Last night I was on a battlefield
A war broke out on a WhatsApp group I am on.
The name of the group is “Chessed” which is Hebrew for kindness, on this group you can find messages relating to just about anything you may need at any time, it is a community group and extremely helpful. Need a ride somewhere, go ahead, ask on the group, a recipe, you can get that from someone, opening hours of a certain shop, someone on the group is bound to know.
Last night battle commenced on the group. an innocent post designed to help and educate people caused aggression, disagreements, anger and rudeness, the admins of the group tried to keep the situation calm, removed certain people from the group and informed us that the offending post was “completely unsuitable for our group”.
So what I hear you ask in bewilderment was the offending post? Brace yourselves, a screen shot of the post is below:
And there you have it, a post encouraging people to sign a petition which could go some way in preventing future suicides, or attempted suicides.
The “offending” post was removed as was the person who posted it.
What ensued was a heated discussion, with people becoming very emotional. As one person put it “if someone asks to borrow a phone, and someone lends it, that’s a chessed (kindness) but saving a life is not??”
It is situations like the one above which ensures the stigma and shame of Mental Health still continues to strive. By banning posts which bring awareness to the sensitive subject of suicide we are in our own way reinforcing the message that Mental Health is not to be spoken about.
Saving a life is the biggest Chessed a person can do.
As I pointed out to the admins of the group ( after very emotionally and “loudly” expressing my disgust at them removing the post from the group) Caroline’s law, comes after a tragedy, a lady in the public eye, a beautiful person whom it seemed had everything to live for, at the time that she needed support, love and friendship the most there was no-one. How can we as empathetic, moral people stand back and let others suffer. Sadly the admins response was “remove your comments or be removed from the group”.
Our community is affected by Suicide as much as any other community, and until we are all able to stand tall, shoulder to shoulder and talk about it, nothing will change.
The Musings of Sara 
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