Brenda Witt Fry, Co-Chair of the Central PA Chapter for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and Director of Business Development for The Meadows Psychiatric Center & UCBH | Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
In 1981, I was a college junior living off campus and enjoyingmy freedom away from home. I shared a duplex with three girlfriends and the other side of the duplex housed four male friends. Mick was my favorite. He was always starting a game of football at the park or trying to get a group to meet up to throw darts or looking for a ride to the library. As the fall semester began as is always with college life, there were parties, sorority life, friends and classes….life was great or so I thought! One weekend, my life and my friend’s lives were changed forever….my friend, Mick took his own life. Although not the first time I heard the word Suicide, I hadn’t ever spoken to anyone about suicide.
What seemed so bizarre to me was that one day Mick and I were sitting on bean bags talking about the dreaded Economics class we hated and the next, Mick’s parents arrived to pack his belongings and take everything of his home as if he had never been there. Here today, gone tomorrow become a pretty real phrase to me. His parents nor the college spoke to us about what had happened…remember this is the 80’s when things like drugs and depression were simply not discussed.
Because there had been no discussion, it was hard not to turn my thoughts inward. Was I was naïve enough to not really understand how one could be so hopeless or desperate that they would end their life. I had always been the one that my house mates came to when they wanted to share their emotional struggles yet how did I not realize what Mick might be thinking about that October day.
On April 30th, the Central PA Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention will hold the 11th annual Centre County Out of the Darkness Walk beginning at Noon. The Walk will start at the Sidney Friedman Parklet. For more information, go towww.OutoftheDarkness.Org.
With the funds raised by the Out of the Darkness Walk, The Chapter has been hosting Mental Health First Aid classes. MHFA is a public education program that helps identify, understand and respond to mental illness and substance abuse disorders. You can learn a 5 step action plan – something I wish I had known in 1981.
Please come out and show your support on April 30th at the Out of the Darkness Walk – Rest assured, I will be there walking for Mick!
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