Tag: suicide

Suicide by Heroin…A Eulogy

Philip_Seymour_Hoffman_2011[1]Philip Seymour Hoffman died last week by his own hand.  Shoving a needle into his arm, one last time and making our world a little more pale and less interesting.  Why do the brilliant feel the need to destroy themselves?  The heroin was just the ‘fix’ (aptly named) dulling the pain, banishing the demons…for a little while.   ‘An accidental overdose’ you say?  What was accidental about him sticking the bloody needle into his arm?  I ask.

And what does that say about the rest of us; living and struggling on, sometimes in quiet, brave desperation.  His actions were pure selfishness and I am royally pissed off at him!

And I earned the right  to be angry with him….being a survivor of suicide and the horror and  confusion that follows.  This man was an inspiration to all artists, actors, directors, writers, painters, dancers….he made us want to be better at our chosen craft …to aspire to his brilliance.   And now he’s gone.
Continue reading “Suicide by Heroin…A Eulogy”

Read my new blog on InspireMeToday.com

self-help, inspiration, wisdom, happiness  “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”  A sign I have worn for a few years!

As a contributing writer/blogger to this inspirational site it is my pleasure to share my wisdom.  Lessons that life has taught me as I traveled the sometimes bumpy road of life.  You can survive the bumps; the real trick is to avoid falling into the ten foot holes.  Frequently there is no one there with an eleven foot ladder to help you out.

Excerpt: ‘A famous psychologist (his first name is Phil) talks about the fact that we all have pivotal points in our lives; Crossroads if you will where we can turn down a path of self-pity, victimism, feeling angry at the world and an urge to ‘give up’. Or turning the other way and seeking empowerment, happiness, and a full life.

In August of 2006 I experienced a harsh, heartbreaking pivotal point in my life when my husband of thirty years died suddenly.’

Yesterday InspireMe posted another of my blogs.  Enjoy!!

http://www.inspiremetoday.com/blog/

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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!      A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . I have invited such luminaries as: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal,  Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  Mark Childress is our April author.  Robert McCammon is scheduled for May. Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author.  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander.  Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter.

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Bullies! Déjà-vu in the most horrific way!

cyber-bullying, bullying, girls who bully, short plays for teens, high school, middle school   A few weeks ago I published four short plays addressing cyber-bullying and verbal bullying in our schools.  My hope was that if teens and their teachers read these plays (and performed them in their classroom) it would maybe open a dialogue about this deadly practice.

In “You’re Fat, You’re Ugly…”  Aanya is a beautiful, talented student, much like Amanda Todd, who is driven to attempted suicide by her peers’ relentless bullying.  In “Cyber-Hate” Cathy is the victim of bullying that leads to violence. “The Bullies” is about boys who bully.

I wrote these plays depicting different variations of bullying…..Fiction based on dry statistics.

And now in today’s headlines we read about Amanda Todd, (age 15) a beautiful young girl who just couldn’t take anymore.  She felt her only option to escape this form of terrorism (bullying) was to take her own life.  It saddened me and my love and prayers go out to her family and friends.  This pointless loss of a young woman’s life also outraged me. Amanda’s cry for help (I assume) was a previous attempt at suicide by drinking bleach.  Her stalker-bully wrote a message to her, “Try harder.”  What kind of monster does this??

‘Amanda Todd, a Vancouver-area teenager who posted a story to YouTube last month about being cyber-bullied, was found dead Wednesday night in Coquitlam, Canada. Authorities believe she committed suicide.  Amanda’s video tells a heart-wrenching story of the bullying she was subjected to — both online and off. “In 7th grade,” she begins, sharing her message on cue cards, “I would go with friends on webcam [to] meet and talk to new people.” At one point, a stranger flattered her into flashing the camera…..

One year later, a man contacted her on Facebook, threatening to send around the picture of her topless “if [she] don’t put on a show.” Terrifyingly, the stranger knew everything about her: her address, school, friends, relatives, and the names of her family members. Soon, her naked photo had been forwarded “to everyone.”Amanda developed anxiety, depression, and anxiety disorders, she says in the video, followed by a path into drugs and alcohol.’ ~~ Huffington Post

We, as the adults, MUST take control of this deadly game that teens are playing.  Maybe the bullies need to see their parents go to jail for their actions.   After all, these bullies are just children,  and the parents are ultimately responsible for their child’s behavior.  The buck stops at the parents’ door step.

STOP THE BULLYING!

                                                                                            SAVE LIVES!

More resources re: Bullying, Cyber-bullying
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“Must Read” rating for “Butterflies & Bullets”

Eric Jones, a reviewer on BookReview.com, just wrote a lovely piece on “Butterflies and Bullets”, my book of Poetry, Essays and Musings. Click here to read it on their site, or scroll down for a reprint.

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Poetry 
Title: Butterflies & Bullets
Author: Trisha Sugarek
Rating:  Must Read!
Publisher: Trisha Sugarek
Reviewed by: Eric Jones

I knew Sugarek’s work in the past from her collection of short children’s plays, “Ten Minutes to Curtain”, which involve the complicated dynamics of growing up. Flannery O’Conner said that if you live through childhood then you have enough material to write forever, and Sugarek has been there and then some. Her short work for the stage has put her in the perfect position to transition from play to poetry with her new book, “Butterflies and Bullets”.

Even the title denotes the strange duality between innocence and loss, and that theme is prevalent throughout the work. Mostly in free form, Sugarek keeps everything in a minimalist range, lending focus to intimate moments like a man playing his Mandolin beside a fire, or the quiet landscape of the Serengeti just before rainfall. These truncated pieces of life feel like literary snapshots. These are Sugarek’s butterfly collection. Then, of course, there are the bullets.

The bullets are also set in free form, however they deal with much more happenings and are more narratively set. My favorite poem is one of these. “Hair Cut… Two Bits” chronicles the return of a barber from war-torn Europe in 1934 via a freighter into the Mississippi from the Gulf. The story, though scarcely a few pages, manages to convey the loss, struggle, and triumph of war given a single, near microscopic, experience. Not to mention that it’s all the more topical today, given the current mess in off the shore of New Orleans.

There are many that are like these, managing to say a lot with only a little. And given their accompanying illustrations by Lori Smaltz, which are printed small in keeping with the book’s minimalist structure, “Butterflies and Bullets” comes off splendidly. The collection feels complete and utterly whole, no piece of the pie excluded. Such close ups reveal that every place is connected. The ocean, if you look closely enough, looks just like rain on the blistering asphalt of your driveway. Shanty Irish curtains, at a certain scale, are indistinguishable from the sculpted wood of a Native American totem pole. This is the nature of Sugarek’s poetry, that when you pull back you see how different everything is, but when you put it under the microscope, a butterfly is really just a bullet with wings.