Blog Post #8

The social exigence I will be fighting against will be society's view on people who suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts, self-injury, and addiction. Since I have been researching To Write Love On Her Arm's movement, I would like to imitate their movement's goal of altering not only society's view on the subject but also the perception of the people who are struggling with depression, suicide, self-injury, and addiction.

Society has mistakenly perceive people struggling with depression, suicide, self-injury, and addiction as having an illness that could be dangerous. Though at times these struggles can be categorized as sicknesses, they may also occur because of some event that have affected people psychologically. Society's negative perception on suicide, depression, self-injury, and addiction has become today's social reality and created a prejudice way of thinking towards those around them. This negative perception has discouraged those who suffer from seeking help, fearing they may not get better, be judged, or that they might even be turned away. This fear, due to social reality, overlaps' with the self-perception of anyone who may be struggling with suicide, depression, self-injury, or addiction. Social reality has affected the self-perception therefore creating negative thoughts within the own mind of the person struggling. By changing the negative social reality that has been created, I hope to be able to change people's self-perception of their own situation. By doing so, they may learn that they can seek help no matter what their situation is or how bad it may seem. Unlike many other movements that work to simply promote the awareness of the situation, I want to work to change the social reality to then be able to change people's self-perception. Once they realize that help is possible, I want to show them where to get it.

Just like TWLOHA, I would host many events to promote my movement. In these events I would use languaging strategies and tactics such as songs, story telling, and power. The songs will fill the attendees with hope and good vibes; the stories will be told by survivors that struggled with depression, suicide, self-injury, or addiction in order to present the hope and possibility of help; finally, I will use the power of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and our own website so that people can share stories, know of our events, and maybe find the encouragement they need. Everything my organization does will be in order to encourage and inform the world that no matter the situation every can and will be helped.