Connectedness versus aloneness: National Suicide Prevention Week 2012

By Victoria Stiegel on September 9, 2012

I went to Mass this morning, which is a rarer occurrance than I would generally like it to be. But this morning I was actually awake, and I thought “okay I actually really want to go to Mass today” although I didn’t have a specific reason, so even though I never go to the morning Mass these days (I tend to favor the evening ones) I got dressed and made the oh-so-arduous five minute drive to the church around the corner from my house. I laughed at myself every time I got some of the new words wrong even though I was looking at the cheat sheet and was thoroughly amused by my inability to sing the new versions of the Mass parts in a setting I could have sung in my sleep prior to the lyrics changes, and I was generally pleased with my decision to actually make it to Mass this week. But it was the homily that really left me with one of those “well I was just in exactly the right place at exactly the right time” feelings.

The priest, an older Irish gentleman, began by saying he was going to talk about communication. Like a good communication student with a blog to write, I perked up and briefly wondered if I had a notebook and pencil in case I wanted to scribble down a note (I didn’t; I ended up guiltily creating a quick note on my iPhone, hoping those around me wouldn’t think I was texting in the middle of the homily). Father began by commenting on how we have all these new ways of communicating – we’ve got cell phones, texting, email, Facebook, Twitter, and so on – and yet so many people still feel such deep loneliness. We may be technologically connected on an unprecedented level, but in some ways we seem to be more disconnected than ever.

Despite the technological connections between us, there has simultaneously been an ever-increasing trend of individualism. This individualism affects not just how we view/engage with ourselves but also how we view/engage with others. Out of fear and/or out of pride, we cut ourselves off from others when we are in pain or in need. Out of selfishness or fear, we are unwilling or unable to hear or respond to the needs of others. Father continued on to say that we need to try to “hear the cry of aloneness and utter words of love and consolation.”

After Mass, I spoke to the priest and asked him if he knew that the next day (September 10) was World Suicide Prevention Day and that this week was National Suicide Prevention Week. He said he wasn’t. I told him about it, and told him about a non-profit organization that is very close to my heart, To Write Love on Her Arms, which works to promote awareness of mental health issues and works to provide hope and help to those who struggle with them. I thanked him for his homily, because these issues – aloneness, feeling disconnected and unable to reach out for help, feeling incapable of offering help to those we think might need it – are ones that are important to me, not just because of my involvement with TWLOHA but also because I myself struggle with depression. It was only because of my exposure to TWLOHA that I was able to find the courage to reach out for help at all. He asked me to bring him information about TWLOHA, and I thanked him again for his words of encouragement and his efforts to bring light to the universal yet often secret struggle with feelings of loneliness and despair.

As I made my way home, I thought about coincidence and how sometimes maybe coincidence isn’t really coincidence at all, and I thought about communication. I thought about how even with the saturation of social media in our daily lives, the connections we make using said social media will still leave us without meaningful connections unless we make a deliberate effort to make them meaningful. In and of themselves, social media do not automatically mean we are actually more connected. However, they do provide us with a new and extremely versatile way to reach out to each other and create meaningful connections, to begin to heal the brokenness in ourselves and in each other.

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If you are struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, you do not have to do so alone. You can call the National Hopeline Network at 1-800-SUICIDE or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK. If you do not feel comfortable talking on the phone, you can visit IMAlive.org, an online crisis intervention chat network created by TWLOHA and the Kristin Brooks Hope Center. For more resources regarding finding or offering help, visit TWLOHA.com.

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