bumping up....

I am bumping this again because Addy wondered about the support group.

In preparation for our 1st meeting last month we tried our best to get businessess to put up a notice about our new support group. I wrote a piece in our local paper about the importance of TALKING about suicide...we made calls to suvivors who responded positively to the survey about wanting a new support group.

Everyone who responded to our calls, article, and posted notices was interested and glad that we were starting one. And not one of them came. There were only 3 of us at the first meeting...our Moderator, who is not a survivor but is a professional counselor, another survivor and myself.

Several survivors that I've tried to help called and said they would be there in spirit but they just couldn't talk about it (yet).

Some things just never change...I couldn't/wouldn't talk about Michael for 8 years. We continue to hope...it's early yet and other contacts tell me that it's slow when starting a new group.

Thanks for asking Addy.

I'm sure you were disappointed with the turnout but not surprised.

The good thing of all of this is that you heightened the awareness and even though people didn't show up... you helped them with your words.

Keep talking it up, as I know you will...

and take care of you!

Everyone who responded to our calls, article, and posted notices was interested and glad that we were starting one. And not one of them came. There were only 3 of us at the first meeting...our Moderator, who is not a survivor but is a professional counselor, another survivor and myself.

Alffe, I wonder how many times that you have helped me, and I have not told you so. Some people just cannot seek help by attending a "help group." This may be due to the inability to face their own reality, their need to keep all of it "private," the difficulty working through the stages of grief, their sense that their loss is somehow "tainted" because the loved-one died by suicide. I don't know. What I do know is that I have been able to survive by being a member of an online support group.

You help me in ways that I could never explain, but you have a very special way about yourself. Please, please just stay with us here because you give us strength, courage, and the love to keep on surviving.

Alffe, I love you,
from my *heart,
reyn

Well I'm going to bed with a smile on my face...thank you for the encouraging words. After being a part of this and the other online support forum for over 10 years, there is no way I could ever leave you. We all have a job to do and reyn and I both are living examples of how well support works...be it on line or in the flesh.

Hugs for the room/broom. I miss moi too. ~sigh

((Reyn)) I love it when you post, you are such a loving soul Thanks for hitting the send button

((Alffe)) I am glad you are not giving up. As you yourself know, it is hard to share such a devastating loss. I can talk here, where you can't see my body wracked in sobs, the tears streaming down my face..... I can take my time, write when I can, and only when I am strong enough.

I can't count the number of times I have driven to the SOS support group. I always intend to go in... yet I have never even made it to the door. If I do make it to the destination without turning around half way there, I sit in the parking lot unable to even open the door. I feel almost paralyzed by the thought of really sharing my grief face to face.... I can't explain it... it just is!

I think about all you have shown me and taught me. And I know without a doubt the hope you have given me! "Your still standing" ... you have shown me that I CAN survive.... and I can't thank you enough for being here When I first came here I didn't think I could make it, and in truth I didn't even want to. I shutter to think where I would be if I hadn't found all of you

Try not to get too discouraged. The NEED is great! I know I need to go, I just can't yet. But I and others are so grateful that when we are ready, we have people like you who are offering us a safe place to land.
Much loveNikki

Ask someone to go with you. I have taken complete strangers and sat with them thru the first couple of meetings until they were comfortable going alone. Could your step mother do this...or maybe your sister...or ask that wonderful dr. of yours who could go with you...or your pastor.

I wouldn't expect that you could do this by yourself the first time.

My former neighbor emailed me that she had been unable to attend the grief support group because she's had so much company this summer...said she finally went, and while it was nice to see all the widows and widowers again...she got "nothing" out of it...no one talks about suicide and she still cannot. ~sigh

I am sending you the BEST little brochure on suicide that I have every read...you can carry it in your purse until you carry it in your heart.
Todays mail has already gone out but it will be in Mondays mail.