Mental

"You can do something. Your choice is not made for you. You are not your choices. You CAN make a different choice."     Today I met with a woman who works for a local non-profit.  The goals of this non-profit are to provide girls with a healthy, safe, and empowering environment that nurtures strengths based skills and therapy practices and raises awareness of issues that effect girls and teens.   One of the ways they do this is through education in schools 5th-12 grades. Topics for the school based curriculum include: Bullying, sexting, sexual harassment, healthy dating relationships, domestic violence prevention, media and body image, and any other issues schools ask to be discussed.     If you have been following my blog, you know that self-harm and suicide have touched my life recently.  In light of the suicide of my niece Trinity, and that of another area student in recent months, I asked if the organization ever educated on self-harm a...

Grief is greedy, it takes your happiness, your sleep, your appetite and your energy. Grief is a thief. It robs you of the will to function and the ability to relate to others.   Grief is like solitary. Everyone experiences it alone, even among a group grieving the same event.  Grief is a web. Tangled and inconsistent.  It turns back on itself and is never a clear path from beginning to end. Grief is a survival tool. Without the process and experience. our minds and bodies would go into shock.  Grief is a journey. And like any journey, the more you take the trip and go through the scenery and landmarks, the easier it is to find our way through it.      June 4th, 2017, I lost someone very dear to me. She had been not just my best friend for over 10 years but my romantic partner for much of that.  Some will diminish what I am feeling by saying "It was only online. You never met in person." Others have acknowledged the special relationsh...