Article I wrote for the UML newspaper about To Write Love.

What do you say to a girl who uses self-injury to deal with being sexually assaulted? How can you help someone who is severely depressed and contemplating suicide? Where do you turn if you are addicted to drugs, and want to find a way out? If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired? These are tough questions. These are questions that scare a lot of us; we don’t know answers, because these are issues that aren’t talked about a lot. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be talked about. This is something we want to change.
Hello, My name is Kevin Pelletier and I am the president of the To Write Love On Her Arms chapter here at UML. To Write Love On Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and invest directly into treatment and recovery. This fall, To Write Love launched their first 15 college chapters across the US, and we are lucky enough to be one of them! By building community, Chapters can organize gatherings, cultivate awareness, and create a network that actively raises funds and reaches people with a message of hope and help for those who are hurting.
This is a place where it’s okay to come and talk about pain, about struggles, where you can ask the tough questions. This is a place for anybody, whether you are struggling with something, have struggled, know someone who is struggling and want to help, or just don’t understand these things and want to learn more. We will talk about these issues, we will learn about them, and we will learn how to help others and get help ourselves. The most important thing we will be doing is learning what a community is. We will learn about each other, and hopefully become great friends.
There will be discussions that can seem heavy or dark, however, this won’t be every meeting, or every conversation. We will be doing a range of activities. There will be concerts, meetings where we will just hang out and have fun, and movie nights. I hope that people who join this will leave with memories and friends that last a lifetime. I already know I will.
There are so many stigmas out there, especially in places like college campuses. We are one of the highest age groups for all of these issues. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for our age group (15-24). Ten percent of college students struggle with self-injury. Let’s change that. Let’s replace secrets and silence with community and hope. Let’s learn what it means to LOVE OUR FRIENDS, and what it feels like to LOVE OURSELVES enough to get the help we need in a time of pain. Let’s explore the idea that maybe YOUR STORY MATTERS, and that you might be part of a bigger story. You are not alone. Wake up. You’re alive. We’re on your side.
Search To Write Love UML on Facebook to find our group! Feel free to email Kevin_Pelletier@student.uml.edu or any of the other officers with any questions or comments. Our next meeting will be on Thursday November 5th at 5:00 in McGauvran 345.
Peace to you, Kevin

Listening to The Path- The Early November

I feel like the one thing that kept me and my first love from being any closer is that I didn't get her past. I didn't get what it meant to come from a broken home. I didn't know what to say when she told me some things she went through.
Sometimes I wonder if being so involved in this is driven not by my own story, but by guilt from that. By the slightest fucked up hope that maybe if she knows now we could be close in that way, we might get back together.
But she's changed. I know that.
I'm chasing after a memory.
Not a person.
That's why I've been able to let go as much as I would.

"Maybe we're bent and broken."

< 3

The kid who always wore long sleeve shirts

Right now I feel hurt but in a comfortable way. Right know I remember that cutting was always easier than crying. But I'm smiling in a way, because I love me. And that's all that matters. This is something I started writing a few years ago. Wish I wrote more of it:

We are the philosophers of today’s world
This is a useless story. This is not a story of the kid with the worst life. Just a kid who’s depressed all the time. The next thought could make him lose it, or maybe the first pill could make him feel ok. He feels stuck in a depression. Will somehow force a smile during the day; but at night he has the worst feeling in the world, yet he also seems the closest he can be to happiness then. The days drag by so slow. So much that no one can relate. Some people have bad days; this kid lives them.
It starts when he wakes up every morning to the sounds of his favorite song. Sadly, that’s usually the best part of his day. That second when he’s first awake, and reality hasn’t struck him yet. Reality hits him like the shiver that gets sent down your spine when you pull the sheets down on a cold winter morning. He immediately gets out of bed. Except on the days when he debates going back to bed cause he can’t deal with this fucked up world today. He doesn’t try to think of a reason to get out of bed, he just does. Because he knows he’s lost (forever) the only reason he had.
He drags his heavy heart out of bed, and will go take a shower. He lingers in the shower, because he loves the warm feeling of it. Because it’s the only warm feeling that will go through his body all day. He doubts if his heart will get a warm feeling ever again. Then, right before he open that bathroom door he starts the acting part of his day. If there’s one thing this kid’s good at, it’s acting. Fake smiles are on the top of the list for things this kid hates; yet he wears one everyday. This boy has realized that ignorance of problems is the real definition of happiness. This is the beginning of a typical morning for him.
Then he tries to get out of the house as fast as he can. Just because he hates the sound of voices that early in the morning. He’ll go outside and get in his car, and take the short drive to school. He wishes it were so much longer. This is one of the few times during the day when he feels (almost) home. Looking at all the sights as he’s driving, because if he looks hard enough, there are still beautiful places. He’s thrown a C.D. in that will wake him up and just possibly give him enough energy to get through another day. The speakers pump energy through his bloodstream, and the lyrics that seem so depressing make this boy smile a little bit. Underneath the rhymes, he knows that there’s a story similar to his. Knowing that he’s not the only kid like this, gives him a little bit of hope. Maybe he could make it, and his words will be the ones flowing through speakers somewhere, keeping some other kid alive.
He pulls into the parking lot. Usually he’s one the first ones there. A lot of times he’ll take the second parking spot, because he knows he’ll always be the second best. He sits in his car for a minute, and just listens to the song that’s on. It’s a calming feeling, and sometimes he wishes he could just sit there all day. When he feels confident that he’s (not) ready for the day, he gets out of his car. As he walks to school, he always looks up at the sky. Usually just by looking at it, he can tell what kind of day he will have. Sometimes the rain is just to wash away the blood from wrists. It’s only dark and cloudy when he’s down, maybe just so people don’t have to see his sad face. It’s so pathetic. One look at this kid and people will want to look away. He makes people feel so cold and lonely. Why would anyone want to talk to someone who’s this depressed?
He walks into the school, and he will always go to his locker. Sometimes he doesn’t need to, but it just gives him another minute before he’s around people. Every morning, he goes to the band room. There’s always someone in there that he can be comfortable around. Someone that will consider him a friend, whether or not he considers them one. He has not yet found a word that can describe his relationship with this people.
Nothing has been right since she left him. He second-guesses everything; he looks for all the lies hidden behind the truth. He doesn’t want to have any friends, but he needs them to survive. The closer a friend gets to him, the more likely he is to pus them away. Which happens all the time, because the second he meets someone; he will open up to them. Pour what’s left of his sad, sorry, (almost) empty heart out.
It’s just because he needs someone to listen. And some of those times, he needs advice to. But that’s what makes this kid the fucked up boy he is. He’ll never get advice. Because no one he opens up to has felt like this. This lonely, for this long. People may think they understand him, but how? Nobody knows you better than yourself, and this boy doesn’t even have a clue of who he really is. His minds dead because of the love that his black heart is stuck in. He tries to speak from the soul, because that seems like the part of him that isn’t totally ruined. But sometimes even that is hard.

I'm living for the hope of love, everything else is just something to fill the gap until i find it

I want to be part of the hopeful. But sometimes I feel hopeless. And even when I have so many doubts, and I'm so scared, and I'm so hurt; I'll listen to other's pain and tell them to keep fighting and that it'll get better. Maybe it's heroic, maybe it's stupid.
Bummed out about yesterday. But it's not just yesterday. It's a the little things that I ignore, that I push aside. I say will get better and just continue to be positive. And when something big, like yesterday occurs and really lets me down; I start to question everything. To think about it all. To look at all of the flaws. All the things I don't like about everyone. How fucked up this world is. With me, the glass isn't half full or half empty. It's either full, or there's nothing but a single drop left in the bottom.
My mind is different. I think differently.
Sometimes I'd rather just be on an island with people that want to focus on what life means, what pain is and how to get through it, and what is love. I'm not saying people from MOVE. Sure, some of them. But others too. I honestly could live without many others. I'd rather do that or die.
Maybe on most other days I'd say the world is a great place, people just need to love a little more and be a little less scared about being real.
Today I'm just saying fuck the world. FUCK THE WORLD!
FUCK YOU!
AND YOU!
and YOU!
and YOU!
and you get the point.
I'm not perfect, but at least I try to focus on making myself a better person. At least I make an effort to be the person I want to be. What can you say?
.......
?
Don't tell me to cheer up. Don't tell me it'll get better. Look in the mirror and make yourself a little less pathetic. Cause we all are.

"in this moment that we both ignore the truth, it's all over."

let down

people are shallow

"you can't get too many hugs in a time like this"

You know that awkward moment when someone tells you something bad that happened, or that they are going through. And you don't know exactly what to say? This is how a lot of conversations end.
Sit there!
Don't walk away.
Don't hang up the phone.
Don't say you have to leave.
Don't say you hope it gets better and walk away.
Ask the difficult question.
Acknowledge the pain in that silence.
Even if you don't say the right thing, or don't say a lot; it's better than sitting there alone.
It helps.
Talk about what's really going on.
Care
Love
Talk about hope.
Talk about help.
Tell them you will be there every step of the way.
Be a friend, be a parent, be a brother, a sister in the way that you should.

It could save a life.
At the very least, really change one for the better.
Maybe even two.

3 day weekend is over

Just found out it's going to cost around $5000 for TWLOHA to come here. That got me a bit discouraged. I'm sure we can raise it. And I understand why they can't come for free. But it's a little frustrating. Last night was awesome. Love Boston. Love great conversations. Haven't just sat and talked with someone for awhile. Well I have, but I haven't really talked about myself a lot. I just don't open up easily, but I'm glad I know I have a few friends I can to. Really got me thinking a lot. Still thinking.

I want to hate someone. Throw out harsh words. Bring back my lyrics lines I'd write. Just get in an argument. Cause I feel like it's the closest and quickest I could get to Love right now.
I never said I wasn't pathetic. You just might forget it sometimes.

I haven't written this ever. But there are still a lot of times I think about cutting. I think about how much I'd like to do it.
I never have though. It's been over two years, maybe three. I never knew a date. I just always push these thoughts away.
I guess I think about it cause I feel like if I did that again people would know I'm broken. That I'm in a rough patch again. But i remember, if I really feel like that I can always just tell it to people. I can talk to them about it. It's a tough situation though. I feel like I shouldn't talk about this a lot, so I won't. I might never mention it again. Just know they're there sometimes. The thoughts. But also know I never act on them.

My itunes shuffle is playing a lot of FOB 2night. I feel like it's trying to tell me something....
But I just want to listen to Anberlin.

< 3

Take the time

There is no question in my mind you can learn a lot from pain. From being in a very dark place, and getting help to come out of it. I love to have conversations with people who are looking for help, who are experiencing pain and want to change. But want to handle it in a good way.
One thing that really bothers me though, is people who take other ways out, or just run from their problems. I'm not saying they're bad people, they aren't. It is very understandable how people end up down other paths. I look back and see some situations where I could've easily fallen down other paths. Some darker than you could probably imagine. But I just wish these people would get a little more broken, so they could bring out the best in themselves and be stronger and more loving. Certain people I meet, I don't want to help them, I want to break them a little more first. Cause I think that's what needs to be done with them so they can really change. Friends sometimes need to just push them away, but they won't. Cause I don't think they understand, or they don't have the courage or care enough to try. I feel like this is the majority of our population. People just hanging on. Broken people that aren't quite broken enough to face it. But are getting by.
I hope that these people decide to recognize and focus on how they can improve themselves. You don't have to wait untill you think about suicide to go see a therapist. You don't have to lose someone close to you to realize you might have a problem with drugs or alcohol and go check yourself into a treatment center. You don't have to wait till you almost kill yourself from cutting too deeply to talk about your struggle with self-injury. You don't have to wait to get into a fight with a loved one so you can tell them something that has been hurting you.
Talking is so simple. But a conversation can be hard to start. Take the time to take a deep breath and think for a few minutes about your life. To think about hope. To think about how you are really doing. To recognize that help is out there in so many places. And that it's okay to ask for it.

"This is you're life, are you who you want to be?"
< 3

Fail

So close to crying right now. So close to breaking down. I need to stop trying to be a hero. I need to be able to talk to people about my pain too. I need to have me time. I pray 2mw is a better day.

My choice in one moment could change so much about me, and everything involved with me. It frightens me.


Give me a hug
< 3