To Whom by Geralyn Rownan

‘Talk to someone. Tell someone. If you are feeling low, reach out, reach out, reach out.’
This is the message coming to us from everywhere, every day. From billboards, from bus-stops, from notice boards in colleges, libraries, doctors’ offices, the rest rooms of pubs and clubs.
‘If you are feeling low, talk to someone. Tell someone. Friend or family, teacher or counsellor, colleague or coach.’ A kind stranger. Just please; reach out to whomever you can.
In this epidemic, this tsunami of anxiety and unhappiness that is battering us and claiming lives on a daily basis, we find this message posted everywhere.
‘Talk to someone.’
And when sorrow has closed your throat, write the words you are unable to speak to anyone. Write them. Reach out, reach out, reach out.
It is a privilege, when someone trusts you enough to do just that.
There is no judgement on you if, overwhelmed by your own difficulties, you are unable to hear it, to bear one more sadness, to listen to one more thing.
Quietly, step back. It is not your time, not your task to help. Not this time. There are others who can. Quietly, step back and look after yourself.
Yes, private response to a person who says publicly that they are in difficulty may be the most appropriate. But public response is more than a reply; it is a call from one, to others. ‘I’m in. Are you?’ It is a call for the group, the herd, the tribe, to come together: to encircle and protect the wounded one, the one whose steps are faltering, until the faltering steps grow stronger. That’s how the world survived. That’s how we survived.
‘It’s ok. We have you.’ That is the unspoken message.
Yes, our purpose in coming together may be to write, to play, whatever – to develop our abilities, to become the best of our creative selves. But aren’t we are also people wanting to be the best of our human selves?
I hope that no one will be deterred, no one will hesitate to reach out, to speak out, and when they cannot utter the words that will ask for help, that they will write them and send them, knowing that loving kindness will come in return and that they are not alone in their despair or loneliness.
There have been too many notes left, of the other kind.
‘If you are alive, you need help.’ That quote holds true of all of us, at some point in our lives.
‘Talk to someone. Tell someone how you are feeling. Reach out, reach out, reach out.’
There are hands willing to hold yours, arms willing to hold you up when you cannot hold yourself up.
Reach out, reach out, reach out. Because this is not just the way we help each other. This is the way we save each other.