Deb Lite

Every now and then I Google myself. Sounds dirty doesn’t it? Well, Googling your own name, blog or website is an exercise in self-gratification however in this case only my ego is being stroked.

Recently I’ve joined in the fun at Yahoo Answers. I was trying to decide on whether to go with Sirius or XM radio for Ye Old Matey's Christmas present. While I was googling for more info about satellite radio, I came across Yahoo Answers and decided to post my question there.

What I quickly discovered, however is that answering questions is a lot more fun than asking them. I delved into the family and relationships section, tossing in my two cents on a couple of questions.

Then something really scary happened. Someone chose my answer as “Best Answer.”

Woah. I’d chimed in on a pretty serious problem a man was having with his son and I was pretty far down on the list of responses so it wasn’t like he just chose the first answer. He’d actually read the answers and decided mine was best.

Sorry kid. I hope you like military school.

Then there was the guy that asked “if breaking up is always painful.” It wasn’t so much the breaking up part of his question but the part about pain that struck a chord with me. After I lost my baby two summers ago, there was so much pain, I didn’t know if I could cope. I had no desire to die, but I did feel suicidal and I couldn’t reconcile the odd feeling of wanting to bury myself in a hole with my burning hope and desire to find a way to go on living. I was two seconds from picking up the yellow pages to try and find a counselor or therapist when I finally googled the word suicide and came across this page. These simple words helped me understand what I was going through so much.

Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.”
That’s all it’s about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn’t even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing.

The Yahoo Asker didn’t include much about his breakup or even what he was going through, let alone mention the word suicide. But I know now what I didn’t two summers ago: when people have enough mental stress and heartache, “pain” is the codeword for “I’m about to give up.”

I answered his question as kindly and gently as I could and I hope it actually helped. He chose my answer as best answer, but I hope he feels that I wasn’t just being kind but that I’ve really been there and hope that he makes it through.

Now when you answer a question, you are asked to provide a link or source for your information if you have one. I was afraid to link to the suicide page, lest the young man think he was suicidal and then he’d have something else to worry about.

However, when I googled Deb Lite yesterday, I found that someone had linked to my blog as a resource for a question answered. It seems some youngster had wanted to know if there is a minimum age to buy condoms. One of the answerers listed 3 websites as sources and a link to my article Denied was among them.

Maybe, just maybe, my blogging has stopped an underage pregnancy. Maybe my blog has kept someone from getting an STD.

Maybe military school will straighten that one kid out.

There’s an old church song that says: “If I can help somebody as I pass along, then my living shall not be in vain.” Maybe, just maybe, my writing and my decision to keep blogging all the times I wanted to quit and say stuff it ‘cuz who’s reading it anyway…maybe I’ve actually made a difference in someone’s life.

At the turn of the year, I was seriously considering giving up blogging. It took me ten long days to even get up a post in the new year but now, I wouldn’t give it up for a million bucks. My blog has become a part of me. The voice of me. The voice I always wanted to give to the world but couldn’t.

Now I can. Thanks for listening.