Warrensburg Out of the Darkness Walk Raising Awareness to Prevent Suicide [INTERVIEW]

Mental health can be one of those topics that some of us don't like to discuss. It's something we often kind of push under the rug, telling ourselves that we need to "suck it up" or "deal with it" and not be open about our struggles. That's where, unfortunately, many lives go astray.

Suicide is one of those tricky topics that goes along with mental health.  Depression and addiction, frankly, run in my family.  My maternal grandmother was depressive off and on for her whole life.  On that same side of the family, a cousin of mine committed suicide when I was about 12 or 13.  A friend of my mother's also unfortunately took his own life when I was young.  There's something about this topic that means a lot to all of us, because most of us have experienced that tragedy in our friends or family at some point.

Well, it doesn't have to be that way. We can work together to try to stop this horrible experience from meeting us again. There will be a Warrensburg Out of the Darkness walk to prevent suicide! It’ll be held on Sept. 28, 2013 at the Warrensburg Community Center, 445 E. Gay St.

I spoke with one of the organizers of the event, Mandy Barton, to get more information.

If you can, please do attend. Every little bit of awareness we can get out there helps, especially to young people. We've got to send the message out that depression, loneliness, all of these feelings can be helped and that suicide is not the answer.

The Walk will be this weekend on Saturday, Sept. 28. The check-in begins from 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. The actual walk is from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Visiting afsp.org/walk to walk, form a team, donate, sponsor a runner or volunteer. For more information, email mbartonoutofthedarkness@yahoo.com.

Behka