Let's Talk

Each year, Bell Canada attempts to raise awareness about mental health issues and initiatives through the increasingly popular Let's Talk campaign. This year's Let's Talk Day happens to be today. Bell customers are encouraged to text and make long distance calls knowing that Bell Canada will donate 5 cents for every action. Not a Bell customer? You can tweet the hashtag #BellLetsTalk or share the official Facebook image and they'll make donations for those actions as well.

I'm not here to sell the campaign today. But I think their mission and mine are pretty similar. I write every day for a few reasons. The first, as I've said, is that it just feels good for me. And it connects me to all of you in some way. But there's another part of me whose mission is to just talk. 

Talk about what it feels like to lose a baby. Talk about how it feels to battle grief every day. I don't think the grieving process is typically considered to be a mental health issue. But it certainly takes its toll on a person mentally, emotionally, and physically. 

I want to be able to talk about feeling beat up. Feeling triumphant. Feeling bad about feeling good. The days where I take steps forward. And the days when I want time to stand still. 

I've read so much about how stillbirth and miscarriage are still considered to be "taboo topics." In the circle I stand in now, it's hard to see that. My social media feeds are flooded with information about these kinds of losses. But I bet, for those of you who haven't experienced this loss, yours aren't. And it's okay to not want to inundate yourself with such a sad and heavy topic all the time. But because it's a reality for so many people, it's very important to talk about it. Or at the very least, listen.

So I will. Every day. And as long as one person is listening, it's worth it.