\n
![\"not](\"http:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/not-a-cry-for-help.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI don\u2019t like the phrase \u201cA cry for help.\u201d I just don\u2019t like how it sounds. When somebody says to me, \u201cI\u2019m thinking about suicide, I have a plan; I just need a reason not to do it,\u201d the last thing I see is helplessness.<\/p>\n
I think: Your depression has been beating you up for years. It\u2019s called you ugly, and stupid, and pathetic, and a failure, for so long that you\u2019ve forgotten that it\u2019s wrong. You don\u2019t see good in yourself, and you don\u2019t have any hope.<\/p>\n
But still, here you are; you\u2019ve come over to me, banged on my door, and said, \u201cHEY! Staying alive is REALLY HARD right now! Just give me something to fight with! I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s a stick! Give me a stick and I can stay alive!\u201d<\/p>\n
How is that helpless? I think that\u2019s incredible. You\u2019re like a marine: Trapped for years behind enemy lines, your gun has been taken away, you\u2019re out of ammo, you\u2019re malnourished, and you\u2019ve probably caught some kind of jungle virus that\u2019s making you hallucinate giant spiders.<\/p>\n
And you\u2019re still just going \u201cGive me a stick! I\u2019m not dying out here!<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA cry for help\u201d Makes it sound like I\u2019m supposed to take pity on you. But you don\u2019t need my pity. This isn\u2019t pathetic. This is the will to survive. This is how humans lived long enough to become the dominant species.<\/p>\n With NO hope, running on NOTHING, you\u2019re ready to cut through a hundred miles of hostile jungle with nothing but a stick, if that\u2019s what it takes to get to safety.<\/p>\n All I\u2019m doing is handing out sticks.<\/p>\n You\u2019re the one staying alive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ————————————————–<\/p>\n I don’t know the source or if it has ever graced a therapist’s waiting room wall (after all, it’s not the right message for every client) but it’s a good and true message.<\/p>\n (via Karen T. and 9gag.com. Thanks!)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seen in a therapist’s waiting room.. (art by Aria Heller) I don\u2019t like the phrase \u201cA cry for help.\u201d I just don\u2019t like how it sounds. When somebody says to me, \u201cI\u2019m thinking about suicide, I have a plan; I just need a reason not to do it,\u201d the last thing I see is helplessness. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}