Thank you to Kim Hasty for this nice article in Fayetteville NC City View Magazine.
Fayetteville native Anne Moss Nimocks Rogers has spent the last five years picking up the pieces of her heart and her life after losing her younger son Charles to substance use disorder and suicide in 2015……you can see it here
It’s not a short title. But I’m loving the cover. Books for the educational market rarely are.
The first draft of the book is done and the first draft to the publisher is due November 30. I’m hibernating in my writer’s cave daily and my brain is so spent by the time I sit down to write this blog post, it sounds like I’ve asked a third grader to take over my blog.
At times, I’m a bit of a deadline mess. Have I got all the good stuff in the book? Plus all the self-doubt that author’s struggle with … Read more...
“How come kids with cancer,
prayers get no answer?
Do you hear their mothers when they ask,
‘Why God why does my child have to die?’
Staring at a vacant sky beginning to cry
Can you hear that? Do you feel that?
This is real rap, God doesn’t hear crap.”
——Letter to God, Reezin the Revolutionary, Charles Aubrey Rogers
Other family’s children are doing well. Why wasn’t my youngest child?
My child is addicted. My child has a mental illness. My chid is dead.
I remember scrolling through Facebook and seeing other kids go to the senior … Read more...
Woo hoo, woo hoo! I won this award from the New York Book Festival. This is the third one.
It’s Charles’s songs that differentiate this book from anything out there. Charles was a gifted writer. No one can read the book and not feel how he felt. They really helped me understand depression, addiction, and suicide. They helped me get to know him in a way I’d never known him before. And for that, I’m very grateful. They are a gift to me. And now they are a gift to you, too. Thank you for all your support, book buys, … Read more...
by Margaret Thomson
Ten years ago this August my son Kieran, a medic in the army, died by suicide. Needless to say, our family was devastated as we unwillingly took up membership in that most terrible of clubs, the one you never want to be a member of.
For almost a year, Kieran’s deployment had been repeatedly delayed, which may have increased the anxiety my son was almost certainly feeling, even though he vehemently denied in a suicide note he posted on Facebook that his impending deployment had anything to do with his decision to take his life.
As his … Read more...
When the pandemic hit, my speaking engagements got canceled. Once everyone pivoted, I started getting virtual engagements and the occasional physically-distanced live ones.
But I’ve noticed something different about myself.
I get misty more often–more emotional. Early on, a friend asked, “Have you thought about how you might handle it if you have an emotional moment? Back then I would practice so many times, by the time I hit the stage I had cried it all out. The story was still emotional but I didn’t cry. Early on my emotions were so raw, there was a greater likelihood floodgates would … Read more...
By Gary, from Scotland
Since April 31, I’ve been suffering from depression. I never knew I had it. I felt so sad, lonely, suicidal. I hated how I was and how I felt. I didn’t want to carry on. I kept this to myself as I am the man of the house. I dealt with it. I had the most wonderful childhood. I never wanted for anything. I’ve been all around the world. I had been taken to America for 6 weeks at a time, and then to Spain for 2 weeks. I look and think, “Why me?”
I had … Read more...
This is my candid thirty-minute conversation about depression, addiction, suicide, COVID social restrictions, and more with Charles Gates from Local Legislature Live.
So how do you be there for yourself and your students after a suicide loss and still get through the day? How can you look for that student that might also be thinking of joining the one who died when your mind is mush? What do you say or do? And if you do it all wrong will that mean someone else will die?
You need to talk about suicide with your students. Counselors from outside don’t have the relationships with them that you have. They want to talk to you. Silence leaves students who are struggling with no opportunity … Read more...
A regular day was too normal. It was not enough fuel to energize his existence and it’s why he was always seeking sensational experiences such as new drugs to fill that
void.
It had been the go-to antidote for creating and prolonging excitement and once he became addicted to heroin, there was nothing to buffer the after. Even that had become tedious.
It didn’t start there, of course. It never does. When he first started with alcohol and marijuana, I could see that he wouldn’t be able to stop and I did my level best. But eventually, he met heroin, … Read more...
You get see inside my mind. And that wasn’t easy when I started out. There were so many times I wanted to publish and run away and say, “I don’t know who wrote that. Do you?” and pretend it wasn’t me.
Until I became accustomed to it, those thoughts had the power to make me feel stripped-down bare naked on a desert island without a raft. Vulnerable is a popular word but it was ten times more than that word could possibly express. Which is why I chose emotionally naked because that is stripped-down, soul-baring throw my twisted inside-out heart … Read more...
“I highly recommend to any clinicians right now, any group work you can do with students is the most important work you can do right now, just so that kids are seeing other faces.”
Jessica Chock-Goldman
Teachers and school counselors are calling them social skills workshops, mental health check-ins, or coping skills workshops. During COVID-19 they’ve been a critical connector.
You might think middle and high school kids wouldn’t be logging into these sessions. But they are. And according to those I’ve interviewed for the book I’m writing, the students are tuning in. Eagerly.
This was too important not to … Read more...
Charles didn’t tell any of us he had ever suffered thoughts of suicide and watching my child self-destruct for the last five years of his life was my introduction to powerlessness and humility. On this addiction and depression journey with my child, I got to know those two really well.
Charles was stubborn about accepting any kind of help or intervention. That’s what depression does when fueled by social stigma. Denial is part of its charm, judgment so crucial to its success, and shame is where it thrives.
Stigma silences people and stirs up fear. We’re addicted to it because … Read more...
Sara Argenal recorded this conversation before COVID but it’s amazing how everything talked about is not only still relevant, it’s even MORE relevant. The rates of depression, anxiety, and risk of suicide are growing, and COVID has only intensified these issues for teens in particular. We added some narrative about how COVID is impacting teens, and how people can best support their teens in this trying and unpredictable time. … Read more...
This is a lovely song written by Tony Andrade, John Droese and Bennie Droese and with permission to share here.
Castaway
Are You Drowning in despair
If you want, Just reach out
You know that I’ll be there
Tie the line, I’ll pull you close
From your sea of blame
A thousand miles, a world away
I’ll find you just the same
I’ll search I’ll Rescue
However far, how long the day
Whatever wrecks you
when your lost, alone and you drift away
I’ll be your lifeline the one that won’t let go
I’ll … Read more...
