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Dear 16-year old me…
What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?
- Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism
A couple of weeks ago, The DCMF (David Cornfield Melanoma Fund) kicked off Melanoma Awareness Month with this PSA. It features a pile of adults addressing their 16-year old selves with the lessons they had learned about the disease first-hand and the hard way, which I found particularly punchy and, more importantly, effective.
Melanoma is probably the most dangerous form of skin cancer and, even though it’s rarer than the other kinds, it’s still responsible for the majority of deaths related to skin cancer. We talked about tanning and how it brushes up against the issue earlier this year, but we were light on the grave warnings. It’s sometimes hard to convince people what to do based on those “Trust me, it’s bad for you” arguments, so instead, we’ve usually just opted for the “You already know where we’re coming from, but consider learning a thing or two about it” approach. So if you’re interested, consider taking a look at DCMF’s melanoma detection toolkits here.
Heck, if I could talk to 16-year old me, I’d probably have a fair bit to say about brushing my teeth, smoking and warn them about the crazy relationship that’s coming. I realize the gap to 16 is probably smaller (or non-existent!) for most of you, so what would you tell your younger self?
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Our thoughts also go out to the folks in Manitoba, who are having to deal with one of the worst floods of the Assiniboine River in recent memory. On the off-chance that you’re still short on the latest news for flood conditions, evacuation guidelines and how you can volunteer to help, check the Province of Manitoba’s page here.
Clean your act up and don’t be a slob
My parents taught me what life was about,
so I grew up the type they warned me about
They said my friends were just an unruly mob,
and I should get a haircut and get a real job- Get A Haircut, by George Thorogood & the Destroyers
A quickie this week as we’re pretty busy preparing for our annual Volunteer Appreciation Night (just like last year), the night where we recognize the hundreds of volunteers who are on the other side of the screen, answering your chats and phone calls. They’re not actually cats so a scratch behind the ears isn’t quite enough… we set aside a night to recognize their contributions and basically give back for all the time and energy they give us (and you!) over the year.
Thank you, you crazy cats. Thanks for your patience and your listening.
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Oh, and we thought it was about time the employment resouces section got seriously buffed. Not that I’m telling you all to get off yer butts and get a job, just that we were slacking! As per usual, the idea will be to focus specifically on the kinds of resource centres that are focused on youth… who get that it’s different being 18 and looking for work… and might be able to plug you into programs specifically for youth. Have a look!
Increasing Election Size
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
- Winston Churchill
So Monday, Canadians will once again go to the polls to elect their national parliament. Of course, a lot of people have voted already through advance polling… but they won’t start counting until then anyhow. I know, I know… exciting stuff. But there’s a point in mentioning it here: These leaders still help shape the Canada you’ll likely be living in.
Voter turnout has been on a 25 year downturn, so an increasingly small part of Canada is deciding things for everyone. When a party says they got 50% of the vote, that’s not even 50% of Canadians… that’s 50% of the folks that turned out… we got 59% turnout at the last election, so that’s really less than 30% of everyone. And yeah, that’s right, I’m talking about math and politics at the same time.
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A few months ago, we talked about what the legal ages for various things should be, among them voting. We’ve been considering bringing it down to 16 here, and in the sidebar poll about half of you said that you thought that it should be lowered. Funny enough, every election, Student Vote organizes a mock vote with schools from all across Canada, allowing underage students to encourage youth to learn about politics, democracy and how our electoral process works… your school may have been involved. What’s more, those results of those votes had students accurately predicting the results of the past 3 elections! (take that!)
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So if elections aren’t your thing, then maybe you could check out some of the funner stuff going on. BC Youth Week runs from May 1st to 7th, with all sorts of activities (some free, some not) all week. Check out their site and click on the “Youth Week Events” to see calendars for your area. No event of our own to plug though, unfortunately, as we’ll have our hands full prepping for our annual Volunteer Appreciation Night for the folks from our centre.
Celebrating Our Natural Sizes, Part IV
I’m a Barbie girl in the Barbie world
Life in plastic, it’s fantastic- Barbie Girl, by Aqua
(Click here for part I, part II, part III)
A couple of weeks ago, Hamilton College student Galia Slayen made a splash when she wrote a one-off article for the Huffington Post about a life-size Barbie doll she built four years ago to show what Barbie would look like if she were five foot nine… and it’s quite the sight. Galia figured full-size Barbie would measure 39″ at the bust, 18″ at the waist and 33″ at the waist, not exactly ‘every woman’. But that was the point… built for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week while she was in high school, the doll was meant to show that Barbie, long held up to little girls everywhere as beauty, perfection, the ideal woman, was exaggerated, unrealistic and, taken at face value, probably unhealthy.
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So on one hand, Barbie’s “just a doll” and many would argue that girls don’t actually think they’ll look exactly like her. Even Galia, who had her own struggles with anorexia, doesn’t blame Barbie for that… but also feels that it was a contributing factor, one piece of a bigger picture that shaped what she thought she should look like as a blond, blue-eyed woman. Still others contend that 39-18-33 is a gross misrepresentation and, while Barbie’s clearly an unusually thin girl, she’s not quite that distorted… so say researchers from Finland University Hospital. (read the BBC article here)
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But in the end, Galia said that the doll was only meant to get people talking… whether they agreed or not they thought Barbie was a bad influence on little girls, whether or not we thought the life-size doll was accurate, at least we would be talking openly about the kinds of images we’re seeing around us. What does normal look like? Who says so? Is that “normal” achievable or realistic? What does it say about you if you don’t match that look? Are there other traits of value to a person than that?
All questions that we don’t hash out often enough. Galia contends that there’s a taboo about talking about eating disorders, and that they thrive on silence. It may not always be easy, but maybe if we can take the time to hear each other out, we can have honest conversations about it.
Want to read more? Check out our Learning and Resources sections on Disordered Eating.
We can’t stop thinking about suicide, funny that
“Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased – thus do we refute entropy.”
- Spider Robinson
Darnit, sorry for missing the update this week. We’re gearing up for a heavy week where we’ll be headed to the American Association of Suicidology conference so it’s unlikely we’ll be updating this next Friday either. While I’m not really keen on the idea of a celebration of suicide, I thought it might be nice to go back over the past year and a half of our blog in suicide, mostly because it’s something we talk about so often that you might see something that interests you:
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Oct. 24, 2009 – How does this chat thing work anyhow? Part II
Our first shot at confidentiality. We may be part of a “suicide prevention” centre, but breaching confidentiality isn’t the only way to prevent suicide. In fact, I think if we did it every time someone talked about suicide, there’d be no one left to come chat. We believe that giving someone a caring, non-judgmental and attentive place to talk about suicide, how those thoughts have been affecting them and what you can do to take some control back is a way more effective way of preventing suicide.
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Sept. 29, 2010 – The Space Left Behind
For all our talk straight at the ones who are feeling suicidal themselves, it took us a while to talk about the survivors… the friends, the family, the classmates, the co-workers who are left behind to pick up the pieces when someone they care about takes their own life. This post was just a small part of a bigger push, though, to make sure we covered it properly in the learning section, complemented it with a section on Grief, as well as providing some tips for overcoming loss.
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Feb. 5, 2011 – Building Awareness around Youth Suicide
When 14-year old Daron Richardson took her own life, Ottawa and its hockey community came together to make sure that everyone knew what they had learned: That youth suicide was real, that it was painful and that it needed to be talked about. We agree. But we also took a rare moment to soapbox about what needs to happen afterwards.
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Anyhoo, it’s just a few of us back-room lurkers that will be gone. The chat will still be running, same as always: noon to 1am PST every day. See you in a couple of weeks!
Be heard, make noise, squawk louder
Don’t be afraid to cry. It will free your mind of sorrowful thoughts.
- Hopi proverb
One of the tried and true ways of starting to feel better has always been to get your story out… To be heard and feel like you were understood. And it makes sense, really. Being heard helps us feel as though we’re not alone in the world, that someone out there “gets us”. It can also be helpful just to let out those bad feelings you’ve been bottling up, the same way crying can be a powerful release that eases the tension inside.
Thankfully, we’re not trapped on a desert island, and on the internet, you can usually do better than just putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea. Back in the pre-internet dark ages, you could commit your story to a journal but sharing your story was much more complicated. About ten years ago, blogging (heh, remember Livejournal?) took off and everyone could put their stories out there for all to see. Then Facebook started making sure people knew what you were thinking at every given moment in bite-size chunks, the same way Twitter and Tumblr do now. (Web eggheads are calling this microblogging)
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But what about on a site like this, where we’re talking specifically about the kinds of problems, issues and snags that youth deal with? I’ve previously liked a neat site from Australia called Somazone, where visitors submit personal stories and questions, and the folks behind it (an organization called the Australian Drug Foundation) bounce back answers, fact sheets and other helpful resources. This was, once upon a time, part of what we had in mind with this site (hence the “Be Heard!” slogan) and while I was talking with someone today, we were wondering if it would be nice to have a Canadian version of that.
Thoughts? Comment them! I’ll change the poll to take this up specifically, as well.
Victoria suicide prevention program at risk of closing
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend- Friday by Rebecca Black (no link because we’re not animals)
Actually, I wish it weren’t Friday, because I just learned how much work there is to do. Victoria-based superstars NEED2, who run youth-based suicide prevention programs to various communities in Vancouver Island, may have to shut its doors forever this summer unless they can find funding to continue.
NEED2 currently offers SAY (Suicide Awareness for Youth), a workshop for youth centred around developing awareness around suicide and depression, recognizing the warning signs of suicide and getting people the help they need. They also run Youthspace.ca, a multi-faceted online support service including a 1-on-1 crisis chat, a discussion forum for youth, support via email with a Youth Counsellor from Pacific Centre Family Services Association (PCFSA), and a database of resources with some of the most up-to-date info for the Greater Victoria area.
We also go back a ways… Choices2 is an award-winning youth suicide education package that our centre’s community education department puts out… it’s kind of a big deal around here. And we couldn’t have done it alone. It’s because of the hard work of other professionals in the field of suicide prevention – particularly some of the folks at NEED – that there was a research base to develop that package.
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“But don’t you run a chat too?” Well sure, but we don’t run a forum… that’s, in fact, pretty much unique among services like NEED2 and us (read about it here). And they know Victoria (and probably all of Vancouver Island!) better than we do… they have a much better sense of what’s available out there. Plus, those volunteers are professionally trained to do this in a way that, even when they’re in their regular lives, will benefit their community in a way that we could never do.
Yeah, we answer chats from all over, but because we can… and we’ll keep doing it as long as we can. But when they’re available (which is currently Thurday to Monday, 6pm to 11pm) wouldn’t it be better to talk to someone who’s local?
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- Suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth and young adults in Canada.
- 1 in 10 Southern Vancouver Island youth have attempted suicide in the past year.
- 1 in 20 Southern Vancouver Island youth have made an attempt so serious they required medical treatment.
- Each year, between 25 and 40 youth in BC end their own lives by suicide.
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I think that’s enough reason to at least put up a fight.
Why we’re not sick of Charlie yet – Talking about bipolar disorder
“You borrow my brain for 5 seconds, and just be like “Dude, can’t handle it, unplug this bastard”, because it fires in a way that is, I don’t know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm.”
- Charlie Sheen
Whether you hang on his every word or are sick to death of all the coverage he’s gotten, Charlie Sheen has been a raging and immensely quotable juggernaut over the past few weeks. Of course, working in a place like here, we just as much worry about whether he’s going to be okay, considering how amped up he’s been. So while he say he’s bi-winning, we thought we’d talk about the other bi: bipolar disorder.
Bipolar disorder was also known as “manic depression” because it’s marked by swings from “manic” moods (highly elevated, energetic) to depression and back again. Now a little like when we talked about the difference between low moods and depression, there’s definitely a difference between “a little moody” and bipolar in terms of severity… And while we all get excited by new ideas and have great days and get down when things go badly or not as we expected, people with bipolar often feel as though those ups and downs aren’t so much tied to events that happen, but have a life of their own.
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What does it feel like?
In those manic moments, you might feel extremely optimistic, full of energy, talkative and like you don’t need much sleep. People who disagree with your optimistic point of view might be incredibly irritating to you and you might find yourself also quicker to anger and impulses than usual. It can be scary, but heck, you might actually enjoy how you are feeling, especially if you’ve been pretty down lately.
In those depressive moments, the sadness can be pretty intense, and may be making it difficult to handle the day-to-day problems and responsibilities of your life, like work, school, maybe even eating, getting out of bed in the morning or getting to sleep at night. It could look at lot like what we covered when we talked about low moods: constantly feeling worthless, guilty, tired, empty, unmotivated or even suicidal.
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Treatment is definitely possible, and might not necessarily mean stuffing you full of pills. Medication can be a very important part of treatment in order to stabilize the physical side of things enough that you can balance out your life, but that balancing act is crucial as well. Education, learning about the symptoms, triggers and warning signs can help you to be more self-aware about your moods and react accordingly. Therapy and support groups can also be helpful to making sure you have the support you need when it gets rougher… it can be tough to go it alone.
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That said, even “bipolar” covers a vast array of conditions with varying amounts of manic, depressive, mixed and symptom-free states. We’re not TV psychiatrists here, and maybe that’s not even what Charlie’s going through but you can probably see now why the subject of bipolar came up around him. But you know us… we’re just bi-worried. We wish him all the best and hope he lands nice and softly after all this chaos.
For more information on bipolar, check out these web sites for info, resources and support!
Gaming, only different – Part II
“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”
- Barack Obama
Seeing as video games have always been a popular hobby for kids, teenagers and young adults, it’s always been interesting to see what kind of spin could be put on games so that, sure they could entertain, but maybe they could educate, too. Last year we took a few shots at some games that take that approach, though it’s fair to say that even today “educational” is pretty much a bad word when it comes to gaming.
In the end, it’s possible that the games that people remember being educational yet awesome aren’t the ones that set out to be explicitly. Bookworm (link) was more about playing with words than having to learn anything… Civilizations might have taught you more about history than you ever expected… LittleBigPlanet will stretch your mechanical problem-solving like nobody’s business.
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But things are changing. Last year in the U.S., the National STEM Video Game Challenge double-dared both youth and game developers to come up with an original, innovative (and hopefully fun) game that also teaches. Later this month, they’ll be announcing the winners.
The competition we mentioned last year, Jennifer Ann’s Group Life. Love. Game Design Challenge is currently accepting submissions for their 2011 edition.
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Closer to home, Vancouver-based company Silicon Sisters Interactive is a female-owned and -run video game studio with the goal of delivering games for women and girls. And not just by pitching ponies and pink glitter at everything. Their first project, School 26, is an role-playing game for iPad/iPhone where you play a high school student who helps peers with personal and school-related problems. And, really, it’s about listening, talking and deciding what to do, capturing social interaction in a way that video games have generally sucked at doing for decades. According to this review, it’s really just about becoming a better communicator.
That’s not just education, that’s life.
So how does this chat thing work anyhow? – Part III
You deserve to be loved
You deserve something real
Time to heal
Time to feel
Been a while since we’ve done one of these, but the subject has come up a lot in-house so back we are to talk about how the chat works, and this time, about the volunteers you’ll be talking to. There are (obviously) two earlier parts to this series, Part I on the basics (what we do), and Part II on anonymity & confidentiality.
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“Can you tell me who I’ll be talking to?”
One of the most popular pages on our web site is the “Volunteers“ page, where a few of our friendly folks volunteered to put up profiles of themselves so that chatters would have a sense of the kinds of people they’d be talking to. I’ll be the first to admit that the page is out of date and could really use some new profiles (that’s one of our projects for this year), but I can tell you right now that that page still pretty much sums up the kinds of volunteers who will be answering the chat.
Mittens, 2010 volunteer of the year
Will you be talking to one of them? Honestly, probably not. We have around 300+ active volunteers at any one time and over a hundred new people coming in every year… The chances of even talking to the same person twice are pretty slim! That said, we’d like to think they all work in more or less the same way… they’re all different people, of course, but we’d like some things to be reliable: That they’ll listen, give you the space to say what you need to say, and ultimately help you to make your own decision about what to do next. That way, even though you just talked to ZOMG TEH BEST VOLUNTEER EVER, the hope is that the next one will have enough in common with them that you’ll feel okay coming back to talk to anyone.
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“So are they trained counsellors, or what?”
Well, they’re definitely trained… we put them through 84 hours of training before they even talk to you once, and even after that will check back in for regular training updates and workshops. They learn a ton about suicide, how to help people vent when they’re overwhelmed or freaked out, and a bit about the kinds of topics that come up lots in crisis calls (the Youth Issues section covers a lot of those).
They aren’t paid a single dime… like, ever. They’re there because they want to be.
They’re not “professionals” in that they don’t have to be certified counsellors or therapists to volunteer here, though they may be professionals of some kind, or training to be one. ‘Course, because of the way being a doctor, lawyer, engineer works, they won’t be able to tell you if they are, or give you, say, legal or medical advice while they’re on the chat… that’s a HUGE nono in pretty much every profession. But they come from a pretty wide variety of backgrounds and real-life jobs.
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“Wait wait… that makes them sound old. Are they old?”
Ha, I guess that depends on your definition of old. Lemme give some general answers, though.
(1) To volunteer at the Crisis Centre, you need to be 18 or older. (2) Most of the people that enjoy answering chats and put more hours into it tend to be younger… like early or mid-twenties. But yes, there are a few older folks who like it too. (3) YIBC is not a “peer” service by definition… as in we don’t limit the chat volunteers to a certain age… though as you may have noticed, they end up being in pretty young anyhow a lot of the time.
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We figure that you probably would like to talk to someone around your age… though sometimes just a bit older, so that maybe they can offer some perspective. We also figure that you probably want to talk to someone who has more in common with you than with, say, your parents.
Our decision was that instead of a shorter service that guarantees the volunteer’s age, we wanted to run a longer service that can’t guarantee that but that tries to fill it with volunteers who will respect your opinions, your feelings and your decisions… who will listen without judging, condescending or dismissing… who will definitely care but won’t completely lose their shit and freak out if you say you’ve been thinking about suicide.
But heck, even if that’s not what you want, maybe we can talk about how to find you what you’re looking for.
