Author: Ian Mariani
The National Center for Health Statistics cites the number at 2,497. Take time to consider your circle of friends, acquaintances or peers you simply recognize in the quad on a daily basis. Look at how many Facebook friends you have, how many students are in your classes and how many kids you slightly nod to in the Cooler line. Take 30 seconds to think of as many names as you can. Write them down if you have to. Chances are, you can’t think of more than 100 people. The number three cause of death for college-age adults in 2002, at 2,497 lives and a whopping 13 percent of the total teen deaths that year, was by their own action, the conscious taking of one’s own life – suicide.
Suicide Prevention Week came and went, just like every other “awareness” week we have declared in this country, and yet I only heard it mentioned once. But even more striking than this was the non-existent turnout for what has been donned “To Write Love on Her Arms Day.” That morning I did what people all over the United States did, I took a red Sharpie to my arm and wrote in big bold letters “LOVE.” As I walked around campus, I got a few acknowledgements, but nothing anywhere close to the national attention the movement has received.
“To Write Love on Her Arms” (TWLOHA) is an organization founded in 2006 by Jamie Tworkowski, whose mission spawned from Tworkoskwi’s own experiences with then 19-year-old Renee Yohe, a young adult who struggled with addiction, depression and suicidal thoughts. The TWLOHA website includes Tworkowski’s story about his first meeting with her: “Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She says she’ll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn’t ready now.” While I encourage you all to read the full story, the idea of the organization comes out of the conclusion. Through Tworkowski’s group’s support of Renee, she entered rehab five days after they met her, and is now, according to the site, a rehab graduate and attending school in Florida.
TWLOHA submits that supporting each other is all that it really takes to prevent suicide, writing in their mission statement, “you were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known […] you need to know that your life matters.” Now ask yourself, does your best friend know how much he or she matters to you? How about your parents? How about that kid who let you cut in line because you were late for class? (Thank you, blonde girl from the Cooler).
Last week, junior Nora Miller of Wesleyan University committed suicide by burning herself on her school football field. Her last Facebook status was a quote from the band Stars: “when there is nothing left to burn, set yourself on fire.” If only she had heard Renee’s words: “Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars.”
Tworkowski seems to prove that love is really all we need. Maybe he’s wrong, but who are we to say that Nora Miller wouldn’t be attending classes again on Monday if someone had told her how much she mattered. So show me I’m not alone in this, write LOVE on your arm this week and then look around. You might be surprised.
Ian Mariani is an undeclared first-year. He can be reached at mariani@oxy.edu.
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