#AAS17

So, while I sit on my couch for 3 days following the #AAS17 conference, tweeting, and retweeting, I forget to do, what everyone that is at that conference is there for; Suicide Prevention.

As someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, I need a routine, and I need to look after my P.L.E.A.S.E skills so that I don't fall into the suicidal or self harm thoughts. Potato chips, cigarettes, and coffee, just doesn't cut it.

I joined watching the conference for a number of reasons:

1. I work with a group on poverty reduction in my city. I truly believe that poverty and suicide have a connection. In the same way that it does for crime and addiction. I need to watch to find out how I can do this in my city.
2. I follow @officialbpdchat on twitter. This is the group of people I can connect with online to share how we are using our DBT Skills together. What works, what doesn't. 
3. I also follow @SPSMChat these folks have made a powerful online influence on me. And I wanted to support these folks, as best as I could where I am.

What I did not expect to take away from this conference:

1. A free online course to learn how to reduce suicide in my own city. I found this at http://training.sprc.org/ 
2. I forgot that it DOES NOT need to get to hospital visits, or an actual attempt. Suicide prevention comes right at home, in your community, at work. Just don't be a fucken asshole. Thank You, Bart Andrews for reminding me of this.
3. That MY voice matters too. That Lived Experience has a role to play in this, and clinicians, researchers, psychiatrists, and crisis centers need to remember this. And so do I.
4. That Crisis Text Line is coming to Canada!!! WOW!!! FANTASTIC news!!

Thank You, http://www.suicidology.org for bringing this conference. And for letting me be a part of it #spsm .

Everyone who attended are amazing and rockstars and I now have my faith restored that people are working on changing things, to do better. For people like me.

I can't say that I'm "fixed". I struggle. People like Bart, and April, can't help me when I'm in crisis, and suicidal. When I reach out to them for help, they gently remind me that they can't do that. And direct me to use the appropriate resources in my area.

Thanks to people like Carl, I am able to talk, be down right honest. And a time or two, he has saved my life. By being there for me.

Thank You to the #SoMe team, for allowing me to take part of this, as far away from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Mad respect for all of you. I'm blown away. And proud to be a small part of this from afar.

Savings Circles - Asset

So I started this Savings Circles program at: http://www.momentum.org/  My first class was on budgeting, my second class, on assets.

We started with, what is an asset? OK, I can do this, I know what this is, in terms of finances.

Then we turn the page and the next question is, "While I'm reading this story, I want you to start drawing."

What is on the page? It's my life, in two years......

The instructor tells the story and I start thinking about teaching DBT skills in schools, owning a truck one day, living in a home, swimming, and then I remember.....

I've been here before, and I've dreamt this before, and I've accomplished my goals before, and been where I've wanted to be in my life before, and it all crashed and burned on me. Just like my goals and dreams always have done before.

WHY AM I DOING THIS AGAIN!!!??? I'LL JUST LOSE IT ALL AGAIN!!!

Tears begin to stream down my face and I get up and leave the room to go to the washroom. I recover my composure and go back to the classroom.

We talks about five asset areas:

1. Finances
2. Connections
3. Skills and Knowledge
4. Basic Needs and Services
5. Sense of Self

I set goals and look at what I need to work on in these areas.

1.  My Sense of Self. (Always a struggle for me)
2. Basic Needs (Definitely an every day struggle)
3. Finances 

Now I need to go and make S.M.A.R.T Goals for these.

Suicide effects 6+

It was Monday, April 19, 1993 when my mom and I were sitting and watching the evening 6 o'clock news. It was around that time that the phone rang, my mom picked up, and I heard the change in her voice.

It was the day that I learned my cousin shot herself. She left behind three teenage children, and a husband.

To say that suicide affects only six people, is absolutely false. I had attempted suicide, and saw my cousin not long before she took her life. I blamed myself for a while for not seeing the signs, but how could I? I lived in Alberta, and she in Saskatchewan. She was a mother and wife, and I was an 18-year-old spending time with her daughters, not her.

I saw the effects the family went through afterwards. The broken relationships that went on. It was a devastating and long-lasting effect, that continues on until today.

Her children never got their mom to be their at their weddings, the birth of their children, to be by their side for the joys and failures.

But I can't speak to what they went through, for I am not them. I can speak to the effect this had on me. It cost me a relationship with one of my cousins, it costs me when I think that suicide might actually be an option for me.

Her suicide, affected 3 children, a husband, sisters, parents, grand-parents, cousins, and grand-children, and many more. So to say that suicide effects six, is a bunch of statistical false bullshit if you ask me.

Until this day, my cousins cannot speak of her death, and the circumstances that surrounded it.

I write this today, because this is what is on my mind lately. I have had another suicide in my life, of a dear friend. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the funeral of dear Michaela, I found out of her suicide long after she was buried and remembered. I had to grieve her death alone, and find some way to come to terms with it.

That is also, something I am struggling to do.

Please remember there IS help out there. And if you are planning to take your life, there are MANY people who would be affected by your death. People, you never even thought cared.

You can get help in Canada at: http://thelifelinecanada.ca/ 

 In U.S. at: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

 If you're part of transgender community: https://www.translifeline.org/

Crisis Text for U.S. and Canada: http://www.crisistextline.org/

LGBTQ youth: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/