The Problem of the Rising Rate of Suicide

     Robin Williams, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, a couple of musicians I don't remember the names of because I'm not cool like that.  A friend's son just a couple of months from graduation.  A couple of college students my daughter works with.  The suicide world uses the term completed to describe people who succeeded in killing themselves.  According to the latest report by the CDC, half of all the states reported an increase in suicide rates by 30% from 1999-2016.  My gut feeling tells me the reason why is we're living in a society that feels like a pressure cooker.  The pressure starts in pre-school when parents begin to compare their toddlers and enroll them in soccer and dance and the most prestigious preschool they can get their kid in.  It continues in grade school with more sports and music lessons and state mandated testing administered by overworked, underpaid, stressed out teachers.

     Then there's middle school, junior high and high school.  You have to be in the right activities, make straight A's, score well on your PSAT, ACT's and SAT's, figure out what career you want to do for the rest of your life.  All while comparing how much fun you're having and how popular you are with every other student in your class who has a snapchat and Instagram account.  Oh yeah, you also have to worry about your school getting shot up.

     In college, you get the same pressure as high school but also get to start building up your debt.  You graduate with college loans it will take years to pay off and a hefty health insurance deductible it will be hard to pay if you get sick.  Most work places no longer offer pension plans, so you feel pressure to save for retirement, but all your left over income is going to paying off your student loan.

     Then one day, while you're stuck in traffic and late for work, you have your first panic attack.  It feels like it hits out of nowhere and you're pretty sure you're going to die.  They keep coming, relentless, day after day.  You feel like you have the flue.  You can't eat, can't sleep, can't think, can't figure out how you used to be able to do all the things you used to be able to get done.  You go to the doctor who checks out your thyroid and leaves your results on the phone.  Everything looks good, you're healthy, no problems.  So you're convinced you're going crazy.  You think you're weak.  Everyone else is able to handle so much more than you.  You can't get out of bed anymore even though you can't sleep, so you call into work sick.  You know you'll get fired if you continue calling in sick.

     The days drag by.  Each hour feels like a lifetime.  Nothing gives you any joy any more- not the music you love, your favorite books, the long bicycle rides you used to live for.  You don't want to be a burden on your family and friends, so you use the tiny bit of energy you have left to pretend to be o.k.  It gets harder and harder to fake.  You've now lost an alarming amount of weight so you go back to your doctor.  They suggest you see a psychiatrist.  You call every psychiatrist in town but every one of them has at least a 2 month wait. The psychiatrist your doctor recommends doesn't accept insurance and costs $500 an hour.  There are other psychiatrists who charge a sliding fee but they have 3 month waits.  You can't imagine living like this for one more day, let alone three more months.

     While you're waiting for your appointment with the psychiatrist, you self medicate.  If you drank a glass of wine everyday before, you now drink five.  If you smoked a little weed every once in a while, you now smoke it everyday.  If you have some old pain medication laying around you take that.  You'll do anything to try and feel better.  Nothing works.

     You start imagining how nice it would be not to be any more.  You see the worry on your family's faces and hate that it's because of you.  Your sick mind starts telling you that everyone would be better off without you.  Your sick mind starts telling you that you will never feel anything resembling normal again- you are too far gone.  You're convinced everyone would be better off if you were dead.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     A lot of things need to change if the suicide problem is going to decrease.  Raising awareness of signs and symptoms and passing on suicide prevention hot line numbers is a great place to start but it can't end there.  We need to train doctors better to aggressively treat mental health issues.  We need to train more psychiatrists to provide for the increasing need.  We need insurance to pay for mental health services.  We need to treat mental health like any other disease and take away the stigma that keeps people from talking about it.  Schools and businesses need to see it like any other illness and accommodate the needs of students and workers whether that be time off, shorter work days or an extended sabbatical.  Students need better options for schooling at home when public school is just too much.  And most of all everyone needs to stop the social media bullying, criticizing and bashing.  We need to learn to be kind to each other once again.  Especially to the people who are the hardest to be kind to.  And when that family member or friend can't think well enough to get help, make that appointment for them and take them to it.  If you think they may be suicidal take them to the Emergency room.  They may not want you around, but be around anyway.  Tell them they will get better.  Tell them they aren't alone.  Tell them you will help them with whatever they need.  Clean their house, make their meals, watch their kids.  Don't ever give up.

Another Ridiculous Trademark Dispute

http://fortune.com/2018/05/09/dr-dre-trademark-gynecologist-dr-drai/?utm_source=facebook.com&xid=soc_socialflow_facebook_FORTUNE&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fortunemagazine

Apparently, hip-hop producer Dr. Dre has been in a three year battle with a gynecologist, Dr. Drai, over use of the name.  

Perhaps Rapper Dr. Dre should have used the tens of thousands of dollars he spent in legal fees in some charitable way rather than suing a gynecologist in a completely different field.  But I'm crazy like that.

I am pretty offended that Rapper Dr. Dre thinks I am so stupid that I may buy a ticket to a lecture on gynecology thinking that I'm buying a ticket to a hip-hop concert.  

As someone else said, "Dr. Dre may have ovary-acted."

Choosing a Christian Mission Trip

Every year schools and churches organize mission trips. Every family must decide whether to participate- or not. Any one mission trip may not be the right one for everyone as we all have to prayerfully consider our stewardship of God's gifts, time, finances and resources. Families often get a lot of pressure to send their child on a mission trip. I think this is wrong.  I am not in any way condemning mission trips- I just think not all mission trips are created equal and every family's circumstances and considerations are different. I would never condemn someone for going on a particular mission trip or not going. I would, however, be critical of organizations and families who take the task of choosing a mission trip lightly.  Organizations can easily spend $30,000 or more on a mission trip.  That is a lot of resources.  A lot of responsibility.  

My children went to a Christian School.  The founders of that school had a vision for a Senior mission trip that would be a culmination of the students' Christian education.  For many years, those trips were to very impoverished areas in South America.  The student's were able to experience a completely different culture, language and level of poverty they would not have been able to experience back home.  They experienced God's provision and direction every year in too many ways to list.  They served people who otherwise would not have received help and could not help themselves. They came back home broken hearted for the least and the lost.

Then, during one of my children's senior year, some kids and parents became uncomfortable with  a mission trip out of the country and very hurriedly put together a mission trip to Alaska where they helped a middle class church with some maintenance projects like painting.  It was a beautiful trip, the kids enjoyed it, but it didn't seem as purposeful.  It didn't seem to change any hearts.  In the five years since then, the annual trip has been to Hawaii to serve another middle class church (that owns a nearby golf course!)  I have to wonder if that's the best use of over $30,000 in resources for a Christian organization.  We opted not to send our children (they completely agreed with us) on these mission trips but received quite a bit of back lash from teachers and students.  There was a whole lot of pressure on students and families to participate even though the cost was around $1500-$2000 each in a school with students from diverse economic backgrounds.

My hope is that Christian schools and organizations will become more intentional and purposeful in planning mission trips and that students and families will be allowed to prayerfully and thoughtfully consider whether their children should participate.  I found the following considerations helpful in deciding whether our children should participate in school Mission trips.

Things to Consider when Deciding on a Christian Mission Trip

Not all mission trips are created equal. Some mission trips will have more value than others. We are all called to be good stewards of our gifts, money, resources and time. When considering a Christian mission trip it helps to consider the following questions:

VALUE FOR THOSE BEING SERVED
1. Are you serving a need that cannot be met by the people locally- due to a lack of manpower, finances, or other resources?

2. If you take the money you are spending on the trip (collectively as a group) and donate it to the local organizations you are serving could they accomplish more? Could they hire local workers to serve the need and create jobs for their own people? Would you actually be taking away jobs from local citizens that would be paid to to the work you are doing for free? Are you denying local people the chance to step up and help each other if they have the resources and time?

3. Are you serving a greater or lesser need? Great needs would include providing health care, creating shelter for the homeless, providing food, teaching sustainable skills so the people can help themselves, spreading the message of the Good News of the Kingdom of God to a people without hope and love while showing them they are loved by God? Helping a people who have no other options of help from their own communities or government?

Lesser needs (This is NOT to say they aren't worth doing, just as a gauge in determining the value of a mission trip for you or your organization): painting, landscaping, cleaning, serving an organization that has plenty of local manpower, finances and resources already

VALUE FOR THOSE SERVING
1. Will those serving experience a different culture? language? religion? level of poverty? oppression? than what they can experience locally?
2. Will their hearts be broken for people who are poor, homeless, hungry, oppressed, suffering, hopeless, forgotten?
3. To accomplish their goals will God need to provide something? ( strength, finances, courage, logisticss, safety, faith, etc.) If you can accomplish everything without the movement of God than the work MAY not be from God- or it may be- just one of many considerations.
4. Will they return with a greater appreciation for their blessings, a desire to serve those less fortunate, greater compassion

Of course we can and should ALWAYS be serving God every day wherever we are. But if you have the opportunity to choose from several mission trips I think it helps to determine your goals. If you are looking primarily at the place you want to go, the activities you want to do, your comfort level, as the primary consideration that is ok!- as long as you are honest about your primary goals. If your primary goal is to follow God where He wants you to go and serve people most in need than that's awesome! If your primary goal is the first, than your primary question is where do we want to go and secondly- how can we serve once we are there? If your primary goal is the latter than your primary question is who do we want to serve and the second question is where must we go to serve them? 

LikeShow more reactions

CommentShare

Manage

LikeShow more reactions

· Reply · 52w · Edited

It's o.k. to stay small

Every few months, I read an article about some indie maker who started a small one person business from their kitchen table and now have 25 employees working out of a 5000 square foot studio.  For about thirty minutes, I either: a. feel like a failure because after nine years I'm still a one woman operation working out of her basement or b. (if I'm buzzing on five cups of coffee) start working on a plan to expand my business.

American society has a "Go big or go home" philosophy.  We're an Amazon, Starbucks, Kardashian, Shark Tank kind of people.  The maker movement was a push back to that corporate, take over the world, mentality.  When Etsy was founded in 2005, it was a haven for indie makers, many who had left the corporate world, who were looking to quit their day jobs and sell their handmade, small batch goods from their one person studio.  For many, it was a lifestyle choice- a choice to live a simpler life, be their own boss, set their own hours, pursue their art and craft and connect with their customers.  However, the Etsy culture changed around 2012/2013.  Two companies, Three Birds Nest and Grace and Lace (both selling clothing and accessories)  burst on the scene boasting astronomical sales of 500,000- 1 million annually.  Obviously, one person wasn't single handedly making all these items for sale.  Those kind of sales require a small workforce to take care of customer service, design, manufacture and shipping of all that product.  In response, Etsy changed the rules of the game to accommodate sellers that had outgrown the one maker rules of the platform.  Now, "makers" don't have to actually "make" anything, they only have to be "creators" of an idea and are allowed to have the actual manufacturing done overseas.  So much for being a maker platform.

Now, on Etsy, the top sellers have sales in the tens if not hundreds of thousands a year.  These sellers are definitely not making their wares from their home studios- they're probably not making much of the product themselves at all but, rather, overseeing the production and business side of their shops.  It's easy to look at their sales and wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Fortunately, however, usually after I'm able to meet up with a friend for coffee in the middle of the day or take the dog for a long walk on a particularly nice morning or even drop off customer packages of items I have enjoyed creating and making, I remember that I love what I get to do everyday.  I really do.  I love working by myself- it fits my introverted personality.  I love making a pot of coffee in the morning and putting on my slippers and going to work in my little home studio.  I enjoy discussing ideas with customers and getting a note back about how much they loved what I made for them.  I like flexibility in my schedule and being creative every day.  The truth is, I don't want a large business.  I don't want to manage people.  I don't want to work a set schedule.

Here's the message I want to give other makers and creatives.  It's ok to stay small.  It's ok to only be known in your town and not the world.  It's ok to make a modest living.  It's ok to not want to corner the market and have 150 employees.   It's not about the numbers.  It's about creating a lifestyle where you are your own boss and you wake up looking forward to the work you get to do (well, most days).  It's about creating meaningful work for yourself.  I'll say it once more  for myself and for you, it's ok to stay small.

The Devil Wears Yoga Pants

There's a new bully in the business world and she's not wearing Prada or working out of a fancy office in Manhattan.  Surprisingly, she's a stay-at-home  mom working from her kitchen table with a pot full of coffee and a desk top vinyl cutting machine.

In October 2011, an arts and crafts company called Silhouette released a home desktop cutting machine that allows crafters to design and cut a variety of substrates from paper to heat transfer vinyl for fabrics.  Prior to this, vinyl decorating on apparel and occasionally mugs and glassware resided almost exclusively with professional printers as the cutting machines were rather large and quite a bit more pricey than the new desktop versions.

I have been selling on the popular maker site, Etsy, since 2012.  When I started, there were only a handful of other sellers making what I sell- printed throw pillows and tote bags.  There were quite a few more sellers making t-shirts, most of them screen printed.  The market was competitive but for the most part civil.

Then, somewhere around 2013, an entrepreneurial minded mom made her baby an adorable Onsie from vinyl she had cut with her desktop cutter and posted a photo of it on her Facebook account.  She started getting requests from friends to make them for their babies too and setup an Etsy shop to sell her creations.

Fast forward to 2015.  A quick search of Etsy for Onesies yields over 230,000 listings.  Mugs with sayings yields a whopping 635,000 listings.  While some of these are made with more traditional screen printing methods, the vast majority are now made with vinyl.  What began as a wonderful way for stay- at-home moms to work from home has now become a fiercely competitive, maker eat maker business.

Don't get me wrong, Etsy has always had it's share of power hungry, greedy crafters intent on crushing their competitors and cornering their little corner of the crafting world.  But for the most part, Etsy crafters were of the hipster,  live authentically and make the world a better place kind of crafter.

Not any more.  This new variety of vinyl cutting crazies are mean and ruthless.  Everyday on Etsy Facebook forums people post about some scheming crafter seeking to trademark every popular phrase for the sole purpose of not allowing other sellers to sell products with that phrase.  When they're not busy applying for Trademarks, they're convincing their friends to buy competitors' products and leave bad reviews or  blow-up their Facebook feeds with nasty comments.

Etsy used to be a wonderful community of makers, supporting one another with their passion for handcrafted wares made by independent crafters.  Thanks in large part to the new generation of cut and press crafters it has become much like any other large corporation with a Miranda Priestly around every corner, sporting a messy bun and yoga pants, scheming at her kitchen table to corner the market and take you down.

FREE THE TATAS Part 2

Just five days after the Braden River High School bra scandal where a seventeen year old student was required to stick band-aids over her nipples after neglecting to wear a bra to school,  Braden River High School has released new guidelines governing student underwear.

"It has come to our attention, thanks to the astute observations of several sixteen year old male students who still giggle every time they hear the words melons or balls, that many girls continue to wear undergarments without the appropriate amount of support as to prevent excessive jiggling or padding to prevent nipple concealment- leading  the boys to excess distraction and inability to learn.  Therefore we are implementing the following procedures:

1. Any girl reported for ineffective breast support or nipple concealment will be required to pass a series of three tests: jumping jacks, running in place and standing in front of an air conditioner.

2. Failure to pass any of the above tests will result in the girl being sent home and not allowed to return until her breasts are properly supported and her nipples are fully concealed.

3. Continued failure to comply with proper breast support and nipple concealment will result in the student being required to wear a choir robe on school property."

#satire  #fakenews

FREE THE TATAS

I have a secret. Well, airport security knows about it but they know all my secrets.

90% of the time, I don't wear a bra. Shocking, right?

My reasons are simple. I am fairly small breasted and don't need the support. I think bras are hot, restrictive and uncomfortable. I like being comfortable. I don't wear high heels or spanx either, so sue me.

Fortunately for me, I don't go to school at Braden River High School. A seventeen year old girl decided to not wear a bra under her loose fitting, opaque, crew neck, long sleeve tshirt because she had a sunburn. We've all been there, right? Straps rubbing on sunburn is torture. Try learning something when every time you move, you're pierced with a red hot poker. Not wearing a bra seems like a perfectly reasonable solution. Oh, wait, I forgot. We live in a society where reason and logic don't matter. If something makes you just the teeniest bit uncomfortable, then it should be against the rules, right?

According to news reports and the girl's social media a teacher at the school heard a boy talking about the girl not wearing a bra. So, she did the only reasonable thing- she ignored it because teenage boys are obsessed with breasts.  I mean, this was probably the same kid who snapped the bra of the first girl in his class to get breasts in fifth grade. Just kidding- that would have been way too logical of a response! We live in America!  Logic doesn't matter.   Instead, the teacher turned her into the school principal who made the girl put on an extra shirt and jump up and down to make sure that helped contain the wicked jiggling of unbound breasts. Then she had her go to the school nurse to put band-aids on her nipples. Forget that every single person in the world has nipples (some even have a third nipple!); you could almost if you squint and turn your head just so, see the very faint outline of what was probably a nipple and that is just not o.k.  I mean, what would happen if teenaged boys find out that girls have nipples too! There's just no possible way a boy could learn in that kind of environment.

I've decided my problem is I expect way too much of other people. I expect them to be kind and reasonable and understand that God made breasts to feed offspring, not to entertain the male species. Boy, was I wrong. From the comments made to the girl and her mother on twitter and facebook, you would have thought she walked into class wearing pasties and a g- string.

I know, I know, I should've known better, after all we live in a breast obsessed society. People get all hot and bothered over a woman feeding her baby in public, so of course they're going to feel uncomfortable when a woman doesn't wear a bra. The crazy thing is, I didn't realize women wore bras to conceal their breasts. I have been operating under the delusion that women wear bras to support their breast tissue- particularly big breasted women who feel more comfortable (there's that evil word again) with some support OR to enhance their figures. I guess I missed the memo that underwire, push-up bras are for the purpose of modesty. Oops, my bad.

While we're at it, I think all overweight students, male or female, should be required to wear spanx or girdles. All that jiggling of fat is just so offensive to my delicate sensibilities. I assume everyone understands that breasts are basically fat tissue right? Not so much different than those love handles.

Apparently, a good percentage of Americans, at least those who comment on social media, believe the government (and thus school authorities) should have the right to dictate what people wear under their clothes. It's about time society got on board with those Mormon fundamentalists who wear wrist to ankle undergarments. Or better yet, I think we should adopt the Muslim way of covering women head to toe, that way boys can learn without any distractions.

Anyway, my secret is out.  It feels good to come clean after all these years.  Cue the angry villagers with pitchforks and twitter accounts.