support as we have now, so I dealt with it in a destructive way. My act is much cleaner nowadays and I hope that my story helps someone out there to feel not so all alone. Suicide is a permanent solution to a most likely temporary problem. there are better ways.
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