kai_ wrote:
I've been thinking about something the last couple of days that it occurred would probably be right up Chrismo's ally. I remember him well from the forum and we used to email.
I live in Australia and I have a very close friend in the UK who is going through an extremely rough time. On Saturday night I checked my Facebook to discover a direct message from her that she'd taken 26 co-codamol (for those in other countries that's the 26 x 30mg codeine and 500mg paracetamol). The message had been sent 11 hours prior. Paracetamol overdose is a horrible thing: it doesn't have an immediate impact but rather takes several days to cause liver failure and potentially death so you can feel OK but then by the time symptoms start it's too late. I immediately called her and cajoled her into calling an ambulance and going to hospital. They said when she arrived that if she'd left it much longer she would have had permanent liver damage and quite possibly died. She's physically fine now.
The reason she sent the message on Facebook rather than SMS me was because she was really ashamed of what she'd done. So that's a +1 to Facebook. And it also got me thinking. One of the plethora of reasons why she ended up in such a dark place is because she really felt she wasn't good for anyone. I was shocked and horrified to hear that because she's one of my closest friends and has been an absolute angel for me when I've gone through rough times and I don't know what I'd do without her. Facebook is so self-centric: we post about what we're doing, what we're interested in, what we want to share about our lives with our friends. But it can also be a way of making others know they're valued and important and mean something to us. So I'd really appreciate it if everyone could post on a friend's wall something expressing something like that.
I´m liking this (the concept of the facebook posting not the prior circumstances) and have done so (except I did it by message) to someone who I know is having a hard time and as a result a crisis of confidence. It´s taking Crismos often repeated statement of "the power of positive thinking" and applying it to others.
As to me well the sun is shining here and I´m healthy...I am busy working from home (preparing lessons and exams) though, but resolve to spend the remaining portion of lunchbreak outside in the sunshine before winter hits. The trees are turning to autumn colours and look amazing

edit for typos