Worthy of the Week

Hey all! Sorry I missed the post last week, as you may know I’ve been sick lately. But here is this Friday’s Worthy of the Week, a weekly breakdown of things worth sharing. If you like what you see, feel free to join in! Just post your link in the comments, and I’ll stop by 🙂 Check out the others here. 

Inspiration

These beautiful, haunting, surreal photographs.

  

The second two are by Kyle Thompson, who is a phenomenal photographer and artist, and more than worth looking up.

Issues

This week has been one of tragedies. Two huge celebrity deaths, Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall, and the ongoing violence in Ferguson. I think it is so important that we let Robin William’s death and suicide bring to light an often avoided topic–mental illness, depression, and suicide. I have heard many different reactions to this, varying from celebration to damnation, saying he made a weak, selfish choice and left his family behind. But I think a lot of people with that reaction have never experienced anything close to what it is like to wrestle with depression. For them, and everyone else, I have this video. I’ve also heard it compared to those who jump out of burning buildings–they don’t want to jump, but it feels like the only alternative to being burned alive, but the people on the ground don’t understand unless they have been in a burning building themselves. And this video captures something I think is so hugely important for how we deal with and talk about his death. Regardless of how you feel, he was an amazing man who touched so many lives, and it hurts my heart that he was in so much pain he saw no other option.

Words of Wisdom

Being sick and stuck in bed this week, I really felt this next one. I love books because they give me freedom, even if I feel stuck in this sick body.

Worthy of the Week

Hey all! Thanks so much for stopping by, here is this Friday’s Worthy of the Week, a weekly breakdown of things worth sharing. If you like what you see, feel free to join in! Just post your link in the comments, and I’ll stop by 🙂 Check out the others here. 

Inspiration

Art, as always. I think these pieces speak for themselves.

Issues

This week, I watched Lee Thompson Young’s funeral tribute on Rizzoli and Isles. It’s been a while since he passed, and he was in the rest of last season, so this was the first time being confronted with it. Wow. I was surprised by how much emotion I had for someone I had never met. Even worse, it was so hard to understand. For those of you who don’t know, he committed suicide. He was clearly successful and had a bright future ahead of him, and was much loved by his costars and everyone around him. But that’s the thing: suicide doesn’t make sense. Depression and mental illness don’t make sense. They are a chemical imbalance–there is no logic. And sadly, I think there’s still so much stigma. Hopefully, his death will show people that they are not alone in their struggle, that it is okay to not be okay, even when it seems like you should, and that there is always help and people who care.

Words of Wisdom

This week I’ve spent some more time sick and in bed, more time with emotions and feelings that I don’t know what to do with–and as always, I can escape to my writing. There is something almost magical about how healing books can be.