A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength – Proverbs 17:22

When is it okay to be okay? I’m always preaching that it’s okay to NOT be okay, but sometimes we need to accept that it IS okay to be okay.

The other day I decorated the house for the holidays, which initially I did not want to do, not with the way this past year has played out for me. The past five Christmas’ I have wanted to sleep through, but this year I said, enough is enough. I am so sick of being so sad, that I want to get life back to normal, or as normal as it will ever be.

So…I decided to decorate and celebrate the holidays. People may look at me and say “SHE’S okay” and they can think what they want. They don’t see me crying every day, the social anxiety I carry around with me wherever I go, or the sadness that lives deep-down, inside my heart that won’t go away.

Why do I feel guilty for wanting to be okay, if at least for one day or maybe two? I’m making a choice, to be okay sometimes, but then again, it is okay to not be okay sometimes too. We need to learn to have compassion for ourselves, as well as for others. Love ourselves, because if we can’t, then who can!

When someone would say to me that suicide is selfish, I was the first person to jump down their throats, denying such a thoughtless accusation. My view point was that a person who has completed suicide was an unselfish person because they had stayed with us as long as they had because of their deep love for us – despite their tremendous emotional pain.

However, now that I have lost two loved ones to suicide, I now have a different perspective. I do think, that while they are in their moment of planning, that are being very selfish. Well, isn’t that the definition of being selfish, lacking consideration for others? Isn’t that exactly what they are doing?

I have been in the darkness and understand the pain of wanting it to all end, so I guess you can say I have been on both sides of suicide – the only difference is that I haven’t completed it, so I can’t say what they are thinking at that exact moment.

However, I do know that we have a duty to our loved ones to stay. We are the ones left behind, with ruined lives, living with the pain, asking ourselves why, and what if… They got their out, but now we are stuck with the destruction left behind, and that kind of pain never goes away.

It’s our responsibility to our loved ones to protect their heart and suicide is NOT an option. And don’t say….you don’t understand because I do…sadly I do understand – I wish I didn’t.

It’s such a simple comment, but so powerful too. Just Stay!

Happy Thanksgiving! Sometimes we may not see our blessings, because we are experiencing our loss, but if we look through the sorrow and see the blessings, then we are all blessed, but we have to see the blessings…all though it is hard, we must have faith.

We may feel all alone, but we are not. God is always with us!

We are not alone. We may feel alone, but we always have our Heavenly Family around us <3

Your self-worth is not explicable upon others’ opinions of you<3

You’re stronger than you think<3

Smile at someone today and give them a silent hello…I see you and you matter because you never know what they may be going through<3