Add Purple to the Pink

In addition to Breast Cancer Awareness October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  According to breastcancer.org an individual woman has a 1-in-8 chance of developing breast cancer over an 80-year lifespan.  The CDC National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey  reports 1 in 5 women have been victims of physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.  Domestic violence is more common than breast cancer.   


I am not saying that breast cancer should not get attention.  The research that has been funded by breast cancer awareness has benefited all forms of cancer.  My grandma passed away from complications of lung cancer, my cousin, great-aunt, and friend/colleague are survivors of breast cancer, and my four year old niece is in remission from leukemia.   My family has certainly been affected by cancer.   


My first draft of this post was full of data and statistics like these those above.  There are many, many more.  When my computer froze and all of the numbers and information was deleted I decided to take a different approach.  

Allow me to tell you a story.  

This is a story of a young woman who battled mental illness for years.  She was constantly picked on for being overweight.  She never had a boyfriend.  For a time she thought that she was a lesbian. This woman went through gastric bypass surgery and started a healthy life. She was working, and living on her own.  

One day, this woman met a man in an online chat room.  She thought that he was her Knight in Shining Armour.  She moved across the country to be with him, despite her family's warnings.  She kept in touch and slowly started sinking back into weight gain and major depression.  She and this man moved to another state to live with his father and daughter.  

This woman came home for the holidays one year and ended up checking into the mental health wing of a hospital. She called the man and he told her not to come back.  She was devastated, destroyed.  She rarely smiled for the next year.  

Next, she began to lose weight and exercise again, but it wasn't in a healthy manner.  Her family questioned her because they were concerned.  She decided that they didn't understand her and left a month earlier than planned to to go back and live with this man thousands of miles away from her family.  

The woman called her family, and kept in touch online.  But then it all ended, her phone was disconnected, her Facebook page was gone.  No one could find her.  The family prayed; hoping she would come back to them one day as she always had before.  

Then, the phone call came.  The call that changed everyone's life forever.  The man had shot this woman in the back of her neck.  She was paralyzed and in a coma.  No one knew if she would make it.  

The woman woke up, but couldn't move.  The family fought to get her back home for medical care. She came home, worked hard in rehab, and defied the odds.  She was walking again, with assistance.  But she wanted to walk independently, she wanted to run. Everyday she managed excruciating nerve pain from the bullet fragments that were too close to her spinal cord to remove.  

With time the family learned more about what had happened to this woman that they loved. Information relayed by the woman to her sisters was so horrible they could not repeat it. The woman had been controlled, and tortured both physically and mentally for a year.  The other people that lived in the house where this violence occurred ignored the cries; they ignored the signs. It was none of their business.  A doctor did not question her bruises, he just let her go back for more.  She had physical and mental scars that would never heal.  


One day another phone call came. This one would have no happy ending, no healing.  This call told the family that the woman had ended her life.  She couldn't bear his voices in her head any longer.  She couldn't bear the nerve pain one more day. The extreme domestic violence had overcome her, even with the man in jail thousands of miles away.  

This woman's name is Nicole, and she is my sister.  Her story of domestic violence is one of many.  I could fill this page with statistics, but you can google them as well as I can.  Instead of statistics remember Nicole.    

Remember her when you wonder why a woman doesn't just leave.  Remember her when you think you should mind your own business and not get involved.  Remember her when you think this couldn't possibly happen in your middle class white family.  Remember her when you think that no one you know has experienced domestic violence or sexual assault. Remember Nicole.   


Breast cancer awareness and research is important; but, we can not continue to ignore the problem of domestic violence and sexual assault.  We need to add purple to the pink in October.  We need to talk about the problem. People need to know the stories.  

Let Your Light Shine!  Wear purple, post in social media, offer help to someone in an abusive relationship without judgement, volunteer at or donate to a local domestic violence shelter.  Take a look at the awareness ideas at the following sites and Let Your Light Shine! 

       

Bullying, Mental Health and Suicide

Imagine being told to go kill yourself.  How would you react?  How long would that haunt your thoughts?  What if you already had those thoughts?  How much would these words hurt?

I recently learned that a girl told our thirteen year old daughter to go kill herself.  I was appalled that an eighth grader would say such a thing!  No one should say that to anyone!  In my teaching years I have heard that kids have said this to others before.  This time it hit home.  This time it was MY daughter.  I am still shocked and angered that young kids talk this way.  Do they understand the pain that this can cause?  Do they understand the long term scars that words can leave?  

It's ironic that this information came on the day that we did an activity about negative comments in one of my classes.  It has been said that it takes five positive comments to counteract one negative comment.  The San Joaquin County Office of Education put together several articles that refer to this ratio.  Today in one of my classes students were asked to volunteer to share a negative thought about themselves or their life.  When they did this they placed a quarter into a glass.  I then asked other students to take a nickle from my hand and give a positive comment to the student and then place the nickel in the glass.  This helped students to start thinking about changing their negative thoughts into positive thoughts.  

There have been copious news stories about kids that have been bullied and then attempt, or complete suicide.  The National Voices for Equality, Education, and Enlightenment site shared a statistic from the American Association of Suicidology that reported, "Suicide rates among 10 to 14-year-olds have grown more than 50 percent over the last three decades." The Bullying Statistics site reported, "A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying and 10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide."  

A fifty percent increase in suicide is unacceptable! I don't remember anyone ever telling someone to kill themselves when I was in school.  Bullying happened, but not to that extent.  It's no wonder that bullying is a larger issue now.  When my parents were in school bullying would end with a schoolyard fight and it was over.  Today teens are told to kill themselves and constantly bombarded with horrible message through technology.

Bullying is not only linked to suicide, but also to increased long term depression and anxiety. Bullying Statistics states, "Both bullies and their victims are more likely to suffer from depression than youth who are not involved in bullying. This connection can be long-lasting; people who are bullied as children are more likely to suffer from depression as an adult than children not involved in bullying." 

With these staggering statistics we can not sit idly by and say that "kids will be kids."  I was bullied in school.  The worst situation is still a clear memory in my mind twenty-six years later.  I was also the captain of the cross-country, and track teams and cheerleading squad.  I was the editor of the school paper and yearbook.  I was the secretary of my class.  I was thin, athletic, and smart.  I was still bullied.  

My sister, Nicole, was bullied to the point that she no longer saw value in herself.  She was bullied in elementary, junior high, high school, college, and as an adult.  This all lead up to her vulnerability for an evil man to manipulate and control her.  She had no value in herself after all of the abuse and bullying that she took.  No amount of positives could make up for her negatives.  

If you know about a bully, whether a student, an adult in the workplace, or someone in an abusive relationship, stand up.  Let Your Light Shine in whatever way that you can.  Approach the situation, write a letter, or help the person being bullied. Wednesday, October 19 is Unity Day against bullying.  Wear orange, hang up a poster, post on social media.  Statistics clearly show that if we want to end suicide, and decrease mental illness we need to also end bullying.  To end bullying we must ALL Let Our Light Shine!