I hope you are weathering this global storm as best as possible and that you have all the support you need to get through this. If you don’t, please reach out to me or to the people in your life who care about you. Emotional support is something we always need on our journey through life and we need it now even more than before.
I encourage you to reach out to, as in call on the phone, your friends and family who live alone or may be isolated or already suffer from depression.
Call that friend that you haven’t spoken to in awhile. Suicide is already a very real and common tragedy in our world. I fear that with shelter in place that this will be particularly hard for those people who already feel lonely, isolated and or depressed. Even if your friend is a person who tends to keep a wide area of distance around them, giving you the impression that they want space and to leave them alone, please do not take it personally, it’s not personal. If you love and care for them, bug them anyway.
Someone who was very dear to me and at one time was a big part of my life, recently committed suicide. This happened just before the virus and shelter in place began. So my experience of sheltering in place and all the changes that are happening in the world are colored by my deep grief over this loss. He was a good person who was loved, appreciated and dear to many people. He had a lot to offer the world. He was also very troubled and tended to push people away, giving them the feeling that they should give him space.
One can never say that reaching out more could have made a difference in his decision to end his life and there is no use walking down the dark road of, “if only I had”, but I can tell you this, all the people who cared about him now wish they had reached out more, that they had sought out more opportunities for connection with him. They wish that they had had the courage to ask questions when he dropped hints that he wasn’t doing so well. The pain they feel now because they didn’t reach out is very deep. A common theme being, I didn’t want to invade his privacy by calling or asking questions. Suicide is very painful for the living.
If you are lonely, live alone, are isolated and or suffering from depression, please find your courage to reach out to the people in your life. If you feel that they don’t love you or care for your well-being, believe me they do.
We would all be much happier and more connected if we didn’t take the actions of other people personally.
I hope and pray that the isolation created by sheltering in place will help us to see how much we need each other and how important it is to reach out and share quality time with our fellow brothers and sisters. That this time ultimately brings us together instead of fueling the disease of isolation. May we be inspired to go out of our way for the people in our lives who we know are troubled and tend to isolate themselves. We are all connected.
With love and connection,
Megan
