Out of the Darkness

BowlingWidow and I enjoy participating in events that combine exercise and a good cause. That’s why we immediately said “yes” to an opportunity that was presented to us a few months ago by one of her co-workers at Sno-Isle Libraries. The event, which took place a few days ago, was one of many that happen at various times and locations around the country and are known as the Out of the Darkness Community Walk.

The walk and resulting donations are a benefit for the non-profit American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. A few of the many purposes of the AFSP include the support of scientific studies to improve the understanding of suicides and their prevention, educating the public, and providing programs and resources for survivors of suicide loss and people at risk.

Here’s a statistic I just read the other day: in 2010, there were more American soldiers (468, including enlisted soldiers and veterans) that took their own lives than those killed in combat (462). The same with 2009 according to Congressional Quarterly.

The co-worker I referenced above lost her son to suicide while he was serving in Iraq in 2007. I’ll likely never understand how she feels, what her and her family have been through, and what they continue to go through. I can only imagine that there is nothing worse. As parents, our kids are supposed to outlive us by a generation, not the other way around.

Some of Team CRANE getting ready for the Out of the Darkness Walk

During the walk around Lake Padden in Bellingham, I wondered how we can have a national dialogue about cancer, heart disease, and so on…..but suicide and mental illness seem to get relatively little visibility. This is despite the fact that suicides claim 34,000 lives per year in this country. And like cancer and heart disease it doesn’t discriminate between rich or poor, black or white, male or female, young or old.

It seems like a tall order in the face of budget reductions and cutbacks but we should be as aggressive about identifying symptoms of depression and mental illness as we are about screening for cancer. Admittedly, it’s far more challenging to understand such symptoms but the human cost of not doing so is devastating.

I won’t pretend that this blog has a big audience but if someone who reads this volunteers their time or makes a donation in some way to the AFSP, then this post has been well worth my time.

Finally, and speaking of blogs, I’d like to give a shout out to a site created by an acquaintance I’ve known since 1974. She does a remarkable job of telling her own story of battling mental illness as well as commentary on current events related to the topic. It can be found at:

http://crazymer1.wordpress.com/