Help With Crises and Coping with Difficulties
Many women with disabilities have lives which involve a number of difficulties the average person on this planet does not experience. For some people this involves severe isolation, due to disabling conditions which leave them homebound or bedbound, sometimes, for many years, or the majority of life. This can lead to bouts of profound depression, loneliness, and sometimes desperation.
Living with the inability to work for an income, the inability to have an active social life, the financial results of being unable to work which often involve poverty and, in some cases, homelessness, feeling at times ostracized by a society that fails to remember the existence of citizens who are not physically able to be visible, deserted by family and/or friends, facing a life with a condition that is not curable, having no means of paying for needed medical care, or medications, or alternative remedies that might be helpful, life can get overwhelming.
Also, women with disabilities, statistically, are at higher risk for abuse and violence against women, in a world where abuse occurs all to frequently to all women.
This page is here to specifically help people in times of crisis and severe stress. It is new as of April, 2003, so please check back for updates.
Small Disclaimer: Information on this page is based on personal experiences, communications with others who have had such experiences, reading, research, and observations. It is not, however, professional advice of any kind.
Depression and Suicide:
If you are contemplating ending your life, please talk to someone. If you have no one to talk to, please check the below resources which are places where you can find a person to talk to. It is recommended that anyone seriously contemplating ending their life, seek help off the internet, as people on the internet are not going to be able to help you in a time of serious crisis. Some of the links below will lead you to resources off the internet.
Suicide attempts most often do not result in death but do result, often, in ending up in an emergency room where medical personnel often do not have much sympathy for people who attempt suicide.
Attempts also often result in forced hospitalization in psychiatric wards or hospitals where your reasons for feeling suicidal in the first place (which may involve your disability or medical condition), are often never addressed. For these reasons, and because your life is valuable, matters, and you deserve the opportunity to live it, please do not consider suicide as an option without considering the possible outcomes of a suicide attempt (other than death), and talking to another person about it.
During periods of serious depression people usually cannot think about life or anything in an objective way, as almost everything will become, in a serious depression, bleak, and hopeless in your mind. It is important to remember at such times that you were once able to have hope, that your mind right now which is hopeless may not be very objective, that someday you may be able to find hope again. Communicating with other people can sometimes help you do this, even when your first instinct is to isolate yourself entirely.
If you have a biological psychiatric disorder, such as biochemical depression or bipolar disorder, you may find a hospital helpful. This is a personal decision. Anyone who feels incapable of keeping herself safe, should seek some professional help. You may find that a few days in a hospital does not resolve the roots of your problems, but does keep you alive.
More resource pages on this site which maybe be of use to you:
Finding Someone to Talk To:
1-800-SUICIDE in the United States is a hotline that you can call. The hopeline network website tells you more about this hotline.Available 24 hours a day, and applicable to anyone in crisis who needs to talk, not just people who are suicidal.
Suicide Hotlines - another large listing of crisis lines you can call across the U.S.
Crisis Centers in the U.S. for people experiencing suicidal urges, depression and/or related issues, can be found on this database.
1-800-799-SAFE is the national domestic violence hotline in the U.S., where you can find programs, hotlines, and shelters for women who are being abused
Cyber Crisis for survivors is an anonymous information and referral resource online, run by a sexual assault center in California. You can communicate with someone online confidentially about issues related to abuse and rape.
Pen Pals for People with Disabilities on the yourable.com site formerly known as Disability Net, offers people a way to meet and begin exchanges. If you are isolated and want to talk to another disabled person one-on-one, this might help.
Support Path.Com lists internet newsgroups, usenet groups, email lists, and other resources on a large variety of medical illnesses, and other issues, listed by topic
If you are feeling suicidal, please scroll down for links to things to read now
Finding Groups to Talk With People Online:
Disability Chat Rooms, Newsgroups, and Email Lists:
Listservs and Newsgroups on Blindness is a huge compilations specifically for the visually impaired and blind, which includes information on assistive technology and the groups listed cover a large variety of topics.
Depression Discussion Forums and Chat Rooms:
Walkers in Darkness is a large site with several email lists, IRC chat, and other resources for people dealing with depression.
Alt.support.depression is a newsgroup on usenet. This is a page of information on how to use this method of communication and this group specifically.
Wings of Madness offers a forum not for people feeling suicidal or depressed, but for their support people. This site also offers a list of resources for people dealing with depression, including several newsgroups and how to join them.
For Survivors of Sexual Assault and Childhood Abuse:
Pandora's Aquarium is a very large and well-organized forum of message boards with folders on many topics, connected to the Welcome To Barbados website for survivors, which is a "Tori Amos inspired site" and very popular.
Peel Out the Watchword is a chatroom connected to Pandora's Aquarium, where you can speak to other survivors online
The Saferoom Project is specifically for adult survivors of childhood abuse, with private forums, email lists, and live chats.
The Wounded Healer Journal is a large message board system for survivors of all forms of abuse, and contains folders related to a large variety of topics in the lives of survivors, including one on chronic illnesses. There is also a chat room here.
Two email lists for survivors are described here. One for those beginning "recovery", and another for those farther along in dealing with these issues.
Note: Many other email lists for survivors of child abuse and adult rape exist on systems such as Yahoogroups, Topica, and Smartgroups. If you search for them, you can find a large variety. For personal privacy, a list which is not public is much better to join than those that are. Lists which do some type of screening before you are subscribed (in other words, you are not automatically subscribed), may be better to join than those which do not, if you are concerned about the number of internet trolls who may be lurking on such an email list.
Self Injury and Eating Disorders:
Secret Shame is one of the most comprehensive sites on self-injury, also known as self-harm, self-mutilation or cutting, on the internet. There is a large email list connected to this site (Bodies Under Seige), and a chat room
Something Fishy is, by far, the most comprehensive site on eating disorders on the web and has been for several years. Among the many resources here are moderated chats by professionals at scheduled times, open chats, a large message board system covering many topics, including health issues, and an instant messaging support system.
Finding Hope: Things to Read:
Suicide: Read This First A good page to look at; this is one of the most frequently cited websites regarding suicide, and offers things to think about, as well as links to hotlines and crisis centers across the United States.
Reasons Not to Kill Yourself is provided on this site specifically for survivors of child abuse, but some of it is applicable to any person contemplating suicide
Why Live is another list of reasons not to kill yourself, specfically geared towards people with a biochemical depression (ie, a depression considered a disease).
Broken Legs - a good little essay I found by accident online one day, worth reading
American Association on Suicidality is dedicated to suicide prevention and has some information regarding the aftereffects of suicide on those who care about a person who has committed suicide, which you might find worth reading
