Month: February 2019

Another Life Claimed by Suicide

On By Jo Price10 Comments

Tonight I received a call informing me that a family in our community lost a parent to suicide. Sadness doesn’t begin to describe my feelings for them. When I told my husband, of course he felt the same. In the course of our conversation about this, he made this comment that so many people make.

“No matter how bad I feel, I just can’t imagine it getting to the point that I would do that to my family.”

There is very real truth is those words. He can’t imagine it. Although my husband has his own heavy emotions and struggles to carry, he has never walked the path of someone who lives with severe clinical depression. He literally cannot fathom the world through that unimaginable filter. If a person has not faced the darkest of nights or wrestled to the depth of their soul about the value of their own life, they have no way of comprehending the torturous confusion and pain of those moments.

A person who committes suicide did not have a clear perception of their reality. His thoughts were terribly twisted. He couldn’t recognize the tidal wave of devastation that his death would bring. He didn’t see that his mind was creating vicious lies, and he couldn’t understand that his life was precious and invaluable. He truly could not comprehend that he was and still is needed more than he could ever believe.

All that person knew was that he wanted the pain to end, and that he didn’t want to hurt the people in his life anymore. He had no ability to perceive that his leaving his family would create a deep void in their hearts. Although they would heal to some extent over a long, long time, that place in their hearts would forever remain jagged and raw. His presence will never be forgotten, and he will always be loved.

If you are fighting this battle in your mind, do not believe the lies that depression creates. It poisons your thoughts and tells you that you have no value. That confusion feels so real but it is the cruelest of tricks. Don’t you dare ever believe those lies. Never ever ever.

Your mind will not stay in darkness forever. You must continue to hold on whenever you most want to let go. Your life has value beyond measure, and the people in your world need you more than you can fathom. Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth living, and despite what you seem to see all around you, everyone is fighting some kind of battle.

If you struggle with loneliness, self-worth issues, fear, guilt, or overall chronic imperfection, you are landing solidly on the scale of normal humanity. You aren’t alone in this and you don’t have to be alone in depression either.

Speak up. Ask for help. And hold on another day. And if needed, hold on again. Just don’t give in and don’t give up.

You’ve got this, and we’ve got each other. You are here for a reason. Give your life a chance to prove that to you.

You matter and your life is precious. Fight to keep it. Always.

My heart and prayers are with every person who has lost someone to this battle. Please know that it was never your fault, and it wasn’t the fault of the person who committed suicide either. Depression is a vicious disease.

***Please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline if you feel like you are at the end of your rope and truly can’t hold on much longer. If you are seriously considering ending your life, you desperately need to speak to someone who can help clear the blackness and the lies that are you can’t control in that moment. Call 1-800-273-8255 and please please please get help.

You are precious and you matter.

In love and light always.

Joanna

Big School Changes and Big Anxiety

On By Jo Price4 Comments

I’m looking at the clock and it reads 4:26. In the morning. Ugh. I did fall asleep for a few minutes several hours ago, but that was short-lived. Since that initial night nap, I have tossed and turned in bed, cleaned out some old emails, read a book for awhile, and then stared out my bedroom window for a bit in search of nocturnal animals (whom I’m certain are close by but apparently don’t feel like making an appearance on this chilly night).

I want to sleep and the upcoming day will surely prove that I needed to sleep, but so far, that’s just not happening. I can’t seem to get to that place of calm surrender. Instead all I am doing is circling through potential steps I need to follow to get started with the new schooling protocol – not that I would have any real way of knowing this information given that our meeting with the new school won’t happen until later this week. But mental list making and overzealous organizing is my go to OCD response to high anxiety situations.

On the one hand, I am now certain that I’m committed to making a solid attempt at a tremendous educational change for my children. Although the pitiful strained camel’s back snapped several moons ago, I felt the need to add one more beast of a straw to his load as I did a quick mathematical basics test with my children yesterday. Given that my daughter takes advanced placement middle school classes and has achieved solid scores on the state standardized testing over the years, it would seem reasonable to expect that my little experiment would have been a no-brainer for her. But it proved anything but easy.

In case you might be wondering about the kind of complex test that I followed to be able to discover the limits of her proven mathematical abilities, I’ll tell you what I did. I ran through basic multiplication flash cards that I purchased when the kids were in second grade. Fast multiplication facts ranging from 0-12. And she bombed them.

I’m not telling you this to bag on my daughter. She is brilliant beyond description, and she has an incredible capacity to learn. But had you watched our few short minutes of total flash card failures, you would have never known that.

The most basic foundational components of our childrens’ education is being discarded and exchanged for an excess of learning that is ineffective and beyond student comprehension. I called a dear friend to tell her about my dismal discovery. My friend shared that she received an email the previous week from her middle school daughter’s teacher that requested that parents please stop teaching the children multiplication tables at home. Apparently it was hindering the way the teachers were trying to convey new material. What the crap are they talking about?!?!? On what planet does know fast facts screw up your ability to execute a math problem???

It’s crazy!!! All of it. You should see the writing errors that go completely unacknowledged. My children bring home A+ assignments that are rife with misspellings, non-existent or incorrect punctuation, partial sentences that just. Yeah – they just stop mid thought like the preceeding non-sentence thing. Seriously that’s not a sentence people, and it shouldn’t be accepted as such!

So once more I find myself gaining further confidence in our decision to make this huge educational. It’s still extremely unnerving, but hey – maybe my daughter will know her basic multiplication tables if she ultimately has to return to those advanced classes should homeschooling be a bust.

For now, I pray that we are on the right path. I hope that we are making the best best choice for our family. And I really look forward to getting some sleep.

Wishing calm and peace to all of you. Jo