Got a dollar for suicide?

Suicide is no laughing matter. I know this. For many years after the suicide of a very close friend in 1996, I felt I that I existed in a bubble of an amalgamation of yucky feelings that I couldn’t quite comprehend or even put to words. Something definitive changed in me that day Michael Samonte died. I have learned that while the deep feeling of sorrow and guilt eases with time, the pain really never goes away. It took years of therapy and now a different outlook for me to be able to deal with this unfortunate incident.

What exactly is this new outlook? It took the recent suicide of Aaron Swartz and a little push from the Dalai Lama through the book, “The Art of Happiness” to positively deal with suicide. Aaron’s suicide was the catalysts, as it made me very furious that such a brilliant mind was gone. Almost instantaneously I started to scour the Internet for a way to deal do something about my anger. This led me to the website of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and to my surprise, they have an upcoming event in Las Vegas called “Out of the Darkness Community Walk.” Right then and there, I signed up for the event and created a fundraising page for the event. The motivation for this decision wasn’t evident at the time, but it became inevitably clear that this was something I needed to do as part of a healthy coping mechanism to deal not only with suicide, but death in general. Death as I have come to find is a trigger that has such a tremendous impact on me every time it manifests itself.

Suicide leaves so many questions and for years I wallowed in self-pity and guilt for feeling like I have been deprived of the sorrow that my friend had felt when he committed the most selfish act. Well, with the “Walk Out of the Darkness” event in Las Vegas on Saturday, February 9, my message is clear: I want to kick suicide in the ass! If you feel that this is a worthy cause, you can come and walk with me on that day and/or contribute to my fundraising effort for that event via the link below:
http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donordrive.participant&participantID=399992

After my plea to help support my efforts against anti-bullying via CafePress (http://www.cafepress.com/dd/71784106), I feel like I’m begging for you to help me in the causes I believe in. Well, if that is what it takes to raise awareness on these major issues, then I surely won’t mind begging a thousand times more. I feel no shame in doing it! So, what do you say? Let’s kick suicide in the ass together!