Blog Content: Reach out

World Suicide Prevention Day

Experts by experience: Young advisor, Astro

Reach out…

That’s what everyone says, reach out for help but how, what does that mean, how do you do that and what’s the point. You might think your problems aren’t ’bad enough’ or the opposite you might think they are ‘too much’

Reaching out sounds simple but it’s not, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. No problem is too big or small, no feelings are too much or an over reaction, everyone experiences things differently, there is no right or wrong way to think and feel. That took me a long to learn.

My journey started with reaching out, I was 12, I spoke to a friend. That was the very first time I reached out and said that I wasn’t okay. He wanted to help and keep me safe, so we went to a teacher, I couldn’t speak I just sat there. My teacher gave me a piece of paper and a pen and I wrote what was an essay but I knew I couldn’t keep feeling the way I was. It was scary but necessary. This lead to me seeing the mental health service, another scary step but one that has meant I am here today.

I am now 24, I still often need help but that is okay and every time I ask for that help it becomes a bit easier. I have good and bad days, days where the world seems great, I get to enjoy my friends, ride my horse, work as a young advisor for CFHD but some days feel dark and heavy; those are the days where I have learnt to pick up the phone, message a friend, ring a helpline or speak to my key worker. On the hard, dark, heavy days I don’t always want to reach out but that is the way I will start to feel better, the way I can survive, the way I get to experience the joy the world has to offer.

If you have the strength to survive the hard days then you have the strength to ask for help, it might be a conversation, a phone call, a drawing or as it was for me a simple pen and paper.

I still reach for a pen and paper on a regular basis, sometimes writing it down is enough to help, other times I share it. When I can’t say the words, when speaking feels too much, I can still communicate, let people know what is going on and allow them to help me find my voice again.

I have had help from many people but my way of reaching out, that pen and paper has saved me, saved my life more than once. I haven’t become a statistic, another person lost, missing out on the good and surviving the ugly. I will always have a pen and paper because some days I still need saving, I still sit in silence or don’t have the words and the feelings are too loud to think through but I can simply write ’help’.

So reaching out, the point is your worth it, your life is worth it and one day it will get better and on the harder days you know what to do. The more of us that reach out, show others that it is okay, it is okay to struggle, okay to want to give up but we have to pave the way, show what is possible. Every single person that reaches out shows strength and other people see that, you showing your strength might be enough for those people to think they can do it too.

The point of this is I don’t want people to become statistics, whether I know them or not, I don’t want to lose people who have fought so hard. No one should struggle in silence, I promise that you don’t have to.

So please, find your pen and paper and reach out. If I can you can too.