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Founder of Oregon
Family Rights and Who is Leonard Henderson? Meet the Family! 12-28-07 Thinking about Suicide? I don't know what it is. People trust me. Perhaps the look on my face says "trustworthy counselor"? I might be at the airport waiting for the connecting flight and sit down in one of the chairs in rows. Maybe I can catch some sleep since I had to catch the "red eye" at 3 am. The next thing I know is, I have struck up a conversation with somebody and they are pouring their heart out to me and asking for advice. Certainly since starting family advocacy in 2000, hundreds of people have sought my advice, hoping that I had some magic cure for their problems. No magic cure. Yes compassion and understanding coming from experience. I have lived through quite a few unpleasant times. Some people who know me well- know that I am a sincere follower of Christ. During an early bout of business troubles when I was 24 years old, I cried out to God: "Why do I need to go through this kind of trouble? I never did anything to deserve it!". God answered me immediately in a nearly audible voice: "So you know how to help others because you have already been here". Bummer. That wasn't what I wanted to hear. But, if God just plain told me to do something, I probably would fail to follow through on it. Experiencing hard times certainly gives one empathy and compassion for others having hard times. In this family advocacy, we deal with people who have been stripped of their dignity and self-worth. They may feel raped and assaulted by government agencies and the family court system. They may already have, or fear permanent loss of their children. Men especially may have lost their family forever, and everything he worked for, and might even face years in prison for malicious prosecution of false allegations. This is when some people may come to feel that life is not worth continuing with all the grief and pain. Every once in a while, we get a phone call from someone who is considering offing him/herself. We doubt they are really going to follow through, and are just "bouncing the idea" around to see if it gets them anything, or at least sympathy. But you never know. There is no real "science" in determining who may actually follow through and they really ARE voicing a "threat" against their own life. Best they run it past me rather than the system. I have some good advice. The system will just use it against you to make your life ever more of a living hell. A lot of these people are on SSRI's. Knowing what taking SSRI's feels like, I can say "bravery" comes in being NUMB, and that's no condition to be in. I listen carefully when people say they are serious. So you are just going to give up and kill yourself and let those bastards win? How about this instead:
You already know there is a tremendous shortage of ADVOCATES who are willing to put in the time learning how to help others in their battles?" Think about it. You may eventually be able to cause a bunch of corrupt state actors to lose their jobs and maybe put them in prison where they belong. Wouldn't that be worth living for? So far, our success rate for preventing suicide has been 100% "The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --John Stuart Mills
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