How This Blog Began
Last month on August 13th, my absolute favorite non-profit To Write Love On Her Arms announced their latest campaign We’ll See You Tomorrow.
The #Tomorrow15 campaign was held for a solid month up until the end of National Suicide Prevention Week (September 7th-13th). I’ve been an active supporter of TWLOHA for the past year, though I’ve known about them since 2009. It took a long time for me to become more vocal about my support for them, which is something I’ll get to in a later post.
So there I was sitting at work, my lunch break had come about and I immediately checked out TWLOHA’s latest announcement. They gave their supporters the opportunity to take part in their campaign by raising funds and starting a conversation about suicide prevention. I jumped at the chance to do something this amazing, which led to me starting my own fundraising page and ordering the Suicide Prevention Pack from their online store.
TWLOHA asked their supporters to share their packages by telling the world why “You’ll See Me Tomorrow…”
This photo quickly caught the attention of my friends and family as well as fellow supporters and strangers. It was at this point that the messages started rolling in. I have been vocal about my mental health since August 2014, but not to this extent. I knew that what I’ve been through could be relatable to others, so I decided to put a personal spin on my fundraiser by sharing stories via Instagram.
This one got the most attention:
Not even an hour later people were tagging me in their own photos with positive affirmations on their wrists. My notifications where out of control for a few days after. It was incredible! From there, I realized that what I was doing had become more than a fundraiser—I’d created a safe place for people to reach out and share their stories. They found comfort in my honesty, which gave them strength to be honest as well. This was an eye-opening experience for me, as I realized how important it is for people to relate to someone going through what they’re going/have been through. To know that I can speak out about my struggles so freely gave them the invitation to do the same. How could I not see the beauty in that?
After four weeks of solid work, I closed out the campaign with the most jaw-dropping amount of $4,000 raised to fund suicide prevention and mental health resources.
I went in with the expectation of raising $1,500 and giggled with glee at how far my fundraiser had come. Just thinking about the amount of people this will help took my breath away. TWLOHA as a whole raised more than $80,000!
It dawned on me the morning after the campaign ended that my work is far from done. There’s so much to do, so many people to help, that I couldn’t stop there. Just knowing how far I’ve come in my recovery after being a part of this campaign showed me that there is Hope for me and everyone like me.
As this blog comes along, I’ll be sharing more about how this all began and what I’ll be doing from here. Some stories will be sad, some uplifting, but all of it will show you that Hope is out there. I have seen it. I have felt it. And as I continue my path to advocate for mental health, I hope you can find that Hope along with me. We are in this together. All of us. So here’s to Hope!
