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Run Through the Wall

For eleven years I have fought through the horrors of suicide and now, finally, I am getting some professional help. I’d always believed it was my journey, my struggle, my burden to carry alone. There seem to be a lot of resources available for people who are struggling with depression or addiction, people who are beaten down to the point that they see no way out other than suicide. I don’t know how effective these resources are, but at least they are available. If one suicide is prevented, then the resources are successful.

In the seven years since my son killed himself (followed by my wife one year later), I have come across few resources to help people struggling with the overwhelming grief that comes after someone they love kills himself or herself. I am reluctant to use the term “commits suicide” because it seems sterile. Suicide is a particularly difficult death to deal with because of the guilt afterward, along with the troubling question: why? Why did he or she do it? Why didn’t I see it coming? Why, when he or she needed me the most, wasn’t I there? Every survivor of suicide has a long journey, a battle, ahead of him or her, and must rely on his or her skills as a warrior to get through it.

Through my website www.davidwstoner.net (through my blog posts and stories), I hope to reach out to survivors and offer some hope and encouragement. We are not alone, and we do not have to go through this suffering alone.

Run Through the Wall: This journey can break us, it can beat us down to the point of utter exhaustion, it can defeat us. But if we believe in the human spirit, in the will to fight through the agony, through the dark night of the soul, then there is hope that one day we’ll find joy in the beauty of a sunrise.

Your donations will be used to help offset some of the costs of maintaining my website, travel expenses associated with my efforts to reach out to survivors, and contributed to worthy nonprofits trying to reach out to survivors of suicide.

I spend a lot of my time, when I am not writing, traveling to marathons around the country to spread my message: Run Through the Wall. It takes one step, the first step, followed by another…and another. We have to keep going, even though at times the journey is dark and sorrowful. The physical pain associated with running a marathon is easy to endure compared with the mental anguish left behind after someone we love has killed himself or herself. The physical pain reminds us that there is an end, there is a finish line, there is hope. If one of my blog posts, or one of my stories, touches someone in a meaningful way and brings them some hope that they will once again find beauty in a sunrise, then I believe my efforts are rewarded.

Thank you.