It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

If you are getting this in an email you won’t see the picture attached to this, or the link following. There are rules about linking and I don’t want to fall afoul of any laws around forced advertisement. For those who can’t see it the picture is the phone number for the U.S. National Suicide prevention hotline.

Link and phone number here: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ 1-800-273-8255

In the United States Thanksgiving is around the corner. Over the next thirty days or so there will be a parade of holidays. One after the other, and often overlapping. This is a dark, physically, time of the year so many cultures and religions illuminate the darkness and dispel the gloom with light and cheer.

It is a season of happiness where we remember what we are thankful for, look forward to a “literally, brighter tomorrow and spend time with our loved ones. It is amazing. For some.

This time of year is also sees a massive increase in suicides, an suicide attempts. And there are many reasons for it. For some this is a time of loss, for others it is a time if conflict. We may be spending a holiday without a loved one for the first time, or wishing we could stay with friends instead of warring with family. This time is not a placed of safety for many people.

When the world tells you, you should be happy. When it tells you everyone is happy it is easy to think something is terribly wrong with you. That supposed happiness makes your own depression and pain all the worse.

I am here to remind you, that this is normal and you are not alone in this. If dark and poisonous thoughts should cloud your days it may help to know that it likely feels worse because you are aware that you are supposed to be feeling AMAZING.

However it’s not just you, and more importantly there are those who will help. There are people, friends, associates, companions, whose lives are made better because you are in it. And there are those who will gladly give you there time to help you out of a dark place. In the United States the hotline and website above is one of several such places.

Please, please, in the coming weeks should you fall into such a dark place reach out. I assure you, even if you feel alone there are those who will gladly come to your side and many, many more who will be washed in grief for loosing you.

I don’t know that the words of some small author will mean anything to you in those dark moments but if it helps anyone just a little bit than I am happy to make the attempt. I hope you never need to remember these words, but hope more that if you need them, they come to you.

Thank you my dear readers and God bless;

~S. Wallace