June 2016 marks the launch of an exciting new era for Lines for Life. This is the month we made texting universal across all of our lines. Greg Borders, Crisis Lines Director, said, “Everyone [who will be texting] here is already a trained crisis … [Read more...]
Angels, their sons and daughters
Angela Jiminez’s aunt Priscilla killed herself when she was 24. She’d gotten pregnant in her junior of high school, and her family sent her to a convent, essentially to seclude her, hide her. They gave her child up for adoption. No one explained this in … [Read more...]
Stopping a bridge jumper, finding a brother
Earlier this year on the road, an Army medic in Killeen, Texas spotted a man standing at the railing of a bridge, looking lost. Disoriented. Army Spec. Oscar Killeen pulled over, stepped out of the car, and immediately noticed the haircut. The man … [Read more...]
Suicide rates on the rise
Suicide rates in the United States climbed 24 percent from 1999-2014, according to a report released April 22 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. The numbers represent a near 30-year high for suicide throughout … [Read more...]
Opioid Abuse Roundtable
“Stigma killed my son.” That’s what Kerry Strickland told the Opioid Abuse Roundtable that Senator Ron Wyden and Lines for Life CEO, Dwight Holton, convened along with Senator Jeff Merkley and Congressman Earl Blumenauer last month at Lines for … [Read more...]
The shape and look and feel of touch we need
Most of us need or want to be touched by another person. The warmth and love that come from touch are as fundamental as food, clothing, shelter. Ultimately, some of us can’t survive without it. We need each other. You certainly understand this if you’re … [Read more...]
The gun problem we don’t mention
"From 2000-2014, there were 274,819 suicides, while there were 172,688 homicides." Matt Chambers, an infographics specialist in South Carolina, illustrates a little-known fact in the series of charts --that suicides comprise the majority of gun deaths … [Read more...]
College and suicide by the numbers
http://www.collegedegreesearch.net/student-suicides/ … [Read more...]
When my teacher asked about ‘that guy who killed himself’
Writer Amy Marlow was 16 when a math teacher asked her off-handedly about her father's suicide. It happened in class, in front of 26 other students, when Amy came up to his desk to ask how to solve an equation. The conversation turned briefly to a … [Read more...]
Accepting the new normal
I was asked to write something, the more personal the better, about what I believe to be helpful in talking with or working with veterans. To be honest, I don’t have a clue. I speak regularly in the Portland Public School system about my military service … [Read more...]