In Honor of Ashley

In honor of SI Awareness Day, I'd like to talk about Ashley. I met Ashley late one night while browsing the TWLOHA facebook page in hopes that I might find someone who understood, someone to help. And I found Ashley. We were about the same age, though she lived in sunny Florida and I in snowy Wisconsin. We had similar backgrounds of abuse. So we hit it off, and started talking. Honestly I think Ashley and I kept each other alive for a few months. We talked about cutting, we talked about suicide, we talked about hope...I encouraged her to start a blog, publish some of her poetry. This is her blog.

I don't know what happened to Ashley. I only know that a few days after her last blog post, she stopped returning my texts. Her facebook profile disappeared. I never heard from her again. Every once in a while, even two years later, I will call up her phone, hoping for...something. I always get the "we're sorry, this number is no longer in service" message, though.

The thing about Ashley is that she felt alone. She had so many struggles, but until she met a random fellow cutter from Wisconsin on the Internet, she had no one to help her bear those struggles. It is sometimes true what they say, you know...pain share is pain halved; pain carried alone is pain doubled. I hope that Ashley is alive and well today, but the logical part of me says that is unlikely to be true. So in honor of Ashley and SI Awareness Day, I challenge you to find the Ashley in your own circle of friends. Find one who is struggling, and be their friend. Don't make them reach out to the freaking internet. Don't let them die from lack of love.