It's a sad and devastating fact that many families have lost a loved one to suicide. We all need together to make sure more families don't suffer this kind of preventable loss.

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Many people suffer from suicidal thoughts, every day. Often those thoughts can take them to the edge of a cliff with what feels like no way out. Where ending their life seems the only way to escape the demons that haunt them.

Mental illness needs to be talked about without shame

The subject of suicide hits me hard. My great-grandfather committed suicide because he thought he was dying of cancer. In his goodbye letter to his family, he stated the reason was his fear of having cancer.

We will never know what was going through his mind. He will never be able to share with us the pain and mental torment he was experiencing. All of that went with him to his untimely grave.

Back then, nobody would have dared talk about mental illness or suicide. Families were very private for fear of scandal and social shame. It hurts my heart to think he felt so alone and frightened with an inability to get any kind of professional help to help him work through his thoughts and fears.

Because of the lack of help and awareness, he felt his only option was to take his own life.

Suicide is never the answer

Locking Arms for Suicide Awareness wants to help spread the word that you are never alone.

The annual benefit is coming up on August 20, 2022.

Locking Arms for Suicide Awareness/Facebook
Locking Arms for Suicide Awareness/Facebook
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 I'm a suicide survivor

Severe mental illness runs on both sides of my family. I'm not sure if anyone else ever contemplated suicide, but I have twice in my life. Both of those times were motivated by my twenty-three hours a day struggles with extreme anxiety.

In my late teens and mid-twenties, my anxiety disorder was out of control. Feeling like it would last forever and my inability to live a normal life made me feel like I had no other choice. I was being tortured every day. I felt I couldn't go on living that way,

Both times, I came very close to taking my own life. Fortunately, for me. I had last-minute moments of clarity that kept me from doing it. I had an ever-growing support system that helped me feel less alone, and this all happened at a time when conversations were starting to take place and awareness surrounding suicide was encouraged and welcomed. It was a time of awakening to the loneliness and tragedy that is suicide.

Unlike my great grandfather, I got the help I needed that provided me with the tools to fight and overcome my demons. I will be going into more detail as I tell my story at the annual benefit.

Others, like me, have survived the trauma of wanting to take out on lives and they, too want to share their stories for the benefit, as well.

Please join us for this very important night. Get more info and buy your tickets, HERE.

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