Let's Talk About It

If you've been taking notes, this has been a hard week for a lot of people.  We lost not one, but TWO icons to suicide - first Kate Spade and then Anthony Bourdain. I've seen a lot of posts about "the stigma of mental health" and "call the hotline if you need to talk", but that's just surface talk.  Why aren't we reaching out to our people??  Not just, "Hey, how are you?", but "Hey, I love you.  I miss you.  I want to see you and visit IRL."  Why don't we feel the need to CONNECT more? Before you get all judgemental on me, let me preface my thoughts with a little background.  About 12 years ago, I went through a serious depression.  I had suffered a heartbreaking loss and was on medication.  Before that, I had never believed that depression was actually REAL.  I'd had friends who said they were suffering, but I thought they should just "toughen up" and "snap out of it"... and I thought that right up until the moment I found myself thinking, "If I run my car into a wall on the side of the highway, it could LOOK like an accident..."  Now THAT was sobering!  I had never contemplated suicide, so the fact that it crossed my mind so naturally was alarming in and of itself. Luckily for me, I'm not in the place anymore.  But having come through it, I better understand the realness of that mentality, and I get that it's not something you can "think away".  It's an illness.  And it plagues a lot of people.  People we love, people we're close to, people we would never guess are suffering.  That's why it's on US to reach out.  To make those we love feel special.  To make them feel loved.  To make sure they're okay. I think a lot of people *think* they're doing a good job of loving on those around them... but the reality is, as a whole, we're not.  We're failing - miserably! Not that long ago, I found out that a colleague lost her father.  I didn't know her very well, but my first instinct was to send a sympathy card.  I found out several months later that it was the only card she received.  The ONLY ONE!  That blew me away!  Friends she had known for 20+ years didn't reach out like that...   That was an eye-opener for me.  We can't just assume that someone else is taking care of those around us.  It needs to be US! As a single gal, I'm very aware that my friends with husbands and kids are too busy to connect on a regular basis.  I know "everyone's busy", but