Suicide Prevention: Donate!

3 months after tragedy
Originally uploaded by mister mark davis

My friend Mark Davis took this image. This morning I got an email from him:

My girlfriend's father killed himself early this summer.
As someone who has been around this I can say that you
really cant understand just how awful this experience is
for the family. Everyone feels as though if only they
called more or visited him he wouldn't have killed himself.
If only they didn't do some action that was completely
normal, if only that then they could still have their
father, their brother, their friend...

Being the victim of suicide is one of the most isolating
experiences. It's important to realize that if you are
related to someone that killed themselves you are likely to
be in a family with a genetic history of depression
compounding your misfortune. My girlfriend hasn't told
many people. Only her closest friends. She hasn't even
told her roommate or most of her friends. She hasn't told
her professors and hasn't asked for special treatment. She
is doing this because she doesn't want people's pity. She
doesn't want people looking at her as if she should be sad.
She just started her first semester of college in new york
city since she lost her father and is in New York city far
away from her family in New England.

She will be walking in the Out of the Darkness Community
Walk to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide
Prevention. She has set a really modest goal for herself
of $1000. The thing is since she hasn't told anyone what
happened she can't really ask people to donate because she
hasn't even told people about what has happened. I just
donated $20 dollars. What I really want to happen is for
lots and lots of people to donate at least $1 (the minimum
the site allows). the AFSP is a great organization and the
work they do is important, but more importantly I want to
restore my girlfriends faith in humanity. I can just
imagine her checking the progress of her donations and
seeing that a hundred or even a thousand people gave her a
dollar. You should feel more than welcome to leave more
money, but more importantly send this to a bunch of your
friends. See if you can get everyone in your office to
give.

Here's where you can donate and see how much money she has
raised:
http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&eventID=630&participantID=13545

The walk is the 26th of October. I don't know if there is
a payment deadline, but check back at the end of the month
to see how well this went.

If you can just give a dollar, do so, cause suicide is not painless for anyone.